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TEMARIO OPOSICIONES
TOPIC 2
TOPIC 2: THEORIES ON LANGUAGE LEARNING AND
ACQUISITION. ERROR ANALYSIS.
1. INTRODUCTION
2. LEARNING THEORIES
2.1. BEHAVIOURISM
2.2. MENTALISM
2.5. EMERGENTISM
4. INTERLANGUAGE
5. ERROR ANALYSIS.
6. CONCLUSION
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. INTRODUCTION
In this topic we will study one of the most outstanding linguistic aspects in a
communicative process: the acquisition of a second language and all the
dimensions in the development of the teaching-learning process.
Many theories about the learning and teaching of languages have been proposed from a
historical perspective, and have been influenced by developments in the fields of
linguistics, psychology, anthropology, and sociology. The study of these theories and how
they influence language teaching today is called applied linguistics.
“Learning” and “Acquisition” were defined by Krashen in 1981. He said that
acquisition was restricted to the subconscious way in which a native speaker
apprehends the mother tongue; and learning refers to the conscious process
that a foreign speaker must follow to be competent in a FL. In other words, the
term “Acquisition” is used for the process of natural contact with language;
“Learning” is used when the contact is structured through language teaching.
We will follow this distinction here, but in fact, both mingle together either in the
case of a native speaker or a foreign student. This theory is now somehow
argued. We can say that acquisition and learning refer to the same process and
that a good ELT course should seek a perfect mixture of them.
No matter how difficult languages are, children at six are quite competent in
their mother tongue. There is a very interesting process which can be summed
up in the following steps:
- Babbling.
- One-word communication ("dad, dog, food, etc.")
- Two-words communication.
- Telegraphic communication, and
- Acquisition of more specific and serious data.
Motivation is essential when learning. It has been studied by Lambert &
Gardner who point out that the treatment of motivation is quite complex and
rather individual. ELT needs to be motivating in terms of enjoyment, creativity,
sense of achievement, etc.
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- Integrative motivation. The student learns because s/he wants to be a
member of the speech community that uses a language.
The above scholars said that both types of motivation are probably present in all
learners but depending on age, experience, needs, etc., each one exercises a
varying influence.
2. LEARNING THEORIES
Until not long ago the main concern of language learning was on the
description/analysis of the language to be learned. It is in the 20th c when
psychology was established as a serious discipline that things began to change.
Before that, we had a series of empirical attempts without any sound theoretical
foundations, for instance Comenius in the 16th c or the 19th-century Direct
Method.
2.1. BEHAVIOURISM
No translation.
The four skills are arranged in this order of acquisition: L, Sp, R and W.
2.2. MENTALISM
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Chomsky, and in general the generativism said that thinking and learning were
not the result of habit formation but of rule-governing activity (generative
grammar). We have a limited set of rules that enable us to deal with almost all
experiences we may encounter. Thus, “learning is the acquisition of rules and
thinking is rule-governed activity”. Some representative authors are Ausubel
and Piaget. Since language, as imagined by nativists, is complex, subscribers
to this theory argue that it must be innate.
Many criticisms of the basic assumptions of generative theory have been put
forth by cognitive-functional linguistics, who argue that language structure is
created through language use. These linguists argue that the concept of
a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) is unsupported by evolutionary
anthropology. The input, combined with both general and language-specific
learning capacities, might be sufficient for acquisition.
In recent years, the debate surrounding the nativist position has centered on
whether the inborn capabilities are language-specific or domain-general, such
as those that enable the infant to visually make sense of the world in terms of
objects and actions. The anti-nativist view has many strands, but a frequent
theme is that language emerges from usage in social contexts, using learning
mechanisms that are a part of a general cognitive learning apparatus (which is
what is innate).
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In this theory the learner is the central element as the active processor of
information. Learning and using a rule require learners to think in order to
extract a generative rule from the mass of data and to analyse the situations
where the application of a rule can be appropriate. The basic technique is
problem-solving tasks.
Learning will only take place when the matter to be learnt is meaningful. But in
itself, a cognitive view is not enough. To complete the picture, we need an
affective view too.
Now learners are emotional beings. They are not machines to which we
introduce data. The way in which we experience learning may affect what we
learn, that is, can have a positive or negative effect. For example affective
factors that influence in a positive way are: relaxation, self-confidence,
extroversion but especially motivation.
2.5. EMERGENTISM
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learning process that, to date, appears to occur only in humans possessing a
capacity for language. Empirical studies supporting the predictions of RFT
suggest that children learn language via a system of inherent reinforcements,
challenging the view that language acquisition is based upon innate, language-
specific cognitive capacities.
Socially, the first group and the target group must see each other as
equal cultures, must have congruent cultures and share social facilities
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- This negotiation of meaning affects the rate and route of 2LA.
- 2LA follows a natural route in syntactic development.
- The natural route is the result of learning how to hold conversations.
2.10. CREATIVE CONSTRUCTION THEORY/MONITOR MODEL
2. The Monitor Hypothesis. The Monitor is a device that learners use to edit
their language performance. It acts upon learnt knowledge by modifying
utterances generated from “acquired” knowledge. To activate this we need
to know the rules to apply them, time to think, and focus on form. Learners
use their explicit knowledge of rules to improve and correct their acquired
language. Learnt knowledge will only be called upon if correction or
modification are needed.
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There are 2 basic aspects:
For Krashen, comprehensible input is the route to acquisition but the affective
filter is also needed.
To provoke learning the affective filter should be as low as possible. The filter is
down when the acquirer is not anxious and is motivated.
Finally, within the Monitor Model we must take into account some factors:
- Role of the mother tongue: For Krashen it does not interfere with 2LA. The
learner falls on his L1 whenever he lacks a rule in the TL (target language).
- Routines and patterns: They are restricted to formulaic speech and do not
contribute to acquisition but they help to increase competence.
- Age: The younger you are the more comprehensible is the input and the
lower the affective filter. On the contrary, the older you are the better suited
to use “learnt” knowledge in monitoring.
Krashen has been very influential in communicative language teaching, but his
theory has been criticized for failing to meet minimum scientific standards and
for being too descriptive.
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Ellis designed this model considering Widdowson, Bialystok and Tarone’s
theories. This method is based on the way in which language is learnt as a
reflection of the way in which we use it.
This method considers the way in which language is learnt as a reflection of the
way in which we use it.
According to Deci and Ryan, all human beings have three basic needs:
relatedness, competence, and autonomy. Cooperative learning principles stem
from this primarily psychological standpoint: Because all students are humans,
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teachers can use cooperative learning teaching methodologies to help students
satisfy the three needs of relatedness, competence, and autonomy in the
classroom. Teachers who do so will be able to create a more effective
environment for learning and thus can help students reach their learning
potential. The eight basic principles of cooperative learning in the classroom
(Jacobs, Power, & Loh, 2002) are:
1 Cooperation as a value
2 Heterogeneous grouping
3 Positive interdependence
4 Individual accountability
5 Simultaneous interaction
6 Equal participation
7 Collaborative skills
8 Group autonomy
Teachers working with CLIL are specialists in their own discipline rather than
traditional language teachers. They are usually fluent speakers of the target
language, bilingual or native speakers. In many institutions language teachers
work in partnership with other departments to offer CLIL in various subjects.
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The key issue is that the learner is gaining new knowledge about the 'non-
language' subject while encountering, using and learning the foreign language.
The methodologies and approaches used are often linked to the subject area
with the content leading the activities.
In task-based learning, the central focus of the lesson is the task itself, not a
grammar point or a lexical area, and the objective is not to ‘learn the structure’
but to ‘complete the task’. Of course, to complete the task successfully students
have to use the right language and communicate their ideas. The language,
therefore becomes an instrument of communication, whose purpose is to help
complete the task successfully. The students can use any language they need
to reach their objective. Usually there is no ‘correct answer’ for a task outcome.
Students decide on their own way of completing it, using the language they see
fit.
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ability classes; a task can be completed successfully by a weaker or stronger
student with more or less accuracy in language production. The important thing
is that both learners have had the same communicative experience and are
now aware of their own individual learning needs.
1. A central topic from which all the activities derive and which drives the project
towards a final objective.
2. Access to means of investigation (the Internet has made this part of project
work much easier) to collect, analyse and use information.
3. Plenty of opportunities for sharing ideas, collaborating and communicating.
Interaction with other learners is fundamental to PBL.
4. A final product (often produced using new technologies available to us) in the
form of posters, presentations, reports, videos, websites, blogs...
The advantages and disadvantages of PBL are similar to those of TBL, but the
obvious attraction of project-based learning is the motivating element, especially
for younger learners. Projects bring real life into the classroom; instead of
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learning about how plants grow (and all the language that goes with it), you
actually grow the plant and see for yourself. It brings facts to life. The American
educational theorist John Dewey wrote “education is not a preparation for life;
education is life itself”. Project work allows ‘life itself’ to form part of the
classroom and provides hundreds of opportunities for learning. Apart from the
fun element, project work involves real life communicative situations, (analyzing,
deciding, editing, rejecting, organizing, delegating …) and often involves multi-
disciplinary skills which can be brought from other subjects. All in all, it
promotes a higher level of thinking than just learning vocabulary and structures.
Despite all the research, we still do not know how languages are learned. It is
difficult to reject any of the aforementioned theories as all of them seem
reasonable. They also seem incomplete though, as they do not describe the
whole SLA phenomenon, only parts of it.
The previous attempts to explain SLA should not be disregarded because when
they are put together they provide a broader view of the phenomenon.
Chaos theory and the studies on complexity have been influencing many
different research fields, including Applied Linguistics. Larsen-Freeman (1997),
sees “many striking similarities between the science of chaos/complexity and
language and SLA”
Thornbury (2001) also argues that language and language learning share
some features with other complex systems. It is dynamic and nonlinear;
adaptive and feedback sensitive; self-organizing; and emergent. There seems
to be periods of little change alternating with periods of a great deal of flux and
variability, and even some backsliding. In this way, process grammars are not
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unlike other complex systems which fluctuate between chaotic states and states
of relative stability.
4. INTERLANGUAGE
This label was first used by Larry Selinker in 1972. Interlanguage is a system
that has an intermediate status between the L1 and the L2, it contains elements
from both. It might be understood as a continuum along which all learners
traverse. At any point, the learner’s language is systematic, i.e. rule-governed,
and common to all learners. Any difference is due to their learning experience.
- It is permeable: the rules that constitute the learner´s knowledge are open
to evolution at any given time.
1.- Language transfer – items and rules which are transferred from the L1 to the
L2. For example: 'This books likes me'.
-Avoidance: when certain structures are very different from L1, students simply
avoid using them.
-Overuse: students use the forms that they know rather than those that they are
not sure of.
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5.- Overgeneralization of L2 linguistic material. The learner uses a L2 rule in
situations in which a native speaker would not, s/he uses rules in situations that
are not permitted: 'what do he want?'.
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Interlanguage theory attempted to find explanations for the errors in language
learners´speech. One of the main ways in which the processes involved in
interlanguage were analysed was the Theory of Error Analysis.
5. ERROR ANALYSIS.
For a long time errors have being a sign of breakdown in the teaching-learning
process. Behaviourist psychologists emphasized the importance of massive
manipulative practice of the language. The drills were structured in such a way
that it was difficult for the student to make many mistakes.
The mentalists have put forward a different view of errors, which has gained
wide acceptance. They think that errors are inevitable and necessary.
There has been a change from preventing errors to learning from errors.
Nowadays FL teachers don’t insist on error-free communication but on
communication itself.
When the student does not know how to express himself he makes a guess on
the basis of his mother tongue and on what he knows of the FL. The process is
about hypothesis formulation and refinement (The learner is no longer a passive
recipient of TL input, but rather an active processor of input, generating
hypotheses, testing and refining them). As the student develops competence,
he moves from ignorance to mastery through interlanguage, and the errors are
seen as a sign that learning is taking place.
Corder (1971) said that learners also progress by actively constructing a series
of hypotheses about the language they are learning from the data they receive.
This suggests that learner´s errors do not have to be considered as signs of
failure. On the contrary, they are a way the learner has of testing his
hypotheses about the nature of the language he is learning. They constitute the
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clearest evidence for the learner´s developing system and can also provide
information about how learners process the language data.
1.- Linguistic type of errors that L2 learners produce, linked to the sequence
of development the learner experiences.
2.- Psycholinguistic type of errors made by learners and is related to the kind
of strategies they apply within their interlanguage.
Slips, or tongue lapses, that are immediately detected by the speaker him or
herself. They can even occur to L1 speakers.
An error is a noticeable deviation from grammar. Thus, errors are the result of a
lack of knowledge and they reflect the learner’s interlanguage. It reflects lack of
competence.
E.g.: I going there tomorrow. (the continuous present has been explained)
To deal with errors we must establish first what the error is.
Secondly, we need to establish the possible sources of the error. This will help
us to work out a more effective teaching strategy.
Thirdly, we have to decide how serious the error is. The more serious it is, the
higher priority it should have in remedial work.
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Most errors are caused by inadequate lexical choice, misspelled words, misuse
of prepositions and pronouns, etc.
The fourth stage is when to correct errors. This is one of the most difficult
challenges of language teaching.
There is no easy way to know how much to correct, when or how often.
Perhaps, we should consider this in relation to sensitivity of the student and the
nature of the task. But apart from this, the teacher must decide first the
seriousness of the errors in relation to the particular aim in view, then whether
to deal with the most important ones immediately or later. Perhaps we should
reserve error correction to manipulative grammar practice, and tolerate more
errors during communicative practice.
3. The teacher deals with errors through marginal comments and footnotes.
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mistake; V-vocabulary; W.O.- word order, etc. This procedure forces the student
to think out the error himself and to provide his own corrected version.
6. CONCLUSION
Error Analysis is very important. Errors were for a long time forbidden, but they
are now crucial to see the development of the students, the best proof that
learning is taking place.
This topic entails a great importance for FL teachers, since it allows to know the
influence that other disciplines have had in the didactics of foreign languages,
how the process of learning of a language is organized, the treatment to cope
with errors, etc., that is to say, our daily routine in the class.
In reference to all the theories studied, they show the evolution that the
didactics of languages has suffered along the 20 th and 21st centuries. And
thanks to that evolution we can justify an entire series of current methodological
strategies, as cooperative learning, CLIL, the acquisition of the key
competences, the measures of attention to diversity, interdisciplinary
links, autonomy in the learning process, gamification, flipped classroom,
design thinking or the implementation of the ICTs, that the educational
administration demands us to put into practice.
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L2 learners & teachers need to build up a good atmosphere in the classroom,
and learners need to be relaxed to facilitate the language learning process. The
practice of positive discipline and mindfulness can be good means to reach
this aim.
Errors should be seen as a natural part of the learning process and they don´t
have to be avoided. We must help them extract all the information they can, and
make them reflect and work on the right structure by themselves. Obviously it is
not an easy task for most of them think errors cannot be made and are often
ridiculed by their partners. So, we must develop certain: for instance a possible
procedure for writing can be to establish for the very first day a system of
symbols in order to develop a way to find out errors (Wf=right word, wrong form;
Sp=spelling error; nº= number sing.-pl., /=omit this, etc.)
In any case, we must always be very tactful when dealing with error and must
encourage them not to be afraid of talking or writing. Errors are the proof that
learning is taking place. We can make use of achievement badges, stamps,
etc. to make correction more fun.
Finally, we should consider that the new methodological trends are student-
centred: they have an active role in their learning process by means of
investigating, sharing, participating in projects, discovering....they are the
protagonists of the learning process. So the role of the teacher and the role of
the student have changed drastically in the last decades and there is much
more to come...
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY
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-Littlewood, W. (1981) Communicative Language Teaching. An Introduction.
Cambridge: CUP.
- http://ec.europa.eu/languages/language-teaching/content-and-language-
integrated-learning_en.htm (European comission on CLIL)
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