Topic: Theory about observing a bilingual class.

1. THEORIES OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION.

a) BEHAVIOR.
b) INNATISM OR MENTALISM.
c) COGNITIVISM.
d) INTERACTIONISM AND ENVIRONMENTALISM.
2. MAIN LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODS.
a) BASIC CHARACTERISTICS OF EACH METHOD.

D) INTERACTIONISM AND ENVIRONMENTALISM.

One of the precursors of interactionism is Lev Semenocvich Vigotsky, a
psychologist from the beginning of the 20 th century, who advocated the role of
society as fundamental for the development of the individual.
This way the corresponding psycholinguistic theory is based on the idea that the
acquisition of a language is a constantly integrating process between an innate
predisposition to handle the Language data and the data that the Student learn in
his everyday experience through social interactions, in other words Knowledge is a
process of interaction between the subject and the environment.
For those who defend interactionism, the concepts of social activity as the engine
of human progress are key; and the zone of proximal development, which is the
level of development to which an individual can rise with the help of others, which
applied to language learning, translates into the level the learner it can be achieved
with the help of an adult or a more capable native.

2. MAIN LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODS.

a) BASIC CHARACTERISTICS OF EACH METHOD.
All the most relevant methods used in foreign language teaching have to do with
an acquisition knowledge theory.
Thus, under the behavioral ideology, the audio-lingual method appears in the
USA, and the situational method in Great Britain.
The point of both models is the grammatical structure of the target language.
Classes are devoted to hearing the sentences and repeat them over and over
again, until the student is able to memorize and make them by himself.
The most important approach related to innate theories is the cognitive code, which
was a resounding failure due to its return to the study of linguistic structures,
however the natural approach does deserve our attention, based on some
premises of linguistic generativism such as the distinction between acquisition and
learning.
Within the cognitive premises, we find three didactic methods:
1. The total Physical response.
2. The community method of the language.
3. The communicative approach.
1. The firs approach, the physical response keep the behaviorism approach, such
as the relationship between stimulus and response, according to which learning
takes place in the right hemisphere of the brain (it was believed exclusive of motor
activity), and not on the left (the one that was believed exclusive for language); and
in trace theory, which advocates that the more intense the memory relationship,
the more likely it is that, what is memorized will be remembered. For this reason
the basic function is that when the teacher gives a series of orders or commands to
the learner who is carrying out this activities, he is learning the language by doing
practice.
2. Second approach: The community method is based on Piaget´s ideas about the
importance of social interaction to learn the language, in this approach the teacher
serve as a guide to the student and at the same time as a bridge between the
target language and the Student´s mother tongue.
At the same time taking Vigotski´s potential or maximum development, the student
must learn to trust the native speaker who is linguistically more capable than him.
The interaction becomes a relationship between a person whom he advises and
another who need advice, thus the teacher becomes an adviser and the student
becomes his client.
3. The communicative approach: Is fully related to the concept of communicative
competence, which breaks in a certain way the chomskian opposition between
competence and performance, according to Noam Chomski, competence was the
ability to acquire the set of grammatical rules, whereas performance refers to the
actual use that each speaker makes of these rules.
The teaching of Language must focus on developing this competence, on getting
them to understand each other with the native speaker for which it is necessary not
only to study the Language but many must be taken into account more knowledge
implicit and explicit.
These competences have recently been redefined as general competences and
communicative competences.
The communicative competences are allotted in three groups:
1. Linguistic Competence: Includes lexical, grammatical, semantic,
phonological, orthographic and orthoepic competence.
2. Sociolinguistics: Include concepts such as dialect, accent, speech markers,
and rules of courtesy.
3. Pragmatic: Includes discursive competence and functional competence.

For this didactic approach, the primary objective is not the language itself, but the
communicative competence. The fundamental thing is the interaction between the
learners and the process in the use of language, the object of teaching can´t be
limited to the language but the skills that are developed; under this approach don’t
forget the importance of practice to develop the corresponding skills.