Teorías de

adquisición
Behaviourism / Conductismo
 The behaviourist perspective

• ’Tabula rasa’

• 40’s and 50’s, especially in the United States.

• B. F. Skinner. (1957) ’Verbal Behavior’

• Traditional behaviourists hypothesized that when children imitated

the language produced by those around them, their attempts to
reproduce what they heard received 'positive reinforcement’

• This could rake the form of praise or just successful

communication.
 The behaviourist perspective

• Thus encouraged by their environment, children would

continue to imitate and practise these sounds and
patterns until they formed 'habits' of correct language use.

• According to this view, the quality and quantity of the

language the child hears, as well as the consistency of the
reinforcement offered by others in the environment, would
shape the child's language behaviour*.

• If a child says "want milk" and a parent gives the child

some milk, the operant is reinforced and, over repeated
instances, is conditioned - operant conditioning.
Operant conditioning
 The behaviourist perspective

• The behaviourists viewed imitation and practice as the primary

processes in language development.

• Imitation: word-for-word repetition of all or part of someone else's

utterance.
• Mother: Shall we play with the dolls?
• Lucy: Play with dolls.

• Practice: repetitive manipulation of form.

• Cindy He eat carrots. The other one eat carrots. They both ear carrots.
 A behaviorist might This theory gives great
consider effective importance to the
language behavior to be environment as the
the production of correct source of everything the
responses to stimuli. child needs to learn.
Referencias
• Brown, D. (2014) Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. White Plains USA. Pearson
Longman
• Lightbown, P. (2009) How Languages are learned. Oxford: Oxford University Press