METHODOLOGY AND OBSERVATIONS 1THEORIES OF LEARNING: BEHAVIOURISM AND COGNITIVISM______________________________________________________________________________________________

BEHAVIOURISM AND COGNITIVISM: A COMPARISON

For those items marked , consult the REFERENCES section.

THEORY OF

LEARNING

BEHAVIOURISM COGNITIVISM

KEY IDEAS AND

PRINCIPLES

Application to language of general principles of learning

Inborn capacity to learn a language.

Mechanism called LAD, specific to language learning

VIEW OF LANGUA

GE

Language: a form of behaviour (Skinner: Verbal behaviour)

Units of behaviour independently trained, separately acquired

Separate set of habits (comprehend by reacting; produce by producing)

Language: a highly intricate system of rules that underlie comprehension and production

Rule-governed system: Aim: to internalise the system of rules

VIEW OF LEARNIN

G

Learning: a collection of habits, like any other set of habits

A mechanical process of habit-formation (conditioning process: stimulus – response – reinforcement (positive or negative)

Data: only observable behaviour (utterances and situations)

Learning: the capacity to organise and systematise information from the environment (not always observable data)

Too complex to be explained in terms of a conditioning process

WHAT MAKES

LEARNING

POSSIBLE

Learning controlled by the environment (crucial to the learning process)

Same conditions = same learning (Variations in learning due to differences in language experience)

Overlearning: repetition and practice (Thorndike's Laws)

Language acquisition determined by forces within the child

Environment: precondition for the activation of the LAD. Exposure act as a trigger of the device

A structure is mastered when used under free conditions (not conditioned by the external environment)

______________________________________________________________________________________________Inst. Juan Zorrilla de San Martín Prof. Nora L. Sapag

METHODOLOGY AND OBSERVATIONS 2THEORIES OF LEARNING: BEHAVIOURISM AND COGNITIVISM______________________________________________________________________________________________

KEY NOTIONS

Stimulus-response bond Competence: acquisition of rules

Performance: actual use of the language

BEHAVIOUR

Observable data (meaning, memory, purpose: ruled out as "mental" concepts)

One learns what one practises doing (learning by doing)

Outward manifestation of an internal organisation

All human beings learn a language successfully because of innate capacity

PROCESS

a conditioning one: stimulus + response + reinforcement + repetition learning

No response no learning

No repetition no learning

No reinforcement learning extinguishes

Imitation: crucial role

Hypothesis-formation: formulating hypotheses + trying them out + checking them rules

Tentative rules:regularities rulesirregularities rules discarded

Result: Construction of an internal grammar of the language

Response: unnecessary

Creativity: production and application of rules

MISTAKES

Made by analogy (filled selled)

Corrected immediately: lead to bad language habits

No reaction = positive reinforcement learner learns error

due to faulty hearing

incorrect form in generally correct utterance

inevitable and necessary to find out limits of rules the child is formulating

Incorrect rules formulated mistakes

Some pieces of language learned by being heard, without producing them

MEANING

dismissed as a "mental" concept

explained as ability to produce an appropriate response to a given stimulus, but not crucial for learning to take place

Sentences must be grammatically and

very important concept

Language is a meaningful activity

Structures are learned when meaningful and when used under free conditions

Child must be exposed to meaningful pieces of

______________________________________________________________________________________________Inst. Juan Zorrilla de San Martín Prof. Nora L. Sapag

METHODOLOGY AND OBSERVATIONS 3THEORIES OF LEARNING: BEHAVIOURISM AND COGNITIVISM______________________________________________________________________________________________

thematically correct (response must be consistent with stimulus given)

language

REFERENCES

Lightbown and Spada

Wilkins

Harmer

Larsen-Freeman, D. (1986) Techniques and Principles in language Teaching, OUP.

#1

In 1961 the American linguist William Moulton, proclaimed the linguistic principles on which language teaching methodology should be based:

1. Language is speech, not writing.

2. Language is a set of habits.

3. Teach the language, not about the language.

4. Language is what its native speakers say, not what someone thinks they ought to say.

5. Languages are different.

#2

For the use of drills and pattern practice as a distinctive feature of the Audiolingual Method and for types of drills, see:

Richards, J. and Rodgers, T. (1986) Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, CUP. (pp. 53-56)

#3

For Dell Hymes's definition of communicative competence, Halliday's theory of language functions and Canale and Swain's model of communicative competence, see:

Richards, J. and Rodgers, T. (1986) Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, CUP. (pp. 69-1)

#4

______________________________________________________________________________________________Inst. Juan Zorrilla de San Martín Prof. Nora L. Sapag

METHODOLOGY AND OBSERVATIONS 4THEORIES OF LEARNING: BEHAVIOURISM AND COGNITIVISM______________________________________________________________________________________________

For guidelines on how to use games in the communicative language classroom, see "Helpline: Hints for Playing Language Games", in Heinemann's Teachers and Teaching, July 1994 (attached here)

#5

For an explanation of the different paradigms, see Harmer, J. (1996) "Is PPP dead?" (MET 5/2) (attached here)

______________________________________________________________________________________________Inst. Juan Zorrilla de San Martín Prof. Nora L. Sapag