Tecnología para el Aprendizaje de una LE



Theories of Second Language Acquisition

Theories and methods of foreign language teaching have always developed in a field of tension between linguistic and psychological theories of learning on the one hand, and pedagogical aims and the exigencies of classroom teaching on the other hand. Pure theories hardly ever proved solid and complex enough to be transposed without comprises into foreign language teaching. However, they always were and continue to be quite influential. We here outline the characteristic traits of three prominent theories of language acquisition: behaviourist, innatist, and constructivist theories. They provide the theoretical underpinnings to some of the approaches to FLT which are described in the other parts of this module. Their relation to the neurophysiological underpinnings of language and learning is discussed in the modules on brain, mind, and language.

The Structuralist-Behaviourist Position

In the first half of the 20th century some schools of thought developed in linguistics and psychology which criticized earlier studies for relying too much on introspection and subjective interpretations of language forms and their meaning. They argued that researchers, as scientists, should shun speculative explanations of why people produce certain forms of language or behaviour and focus exclusively on the objective description and scientific analysis of the observable facts.

In linguistics that call for scientific methods gave rise to descriptive and taxonomic structuralism. It focuses, as its name suggests, on the description, segmentizing analysis and cateloging of surface forms. It largely excludes any consideration of meaning from linguistic studies because it is under suspicion of bringing into play subjective and unscientific categories. Proponents of this brand of linguistics claim that the identification and distributional analysis of the phonological, morphological, and syntactic units of a specific language is possible without the linguist to necessarily know and speak the analysed language.

In psychology a parallel development gave rise to behaviourist theories of learning. Behaviourists ground their theories on studies of animal behaviour in laboratory experiments. Their claim is that all animals, including man, are born with a set of instinctive responses to external stimuli, and that by the reinforcement of responses which produce 'good results' animals learn to acquire secondary skills which go beyond their primary instinctive responses. Famous are Pawlow's experiments with dogs, and Thorndike's experiments with cats in mazes. When faced with novel tasks animals may learn to solve them by a series of haphazard trial-and-error responses. If a specific response pattern produces 'good results' it is reproduced (imitated) the next time round. A number of 'laws of learning' state that by, for example, the frequent repetition of SR-pairs and instantenous feed-back on 'good' or 'bad' results learning can be effected.

Extrapolating from such animal experiments behaviourists claim that all language learing, too, is the result habit formation by a reinforcement of 'successful behaviour'. Children imitate the language behaviour of their parents and other members of their social group. The theory was popularized by the American researcher B.F. Skinner. In his famous book Verbal Behavior he argues that by a deliberate reinforcement (or 'blocking') of desirable (or not desirable) behaviour the experimenter or trainer (teacher) can 'engineer' the formation of speech habits. This was called operant conditioning and habit formation.

In FLT behaviouristic concepts of language learning underlie the set of formal exercises typical of the audio-lingual method. Characteristic features of that approach are pattern drills in combination with formal ('objective') tests and taxonomies of teaching aims couched in terms of formal descriptions of the language behaviour that learners should show at the end of a drill phase. Errors could not be tolerated under this approach because their toleration would give room to the development of 'bad habits'. Exclusive use of the target language in class was necessary because if learning is the result of imitation and habit formation then teachers must set good examples and learners must learn by imitating them. Language laboratories were hailed as one of the best ways for promoting language acquisition because they guarantee untiring target language input, and immediate feed-back. Some people called this 'individualizing learning processes' because each learner would be given the chance to do the exercises at his/her own pace.

Language teaching methods based on behaviouristic theories were eventually criticized for being too mechanistic and boring. They, too, did not produce the positive results which they had promised. On theoretical grounds one of the main points of criticism is that behaviourists cannot explain how people learn to produce grammatically correct sentences which they never heard anyone say before. This takes us to cognitivist and nativist (innatist) theories of language acquisition which represent the theoretical alternative.

The Nativist Position

The best known and most influential proponent of the innatist position is Noam Chomsky. In his famous review of Skinner's book Verbal Behavior he pointed out that imitation and SR-theories of learning fail to explain how people come to produce sentences which they never heard before. He argues that cognition plays the decisive part in creating the ability to produce an unlimited number of sentences with the knowledge of a limited number of grammatical rules. He calls this ability language competence and distinguishes it from performance, that is the actual use of language which under the heat of communicative exchanges or when people are tired may lead to the production of grammatically faulty sentences.

Explaining language learning on a cognitive basis raises the question, however, how children come to know the categories and rules of grammar which they need for a creative production of sentences. In that context the 'logical problem of language acquisition' and the 'poverty of the input argument' prompt researchers like Chomsky, Fodor, and Steven Pinker to argue that languages are not learned like any other complex faculty (flying airplanes or doing complex mathematical calculations, for instance) but 'acquired' on the basis of an innate knowledge of grammatical principles contained in a language acquisition device (LAD). In later versions of Chomskyan theories the LAD is renamed Universal Grammar. The 'logical problem of language acquisition', which gave rise to the problematic distinction of 'language acquisition' and learning, is seen to lie in the fact that adult language generally is full of grammatically errors, unfinished sentences and similar 'handicaps' which seem to make it impossible for the human brain/mind as a 'logical machine' to extract from that sort of controversial input the right sort of grammatical rules. Observation of children and their parents reveals, too, that adults do not give children explicit instruction in rules of grammar (which would undo the logical problem of language acquisition).

The protagonists of the nativist position of language acquisition aim to explain first language acquisition, not second language acquisition. Quite a few researchers in this camp doubt that UG (Universal Grammar) is available for second language acquisition. Some of them argue that UG may be available for second language acquisition up to a critical age only (early puberty) after which the plasticity of the brain would put an end to the beneficial workings of UG. We must remember, too, that second language acquisition (SLA) is different from foreign language learning. SLA takes place in a target language environment and provides the learners with plenty of language input in contextually meaningful situations. In contrast foreign language learning takes place under extreme time limits in a first language cultural context and provides comparatively poor environmental conditions for language acquisition.

Because of the reasons just mentioned it is problematic to directly connect nativist theories of language acquisition with new developments in FLT. The truth is, though, that nativist theories have definitely influenced theories on second language acquisition and they have indirectly had an effect on theories and methods in FLT. The perhaps most prominent example of such indirect influences and subterranean cross currents is the 'comprehensible input hypothesis' developed by Stephen Krashen. His theory of second language acquisition actually consists of five main hypotheses: 1. the acquisition-learning hypothesis, 2. the monitor hypothesis, 3. the natural order hypothesis, 4. the input hypothesis, and 5. the affective filter hypothesis. His position shares with nativist theories the learning - acquisition dichotomy. The crucial point of his arguments is that grammar acquisition is an unconscious process which cannot really be helped or replaced by the teaching and conscious learning of explicit rules of grammar. What teachers can do to help their learners is make comprehensible the second language input which they provide because learners will find it easier to figure out the rules underlying the production of the input if they understand its meaning.

The Constructivist Position

The strong nativist claim that nothing less than an innate knowledge of grammar can resolve the 'logical problem of language acquisition' is not shared by many other scientists in the cognitive camp. Neurobiologists like Lieberman, for example, point out that from an evolutionary perspective it is highly questionable that a domain specific 'language module' could have developed. Psychologists like Jean Piaget point out that all knowledge is the result of active processes of knowledge construction by the child in his/her cognitive development. He argues that it is implausible to assume no cross-influences from a child's general cognitive development to her/his language development (and vice versa). Similarly the psychologist Lev Vygotsky views man's complex cognitive faculties as the result of active processes of knowledge construction. More than Piaget, however, he underlines the importance of social interactions for the cognitive and language development of children.

Generally the critics of the UG hypothesis point out that the 'logical problem of language acquisition' persists only if researchers fail to acknowledge the many non-linguistic cues to the meaning which allows children to map meaning to language forms and to next use language forms for the expression of meaning. How this mapping can work when viewed from a neuroscientific and psycholinguistic perspective is shown, for example, by the competition model developed by Brian MacWhinney. And other researchers found out in an extensive series of field studies of language acquisition in different cultural contexts that people rely in their learning and use of language on many conceptual and non-linguistic cues which allow them to figure out meaning and function of the language used by their fellow men. Another highyl useful theory in this context is Pienemann's processability theory because it helps resolve the question why, in core areas of grammar acquisition, all learners proceed along the same developmental route to increasingly more complex stages of language competence despite the fact that there are many individual differences between them which show in things like their speed of learning, the complexity of the lexical knowledge which they acquire, the pronunciation (strong accent nor approaching native speaker accent), etc.

There is growing evidence, therefore, that all language learning is the result of active processes of knowledge construction by the learner in which they rely on and make use of an interplay of conceptual and linguistic cues to meaning. In that view knowledge of language emerges as the result of interactions of innate cognitive abilities with social forces and environmental conditions that take a shaping influence on their development. That is of interest to second language acquisition studies and foreign language teaching methodology because it chimes in with the observation of teachers and classroom researchers that environmental and affective factors play a prominent role in facilitating or impeding learning processes. It gives theoretical support to the call for task based learning and content and language integrated learning which many researchers and practitioners have found useful from practical experience and against the background of pragmalinguistic theories of language.

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