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LANGUAGE, BEHAVIORIST THEORY, LEARNING, THEORIES OFFIRST LANGUAGE…
LANGUAGE
Expression of ideas by means of speech sounds combined into words, words combined into sentences, and this combination answering to that of ideas into thoughts (Henry Sweet)
SPOKEN - symbol set, consists of noises resulting from movements of certain organs within the throat and mouth
SIGNED - may be hand or body movements, gestures, or facial expressions // through these symbols, people impart information to express feelings and emotions, to influence activities of others, etc.
NATURE - combination of sounds
- have meanings
- follows a grammatical structure
- based on aural and oral system
- can die and be extinct
- can be diverse
Language ACQUISITION
- acquire language through subconscious process during which they are unaware of grammatical rules
BEHAVIORIST THEORY
- believes that infants learn oral language from other human role models through a process involving imitation, rewards, and practice
- human role models in an infant's environment provide stimuli and rewards (Cooler & Reutzel, 2004)
BACKGROUND
- a psychological theory in its essence
- founded by J.B Watson
- theory of native language learning, advanced in part as a reaction to traditional grammar
- supporters are Leonard Bloomfield, O.N Mowrer, B.F. Skinner, and A.W. Staats
- Behaviorism was advanced in America as a new approach to psychology in the early decades of 20th c by making a particular emphasis on the importance of verbal behavior, and received a considerable trust from the educational world of 1950s
IVAN PAVLOV
- developed the classical conditioning theory // a certain stimulus leads to a particular response
EDWARD THORNDIKE
- emphasized the role of experience in the strengthening and weakening of stimulus response connections
- OPERATING PRINCIPLES
- dwells on spoken language // the primary medium of language is oral: speech is language because there are many languages without written forms, because we learn to speak before we learn to write
- the habit formation theory of language teaching and learning, reminding us the learning of structural grammar // language learning concerns us not by problem-solving but the information and performance of habits
- the stimulus-response chain s->r is a pure case of conditioning // behaviorist learning theory emphasizes conditioning and building from the simplest conditioned responses ti more and more complex behaviors (David S. Palermo)
- the learning, due to its socially-conditioned nature, can be the same for each individual // each person can learn equally if the conditions in which the learning takes place are the same for each person
- COUNTERARGUMENTS
- basic strategies of language learning within the scope of the behaviorist theory are imitation, reinforcement, and rewarding // however, researches made on the acquisition of learning have demonstrated that children's imitation of structures show evidence of almost no innovation; moreover, children "vary considerably in the amount that they imitate" (L.M Bloom, L. Hood, & P.L Lightbown)
- the process of learning relies more on generalization, rewarding, conditioning three of which support the development of analogical learning in children // but it can be argued that a process of learning or teaching that encourages the earner to construct phrases, clauses, and sentences modeled on previously settled set of rules and drills is thought to obstruct the instictive production of language
- obstructions made on instinctively-based learning will doubtlessly harm the creative way of learning
- the rate of social influence on learning is not satisfactorily explained // to what extent and rate, does the social surrounding promote language learning? this question remains unexplained.
- it is highly unlikely for learning to be the same for each individual; that is, each person can't learn equally well in the same conditions in which learning takes place, for the background and the experience of the learners make everybody learn differently
- the main strategies of the behaviorist theory can only be true for the early stages of learning which takes place when kids are in infancy and in early childhood periods // moreover, this theory is fruitful for the most part on animal experimentation and learning
- language learning and its development, for the behaviorists, is a matter of conditioning by means of imitation, practice, reinforcement, and habituation, which constitute the paces of language acquisition.
LEARNING
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Henry Smith - the acquisition of new behavior or the strengthening or weakening of old behavior as the result of experience
Crow acquisition of habits, knowledge & attitudes // involves new ways of doing things and it operates in individual's attempts to overcome obstacles or to adjust to new situations// represents progressive changes in behavior // enables to satisfy interests to attain goals
- NATURE
- through experience
- from all sides (we learn from different contexts)
- continuous
- results in change in behavior
- an adjustment
comes about as a result of practice
- relatively permanent change
- as growth and development
- not directly observable
Language LEARNING
- result of direct instruction in the rules of language
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