What is the difference between behaviorist and cognitive psychology?

Behaviorism tells us that a person learns, or even acquires, a language by means of observing and
imitating the sounds and patterns he hears in the environment. It is best observed in young children who
are in their early stages of acquiring their first language. Meanwhile, cognitivism states that our brains are
responsible for language learning. Also, this approach believes that behind our behaviors are our thought
processes. . This approach focuses on how we think, understand, and know. According to this approach,
in order to learn a target language, we need to receive formal instruction on it inside a classroom.

Behavioral psychology, otherwise known as behaviorism, is based upon the idea that all behaviors are
acquired through conditioning, via interaction with the environment.  Cognitive psychology is the study of
mental functions like learning, attention, memory, reasoning, conceptual development, language
acquisition, perception and decision-making. The main focus of cognitive psychology is in researching the
acquisition, processing and storing of information in the mind.

How did psycholinguistics change the view of language learning?

Listening, reading, speaking and writing are called as the four of language skills. Specifically,
psycholinguistics helps to understand the difficulties of these four skills both intrinsic difficulties
and extrinsic difficulties. Psycholinguistics also helps to explain the errors students do in the
language learning. Moreover psycholinguistics also defines some kinds of brain disorders that
affect language learning performance such as agraphia and aphasia which must be treated
properly. Psycholinguistics mainly helps teachers to consider the use of appropriate method to
teach that four language skill.

What is the main focus of psycholinguistics?

Psycholinguistics studies the psychological and neurological factors that enable human
to acquire, use and understand language. Psycholinguistics mainly concern with the
use of psychological / scientific / experimental methods to study language
acquisition, production and processing.