COGNITIVE - CODE APPROACH

Phrases:

• Rule of the day - To set the standard which guides behavior; to control a situation,
group, strategy, etc.

• Comprehensible input - instructional shift when teachers provide input where

students understand most, but not all, of the language.

• Communicative competence - learner's ability to use language to communicate

successfully

Cognitive-code approach

- bears some similarity with the grammar-translation approach but of course differs in
many ways

- advocated by cognitive psychologists and applied linguists such as J.B. Carroll and K.
Chastain in the 1960s. , emphasizing that language learning involved active mental
processes.

- intended as an alternative to the Audio-lingual Method which stresses habit formation

as a learn-by-doing-activity (Demirezen, 1988)

- attempts to help the learner in all four skills, speaking and listening in addition to
reading and writing

- focuses on the importance of meaningful practice such as the rules came after
exposure to examples

If in grammar translation approach, the lesson begins with the explanation of the
rules, then exercises follows. However in cognitive-code approach, exercises comes
first, then the rules follows.

Main purpose of Cognitive – Code Approach

“For students to be capable to solve problem individually, in relation to learning

process.”

Characteristics of cognitive-code approach are:

 Moves from known to unknown

 Promotes creative use of language

 Understanding of rule system

  Learning should be meaningful

 Interactive or content based applicability.

 Direct association of target language words and phrases with objects and actions

According to Carroll, 1966, Cognitive code assumes, that "once the student has a proper degree of
cognitive control over the structures of a language, facility will develop automatically with the use of
language in meaningful situations." These activities provide the practice in meaningful situations
including dialogues, games, role playing activities, etc.

ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES

Errors are considered an important part of Unclear classroom implementation

the learning process

Teachers provide the necessary tools for No explicit step by step methodology
their students so they can work on their
own in their assignments

It guides the students to discover the rules Too much attention to learner's errors
for themselves

It motivates the students to draw from their Over stressing of production data
experiences and utilize their mental
grammar

Teachers can be creative with their Did not account to avoidance phenomena
students and learner's can enjoy learning
through no rigorous process

Notion of competence and performance.

Specific example:

In a classroom, the aim of the class is to understand the "rule of the day", here,
the "rule of the day" is that the past form of regular verbs is made using -ed. The
teacher first gives a dialogue that shows examples of the structure. Then the learners
practice it and eventually the teacher uses the example to finally explain the rules.

Summary:
 Cognitive-code approach attracts the attention of learners to the topic, enhances
and facilitates the comprehension of grammar and language, increases students'
motivation, as well as helping students to memorize new vocabulary and structures.
Cognitive-code assumes that conscious learning can be accomplished by everyone, all
rules are learnable, and that conscious knowledge should be available at all times.

REFERENCES:

CARROLL, J. (1966) The contributions of psychological theory and educational

research to teaching of foreign languages. In A. Valdman (Ed.) Trends in Language
Teaching. New York: McGraw-Hill. pp. 93-106.

CARROLL, J. (1967) Foreign language proficiency levels attained by language majors

near graduation from college. Foreign Language Annals 1: 131-151.

CARROLL, J. (1980) Foreign language testing: persistent problems. In K. Croft (Ed.)

Readings on English as a Second Language. Cambridge, Ma: Winthrop. pp. 518-530.

CHASTAIN, K. (1970) A methodological study comparing the audio-lingual habit theory

and the cognitive code learning theory: a continuation. Modern Language Journal 54:
257-26

DEMIREZEN, M. (1988a). Behaviorist theory and language learning. Hacettepe

KRASHEN, S. (1981) Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning.

Oxford: Pergamon Press.

KRASHEN, S. (1982) Newmark's "Ignorance Hypothesis" and current second language

acquisition theory. Unpublished manuscript.

Websites:

Academia.au

Prezi.com