Background issues in language learning

A.The miracle of language.

Language has been called an “invisible miracle”

Invisible because most of what happens when we speak happens inside the body and
mind and we can’t see it happening. A miracle because the process is incredibly
complex and unprecedented in the animal kingdom, but we acquire is almost effortlessly
as children.

Language is one of the attributes that distinguishes humans from everything ales that
god created. The more we learn about language, the more we see the creative hand of
god at work in its design, and the better we able to use it successfully to understand and
live with other in the world around us.

A1. Acquisition and learning

There is an important distinction made by linguists between language acquisition

and language learning. Children acquire language through a subconscious process
during which they are unaware of grammatical rules. This is similar to the way they
acquire their first language. They get a feel what is or what isn’t correct. In order to
acquire language. The leaner need a source of natural communication. The emphasis is
on the text of the communication and not on the from. Young students who are in the
prosess of acquiring English get plenty of “on the job” practice. They readily acquire the
language to communicate with classmates.

Language learning. On the other hand, is not communicative. It is the result of direct
instruction in the rules of language. And it certainly is not an age-appropriate activity for
your young learners. In language learning, students have conscious knowledge of the
new language and can talk about that knowledge . they can fill in the blanks on a
grammar page. Research has shown, however, that knowing grammar rules does not
necessarily result in good speaking or writing. A student who has memorized the rules
of the language may be able to succeed on a standardized test of English language but
may not be able to speak or write correctly.

A2.the contributions of behaviourism.

Anyone who has ever studied a language know that lessons based exclusively on
the acquisition view of language described above are extremely rare. from the advent of
the direct method there has generally been more learning (in krashen’s sense)that
acquisition.
Behaviourism implies the dominance of the teacher, as inbehaviour modification
programmas. (A correspondent points out that all instruction is based on the structuring
and guidance of the teacher, the question really concerns the engagement of the
learners with the prosess, rather than its impositionon them).

It can, however, be applied to an understanding learning. Looked at through the lens of

behavioural analysis, everything which happens in a classroom (between students
themselves as well as between teacher and students).

In behaviourist theory, conditioning is the result of a three-stage procedure: stimulus,

response and reinforcement, for example, in a classic experiment, when a light goes on
(the stimulus) a rat goes up to a bar and presses it (response) and is rewarded by the
dropping of a tasty food pellet at its feet (the reinforcement).

A3.languae learning will take care of itself’

The point here is that language is difficult to learn because its not product. We learn
to do something by doing it and the goal of language is communication, the
communication, then communicating as we learn is the best way to go about it. jane
willissays you must learn the language freely to learn to speak it, even if you make a lot
of errors. While not going as far as allright in suggesting that language learning might
take care of itself, the suggests than the students need chances to say what they think
or feel and to experiment with using language they have heard or seen in a supportive
armosphere, without feeling threatened.

A4.Focus on from or focus on forms?

In this context a distinction has been made between a focus on from and focus on
froms. Focus on from occurs when students direct their conscious attention to same
feature of the language, such as a verb tense or the organization of paragraphs. It can
happen at any stage of a learning sequence as the result of intervention by the teacher,
or because students themselves notice a language feature.

Focus on from is often incidental and opportunistic, growing out of tasks which students
are involved in, rather than being pre-determined by a book or a syllabus.

Many language syllabus and courebooks are structured around a series of language
forms, however. Teacher and students focus on them one by one because they are on
the syllabus. this is often called “focus on forms” because one of the chief organizing
principles behind a course is the learning of these forms.
 A5. Making a sense of it all

We need to be able to make sense of the theorisies and hunches wich have been
offered to us, especially since they complet on a variety of different levels.