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Theories of Language Acquisition Maitreya Bird-Walker (Social…
Theories of Language Acquisition
Maitreya Bird-Walker
Nativist
Pre-programmed ability for language
Chomsky
LAD - Language Acquisition Device: the mind is predisposed for language acquisition
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Universal Grammar: the belief that any child can learn any language as the rules are the same throughout all
Theories:
Innate Hypothesis: the natural, born ability to learn language; language is hard wired into the functions of the brain as templates, but must be activated to grow and develop
Biological Predisposed: there is a genetic routing that encodes the brain to naturally learn languages
Lenneber's Thesis:
Critical period: there is a period of time where it is ideal and prime for a child to learn a language as it will be near impossible or extremely difficult later on if not learned well or not at all
Social Interaction
Brunner
Scaffolding: teachers should allow students to come about an answer on their own through collaboration (facilitating); this allows student to unfold information, therefore LEARN, problem solve
Infant Directed Speech: baby talk, using different sounding tones to expose the baby to various pitches
Environmental and Biological OR "Nature vs. Nurture"
Social Support and Context OR Nurture: children will learn language through stimuli from their given environment as well as from their family or caregivers
Significant Biological OR Nature Predisposition for Language: children have a born ability to learn language, it just needs to be activated
Pre-existing Information: experiences assist in problem solving, therefore being able to make connections and predictions
Risk-free Environment
Creating a safe, welcoming environment when teaching language provides students with the support needed in trial and error for discovering words, combination, sentences, and dialogues
Behaviorism
Imitation of certain actions
B.F. Skinner
Reward (+) or Punishment (-) (Reinforcement):
Learning Behaviors
Operant Conditioning: actions are given positive or negative reinforcement to continue or discontinue an action; adapting language based on given stimuli
Classical Conditioning: language is learned through specific actions; repetition is important to receive a response
Connectionism: chronology order for learning by the difficulty of information; learning takes place in a serious of step that build upon one another before moving onto the next step
Example: learning how to walk; moving around ---> crawling ---> walking
Metacognition: the ability to analyze and process one's owns thoughts; this is important in language as it allows children to place sounds with letters, letters to words, and words to sentences
Bandura
Observation and Imitation: watching what another does and then attempting to recreate the same action that was viewed; with language, it is the babbling to imitate sounds adults make, smiling back at adults