2020

Role of Innate Ability

(Nature) and
Environment (Nurture)
in FLA and SLA

BASMA ABDULLA ABRI

201990120
SECTION 51
DR. ALI SHEHADEH
CURR 763 SOCIAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE
LEARNING
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Role of Innate Ability (Nature) and Environment (Nurture) in FLA and SLA

The concepts of Nature (innate ability) and Nurture (environment) in FLA and Sla
The concepts of nature vs. nurture are two arguments that we can look at in terms of blank
slates vs. slates that have been written on long before we’re born – in our genes, basically. I
remember learning of Plato’s theory about us being born knowing things and being
completely mesmerized by the idea of imprints in our genetic code that prepare us for
language (among other things)! I also found equally fascinating Locke’s ‘tabula rasa’ and
memorized this fancy term - not realizing how significant and even relevant these theories
would be for me over 10 years later!

Chomsky and Skinner

Chomsky’s views oppose Skinner’s argument that language acquisition is due to habit
formation. To Chomsky, humans have an innate capacity for language development (the
nature argument). Conversely, Skinner and other behaviorists claim that the environment is
the most important factor for proper language development (the nurture argument). This ties
in smoothly with FLA and SLA theories - embedded within the concepts of behaviorism and
linguistic theory. Chomsky’s assertions also bring into light the concept that there are
inherent structures in our brain, (also known as the Language Acquisition Device) that
provide us with the natural inclination to organize language, as a kind of Universal Grammar.
Therefore, in this essay, I will be looking at the major issues within these contexts, as they
relate to the Behaviorist Theory and Mentalist Learning Theory for FLA and SLA.

Major issues in relation to the Behaviorist Learning Theory and Mentalist Learning Theory
for FLA and SLA
Now I’ll look at 2 main FLA and SLA theories, namely the Behaviorist Learning Theory, and
Mentalist Learning Theory, and consider how they influence instruction and their roles in L2
acquisition.

Behaviorist Learning Theory vs. Mentalist Learning Theory

The way proponents of the Behaviorist Learning Theory and Mentalist Learning Theory
account for FLA and SLA are poles apart. To properly appreciate language acquisition in
terms of the Mentalist Learning Theory, it is beneficial to go back to Chomsky’s Theory of
Language Development. When studied in terms of language acquisition, Chomsky’s
Mentalism concepts allow us to look at student’s innate ability. This focus on competence vs.
performance is a way that Chomsky re-evaluated the importance of competence, the
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inconsequence of performance, and the significant role of knowledge in a child’s brain

(Atkinson, 2011); therefore disagreeing with the blank slates view and encouraging the
concept of children’s innate capacity for language. When applying this to L2 learners,
teaching grammar, for example, will not interfere with their innate linguistic system, in fact it
would just add to their knowledge (Loewen, 2015).

Chomsky’s scrutiny of Behaviorism

Chomsky scrutinized behaviorist concepts as they had missed his most important aspect of
human behavior: the mind. They did not acknowledge the deep rooted language processing
abilities of children’s minds, which is interesting when you look at the ways children, as well
as learners, are able to produce sentences or language that has never been spoken in front of
them. He questioned and doubted their logic to the point where they seemed illogical
(Atkinson, 2011), and we can do a bit of this criticism ourselves when we look at how limited
the behaviorist theory is in terms of helping students acquire real language, motivating
students, and how students would interact with others when it is not a drill or repeated
practice.

Behaviorist Learning Theory

The Behaviorist Learning Theory, evidently rooted in behaviorist psychology, might work to
some extent when we look at the way conditioning happens in classrooms i.e. student gets
praised for a job well done. This showcases a simplistic pattern of stimulus-response activity
(Gass, 1997, as cited in Madlener, 2015). Consequently, behaviorism in second language
acquisition would look like a teacher saying a phrase, students imitating that phrase, then the
teacher responding (reinforcing that behavior), until the students are conditioned to ‘perform’
language correctly. This can build good habits, but might entail a lot of hard work if a teacher
relies entirely on this theory for his/her teaching plans.

Criticisms of Behaviorist Learning Theory

To criticize this theory, we could easily just look at how students are able to create and
present language in new ways, rather than the behaviorist way of having students only repeat
what they have heard. Providing rote-oriented processes that are mechanical in nature have
no transformative evidence of success (Atkinson, 2011). Classroom activities would be
devoid of productivity and creativity when repetition and language drills are the sole basis of
classwork. In fact, teaching techniques that are rooted from behaviorist theories like repetitive
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drills and such other habit formation techniques are currently deemed invalid (Loewen,
2015).

My Position
I find it very important to take a holistic view of all concepts before deciding on one certain
position, or the other – and also that I cannot side 100% in favor of one concept and
completely disfavor the other. I find that, after looking at the teaching approaches that come
under the Behaviorist Learning Theory and Mentalist Learning Theory for L2 learning and
teaching, that a lot of approaches work best when they are brought together. I do, however,
lean towards Mentalism in my own teaching, particularly when teaching English as Second or
Foreign Language. To be honest, when I first heard of behaviorism over 10 years ago, I found
the idea of Pavlov’s dogs and how they salivated when they heard a bell quite mind-blowing.
The idea of associating stimuli with a reaction seemed quite true, specifically in terms of
training dogs but also in conditioning students to behave well. However, the heavy
dependency on repetition on language drills, when applied to real-life contexts like my
teaching experience, might drain all the motivation and creativity out of my students. Also,
when it comes to real life, if they’ve been taught solely by repetition and language drills, how
would they actually interact with others? So yes, even though habit formation and the idea of
conditioning via imitation and reinforcement might have some merits (rare, in my practical
experience); when applied in my context, the shortcomings far outweigh the virtues. That is
not to say that I don’t see the influences of behaviorism in second language learning in
classrooms today, but just that the approaches and methods used by teachers following this
approach are not sustainable, or do not reach the expected or desired results.

Real Classroom Activities

Communicative Language Teaching Approach
I have decided to present a real classroom activity (speaking lesson) using the
Communicative Language Teaching Approach. I present two of my favorite teaching
activities, one that I use as a warm-up for my students at the beginning of the year, and the
other when we are preparing for their speaking exams.

Ice-Breaker/Warm-up
The ice-breaker activity was most successful before COVID-19, as it entailed students getting
up from their seats to find a partner. I chose this activity to create a supportive learning
environment for students, particularly to get students to work together as I found this very
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useful when teaching language (especially when low-level students are paired with peer-
tutors with strong work ethics and successful learning practices that might positively impact
their friends). So to start the year off with this kind of camaraderie and goal in mind, we do
the Student A and Student B activity. I photocopy two sets of checklists, one set for Student
A and one set for Student B. In this checklist paper are a list of personal questions, about their
favorite music, movies, food, clothes-style, books, as well as age, brothers and sisters. I ask
the students to find a partner to interview, and they must try to use English to ask these
questions (How old are you? How many brothers do you have? How many sisters do you
have? Where do you live? Which school did you go to? Etc.). If students were reluctant to
find a partner, I’d just randomly assign them. This shy hesitation only lasts for a few minutes,
because as soon as students start asking and answering questions, the entire room starts
buzzing with excitement as students start finding more and more common and shared traits
with each other. Student A and Student B get slight variations in their questions so as to step
out of the drilling/repetitive cycle of questions.

When the activity is done, students are required to first, let me know about their partner (e.g.
Student A tells me about Student B, and vice versa) to bring this whole activity full-circle.
Second, and usually this happens naturally, as students finish talking to me about their
partners, more and more hands go up sharing that they have the same likes, dislikes,
favorites, family members, etc., until the whole class feels like a small community with no
degrees of separation (it helps that Al Ain is a small city where almost everyone knows
everyone).

Online Version of Ice-Breaker/Warm-up Speaking Activity

Online, we do this as a whole-group activity, with questions shared on the screen, and a ‘raise
of hand’ as a way to poll, and then once I feel they have warmed up and are excited to share,
I put them in small groups (3-4 students) in the group rooms, and have them speak to each
other without my interference. I enter these rooms quietly just as a listener and observer,
without much input unless a reminder is needed to speak English (as students get excited
sharing their information and switch to Arabic sometimes). At the end we collate and share
our experience as a reflective activity. Most of this part of the session is enjoyable as students
share how much they have in common with others.
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Practice Speaking Activity

Second is my speaking practice activity – we warm up with a general question asking
students to use descriptive words to describe something; for example describe your dream
country. This starts off as an online activity, with students in an App writing their answers.
As students write their adjectives, their words show up on the screen like a word cloud, with
repeated words getting larger and larger. Students are then randomly chosen to pick a few of
those shared words to describe their dream country. Once I feel students are confident and
excited to share their stories, we do a ‘speak for a minute’ task. I’ll share a PowerPoint with a
question, and ask a student. She has one minute to answer the question, and if she is stuck
other students help her. It becomes a loud activity as all the students want to ‘help out’ their
friend for that minute. They get speaking practice but also work as a group to help each other
out. If we get a chance to ‘experience’ a question, e.g. what is your favorite food/drink, we
take a class trip to the nearest college restaurant or coffee shop and have the students practice
for real. Last time I did this, I didn’t go but asked students to go with their partners and
observe, and then give me feedback. The extremely positive feedback I got was extremely
helpful in encouraging my more shy students to participate in these real life situations,
knowing they had the support of their friends.

How this theory and its associated approach are utilized in my activity
The Mentalist Theory is used in my Communicative Language Teaching Approach – as the
emphasis is on skill-building and not systemic grammatical production. It moves away from
the audiolingual and grammar translation methods of the Behaviorist Theory and focuses on
suspenseful and varied real-life activities, which requires quite a bit of communicative
competence and cognitive processes. Having students interview each other takes me out of
the equation. Because of this real life and unrehearsed context of meeting someone for the
first time and talking to them, students have to rely on themselves and their inherent language
abilities to find ways to communicate and problem-solve.

I find that for successful language learning to take place, students need to be able to
communicate in real life contexts. My question when starting is always: what is the end-goal?
And the end-goal is for students to be able to use natural strategies to communicate.
Therefore I try to engage students in meaningful classroom activities like their speaking
practice, so that I can take advantage of their motivation to speak in addition to preparing for
their speaking exam, and their excitement to use authentic material as well as the focus on
students themselves.
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As students engage in real communication, talking about places they travel and favorite
movies, authentic language gets produced and since my role becomes that of a facilitator, the
students themselves take control of their performance. They take charge of the PowerPoint,
and they take charge of the lesson.

I used to have a note on my door saying: “Learning is noisy” to ward off nosy supervisors
looking for a quiet, factory-like classroom with students mechanically repeating drills.
During these sessions, students do a lot of the speaking, they are active and out of their seats,
and there is no structure for learning language, just a focus on the actual usage of language.

Even though I do admit that there is low-level benefits of mechanical tasks like translation,
the actual active use of language in purposeful and meaningful contexts means that my
students get direct practice in a way that is motivating because they are sharing their personal
and valuable experiences, as well as experiencing the use of language the way they would in
out-of-the-classroom contexts. The added bonus of making friends in day 1 and sharing their
thoughts and ambitions in speaking practice is just the icing on the cake.

I enjoy this method of teaching because it breaks away from the traditional approach of
teachers as lecturers, as well as involves students in communication, which is the purpose of
being in that classroom in the first place.

References
Atkinson, D. (Ed.). (2011). Alternative approaches to second language acquisition. London and New
York: Routledge.

Loewen, S. (2015). Introduction to Instructed Second Language Acquisition. New York: Routledge.
Madlener, K. (2015). Frequency Effects In Instructed Second Language Acquisition. De Gruyter
Mouton, Berlin.

Rokita-Jaśkow, J., & Ellis, M. (2019). Early instructed second language acquisition : pathways to
competence. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Retrieved October 2020, from
http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.hct.ac.ae/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xww&AN=1
990203&site=ehost-live