Schools of Thought in SLA

Behaviorism, cognitivism, and structuralism

Structuralism/Behaviorism
 Reward is given for desired
Language as a behavior and punishment
habit for undesired behavior

Instruction is
repetition and
Behaviorism
reinforcement

Learners are seen as

tabula rasa/blank slate

Substitution drills Learning objectives

should be clear and
steps are essential
Rationalism and cognitive psychology
 It is the reaction of behaviorism approach, emerged through the
influence of Noam Chomsky
 Learning the language should not only at the level of descriptive
adequacy but also explanatory level of adequacy (performance vs
competence, parole vs langue)
 Cognitivism views the mind as an information processor
 The mind is just like a computer
 The brain is as a part dedicated to language acquisition
 Learners are invited to analyse language, notice patterns, deduce
rules, etc
 How do we learn: concept, map, previous knowledge, and memory
 Learning happens as a result of brain processes knowledge transfers
from short to long term memory
Examples: starting the class with a hook to catch learners’ interest,
activating prior knowledge by having daily review quiz, using
graphic organizer to relate content or structure

Teaching strategies: The teacher is the

using mnemonic
device, visual aid
Rationalism and attention-getter,
organizer, connector
cognitive and repeater so the
psychology learners can properly
To facilitate it best, learners
store the information
must be immersed within a
in memory for later
challenging, fearless
recall
environment

Using cognitivie approach,

Typical lesson: teachers might let learners learners can work better in
analyse a reading text, identify any achieving the goals of
language structure and how they are used, understanding, retaining, and
and learners might arrive to a conclusion recalling
Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky are Constructivism is about the integration of
the names associated with the linguistic, psychological, and sociological
approaches paradigms (cognitiv + social)

Lets the learnerss Learners are active,

learning by doing Sociolinguistic pull from past
experience and
revolution and connect to new ideas
constructivism by collaborating with
others (interpretation-
Everyone constructs articulation-
knowledge in their own reevaluation)
unique way

It is a school of thought that emphasizes Knowledge is socially

both the learners’ role in constructing constructed through interaction
meaning out of available linguistic input and negotiation of the ideas of
and the importance of social interaction in others
creating a new linguistic system
 Popular concept: ZPD, zone of
proximal development,the
distance between learners’
existing developmental state and
their potential development
Guided participation:
encompassing
scaffolding, refers to
the shared interaction
between expert and
students
Classroom design to assist the ZPD:
intersubjectivity, scaffolding, guided
participation
Scaffolding is used
Sociolinguistic to support learners
in their gradual
revolution and understanding of
constructivism the object of
concepts

It’s about creating and Opportunities to

testing hypotheses discover new
Arriving to information are
continually (sometimes
conclusion
modifying) open
 Teachers might start the class by eliciting personal or emotional reponses/things
students have known about the subject being learned to create new knowledge

Sociolinguistic
revolution and
constructivism
Learners work in
groups, teamwork, Teachers are models,
discussion, debates, guides, and
and peer assessment facilitatiors
Suitable for projects,
presentation which
showcase learnes’
newly formed ideas,
case studies
Classroom A
The teacher wants to teach the differences between ‘since’ and ‘for’. She writes the
following sentences on the board,
“I’ve been here SINCE three o’clock”
She asks the class to repeat the sentence. Next, she gives the class some more prompts.
She says, “nine o’clock in the morning” and the class completes the sentences “I’ve
been here since nine o’clock in the morning”. Then she gives the following prompts,
“2012”,”my birthday”, “March”, “the day before yesterday” and the class complete the
sentences. Then she writes:
“I’ve been here FOR three hours”
She continues giving prompts as above until the class is repeating the stucture correctly

Classroom B
The teacher wants to teach the order of adverbs in a sentence. He writes some sentences
on the board:
“I went there yesterday”
“Come here at once!”
“I worked in the garden at the weekend”
“They played in the playground this morning”
He asks the students to underline in red any adverbs of place and in blue any adverbs of
time. Then he asks them to examine the sentences and see if they can find any pattern or
rule before comparing what they find with a partner. He then asks individual students to
tell him what they discovered and explain their findings to the class