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How languages are learned?

Lecture 1

1. Popular views about language learning.

2. How children learn their first language:

a) the behaviorist position;

b) the annalist position;

c) the “critical” period hypothesis;

d) the interactionist position.

Every few years new foreign language teaching methods arrive on the scene. New textbooks appear far more frequently. New methods and textbooks may reflect current developments in linguistic/applied linguistic theory or recent pedagogical trends. Sometimes they are said to be based on recent developments in language learning theory and research. For example, one approach to teaching may emphasize the value of having students to imitate and practice a set of correct sentences while another emphasizes the importance of encouraging “natural” communication between learners.

How is a teacher to evaluate the potential effectiveness of new methods?

One important basis for evaluating is the teacher’s own experience with previous successes and disappointments.

Take a moment to reflect on the views about how languages are learned and what the implications are for how they should be taught. There are twelve popular views about language learning. Think about whether you agree or disagree with some of these views.

(put: “strongly agree” or “strongly disagree” )

1. Languages are learned mainly through imitation.

2. Parents usually correct young children when they make grammatical errors.

3. People with high intellectual qualities are good language learners.

4. The most important factor in second language acquisition success is motivation.

5. The earlier a second language is introduced at school programmes, the greater the likelihood of success in learning.

6. Most of the mistakes which second language learners make are due to interference from their first language.

7. Teachers should present grammatical rules one at a time and learners should practice example of each one before going on to another.

8. Teachers should teach simple languages structures before complex ones.

9. Learner’s errors should be corrected as soon as they are made in order to prevent the formation of bad habits.

10. Teachers should use materials that expose students only to those language structures which they have already been taught.

11. When learners are allowed to interact freely (for example in group pair activities), they learn each others’ mistakes.

12. Students learn what they are taught.

How do children learn their first language?

Both second language research and second language teaching have been influenced by theories of how children acquire their first language. It is considered that there are important similarities between first and second language acquisition.

One of the most fascinating aspects of human development is the ability to learn language. How do children accomplish it?

What is it that enables a child not only to learn words, but to put them together in meaningful sentences?

What pushes children to go on developing complex grammatical language? We shall consider several theories which have been offered as explanations of how language is learned. We shall discuss in turn three central theoretical positions: the behaviorist, the annalist and the interactionist views of language acquisition.

1. Behaviourism: a psychological theory that all learning, whether verbal or non-verbal, takes place through the establishment of habits. According to their view, when learners imitate and repeat the language they hear in their surrounding environment and are positively reinforced for doing so, habit formation (or learning) occurs. Traditional behaviorists believed that language learning is simply a matter of imitation and habit formation. Children imitate the sounds and patterns which they hear around them and receive positive reinforcement (which could take the form of praise or just successful communication), for doing so. Thus encouraged by their environment, they continue to imitate and practice these sounds and patterns until they form “habits” of correct language use. According to this view, the quality and quantity of the language which the child hears should have an affect on the child’s success in language learning. The behaviorists consider imitation and practice as primary processes in language development. To clarify what is meant by these two terms, consider the following determinations and examples.

Imitation: Word for word reception of all or part of someone else’s utterance. For example:

Mother: Would you like some bread and peanut butter?

Child: Some bread and peanut butter.

Practice: Repetitive manipulation of form.

Child: I can handle it, Hannah can handle it, we can handle it.

Children imitate, but it must be stressed that very few children imitate much, the rate of imitation of some children may be less than ten per cent.

Unlike a parrot that imitates the familiar and continues to repeat the same things again and again, children’s imitation is selective and based on what they are currently learning. But imitation and practice do not account for how children learn all aspects of their native language. The behaviourist explanations for language acquisition offer a reasonable way of understanding how children learn some of the regular and routine aspects of language. However, their acquisition of the more complex grammatical structures of the language requires a different sort of explanation and we shall consider some of the proposals for going beyond the behaviourist view.

2. The linguist Noam Chomsky claims that children are biologically programmed for language and that language develops in the child in just the same way that other biological functions develop.

For example, every child will learn to walk as long as adequate nourishment and reasonable freedom of movement are provided.

The child does not have to be taught; most children learn to walk at about the same time; and walking is essentially the same in all normal human beings.

For Chomsky, language acquisition is very similar to the development of walking. This is known as the innatist position.

Innatism: A theory that human beings are born with same basic knowledge about languages in general that makes it possible to learn the specific language of the environment.

According to Chomsky, children’s minds are not blank slates to be filled merely by imitating language they hear in the environment.

Instead he claims that children are born with a special ability to discover for themselves the rules of a language system. This ability is based on the child’s innate possession of UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR. UG is considered to consist of a set of principles which are common to all languages. The child is able to discover the structure of the language to be learnt by matching the innate knowledge of basic grammatical relationships to the structures of the particular language in the environment.

Here is a summary of the kinds of evidence which have been used to support Chomsky’s innatist position:

1. Virtually all children successfully learn their native language at a time in life when they would not be expected to learn anything else so complicated.

2. Children achieve different levels of vocabulary, creativity, social grace and so on, but virtually all achieve mastery of the structure of the language spoken around them.

3. The language children are exposed to does not contain examples of all the information which they eventually know.

4. Animals cannot learn to manipulate a symbol system as complicated as the natural language of a three - `or four – year – old child.

5. Children seem to accomplish the complex task of language acquisition without having someone consistently point out to them which of the sentences they hear and produce are “correct” and which are “ungrammatical”.

Chomsky’s ideas are compatible with those of biologist Eric Lenneberg who also compares learning to talk with learning to walk:

Children who for medical reasons cannot move about when infants may soon stand and walk if their problems are corrected at the age of a year or so. Similarly, children who can hear but who cannot speak can learn language, understanding even complex sentences.

Lenneberg observed that this ability to develop normal behaviors and knowledge does not continue indefinitely. He argued that the language acquisition device works successfully only when it is stimulated at the right time – a time which is called the “critical period”. This notion that there is a specific and limited time period for language acquisition is referred to as the critical period hypothesis (CPH).

There are two versions of the CPH. The strong version is that children must acquire their first language by ‘puberty (полов. зрелость) or they will never be able to learn it.

The weak version is that language learning will be more difficult and incomplete after puberty. (Examples pp. 11-12)

The researchers conclude that their study supports the hypothesis that there is a critical period for first language acquisition.

3. A third theoretical position focuses on the role of the linguistic environment in interaction with the child’s innate capacities in language development.

The interactionists position is that language develops as a result of the complex interplay between the human characteristicsof the child and the environment in which the child develops.

Interactionism: A theory that language acquisition is based both on learners’ innate abilities and on opportunities to engage in conversations in which other speakers modify their speech to match the learners’ communication requirements.

The interactionists claim that language which is modified to suit the capability of the learner is a crucial element in the language acquisition process. This distinct speech, directed to children, is known as “caretaker talk”. We are all familiar with the way adults typically modify the way they speak when addressing little children. In English caretaker talk involves a slower rate of speech, higher pitch, more varied intonation, shorter, simpler sentence patterns, frequent repetition, and paraphrase. Adults often repeat the content of a child’s utterance, but they do so with a grammatically correct sentence.

For ex.:

Child: I putted the plates on the table.

Mother: you mean, I put the plate, on the table

Summary.

We have considered three different theories of language acquisition. One way to reconcile the behaviorist, innatist and interactionist explanations is to see that each may help to explain a different aspect of children’s language development.

Behaviourist explanations may explain routine aspects, while innatist explanations explain the acquisition of complex grammar.

Inleractionist explanations are necessary for understanding how children relate form and meaning in language, how to interact in conversations, and how to use language appropriately.

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