Schools of Thoughts in Second Language Acquisition
perceive by human. If it is perceivable therefore, is it
What is School of Thought?
• A school of thought, or intellectual tradition, is
the perspective of a group of people who share common
characteristics of opinion or outlook of a philosophy,
discipline, belief, social movement, economics, cultural
movement, or art movement.
School of Thought Vs. Theory
• A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking
about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking.
• The process of contemplative and rational
thinking is often associated with such processes as
observational study or research.
First Language
• A person‘s native language.
• A language spoken in addition to one‘s first
language.
Second Language Acquisition
• Second language acquisition, or sequential
language acquisition, is learning a second language after
a first language is already established.
1. Structural Linguistics and Behavioral Psychology
STRUCTURAL LINGUISTICS
- Define as the study of language based on the
theory that language is a structured system of formal
units such as grammar, sentence, and syntax.
- An application of scientific observations of
human languages
- Only ―publicly observable responses‖ could be
the subject to investigation.
- Structural linguistics is, observable, can be
easy to study.
Advocates of structural linguistics
Leonard Bloomfield
- Promote physicalism wherein it states that
linguistics should avoid mentalism (process of mind) and
concentrate upon the directly observable.
Edward Sapir
- Classified indigenous language and determine
how culture affects the languages.
Charles Hockett
- Differentiate human language for non-human
languages and determine its features.
Charles Fries
- Explored grammar as a tool for communication
meaning.
This structural linguistic theory has been opposed by
Freeman Twaddell (1935) as he stated that this principle
in perhaps its most extreme terms:
―Whatever our attitude toward mind, spirit, soul, etc. as,
realities, we must agree that the scientist proceeds as
though there were no such things, as though there were
acquired through processes of his physiological nervous
system. Insofar as he occupies himself with psychical,
nonmaterial forces, the scientist is not a scientist. The
scientific method is quite simply the convention that
mind does not exist.‖
BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOLOGY
Behavioral
- The way in which one acts or conducts oneself,
especially toward others.
Psychology
- The scientific study of mind and behavior. This
includes the study of conscious and unconscious
phenomena, including feelings and thoughts.
Behavioral Psychology
- A behavioral paradigm also focused on publicly
observable responses—those that can be objectively
perceived, recorded, and measured.
John B. Watson
- In 1913, Watson proposed that psychologist
should focus on the observable behavior of individuals,
rather than the invisible, inner workings of their minds.
Behaviorism gave birth to stimulus–response (S–R)
theory which strives to explain L2 learning as the
acquisition of a set of structures through the process of
habit formation (Powell, Honey, & Symbaluk, 2016).
B.F Skinner
- Developed the behavioral psychology.
- One of the most important psychologists of 20th
century in the process.
Skinner’s Theory
- Positive Consequences = Postive Feedback
- Negative Consequences = Negative Feedback
"Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything." - B.F
Skinner
B.F Skinner’s Verbal Behavior (1957)
- A method of teaching language that focuses on
the idea that a meaning of a word is found in their
functions.
Audiolingualism
- Aims to promote mechanical habit-formation
through repetition of basic patterns.
Behavioral Models
1. Operant Conditioning
- In which modern behaviorism is based.
- Defined as the shaping of future acts based on
past rewards or punishments.
2. Classical Conditioning
- Defined as the association of a conditioned
stimulus (such as food), with a neutral stimulus (such as
a bell).
Classical Conditioning Definitions
Unconditioned Stimulus
- An unconditioned stimulus is a stimulus or
trigger that leads to an automatic response.
Neutral Stimulus
- A neutral stimulus is a stimulus that doesn't
initially trigger a response on its own.
Conditioned Stimulus
- A conditioned stimulus is a stimulus that was
once neutral (didn't trigger a response) but now leads to
a response.
Unconditioned Response
- An unconditioned response is an automatic
response or a response that occurs without thought when
an unconditioned stimulus is present.
Conditioned Response
- A conditioned response is a learned response or
a response that is created where no response existed
before.
How Classical Conditioning Works
PHASE 1: Before Conditioning
PHASE 2: During Conditioning
PHASE 3: After Conditioning
Key Principles of Classical Conditioning
Acquisition - the initial stage of learning, when a
response is first established and gradually strengthened.
Once the response has been established, you can
gradually reinforce the response to make sure the
behavior is well learned.
Extinction - Extinction is when the occurrences of a
conditioned response decrease or disappear.
Spontaneous Recovery - Sometimes a learned response
can suddenly reemerge, even after a period of extinction.
Generalization - The tendency for a conditioned
stimulus to evoke similar responses after the response
has been conditioned.
Discrimination - The ability to differentiate between a
conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that have not
been paired with an unconditioned stimulus.
3. Rote Verbal Learning
- Examples of rote learning include memorizing
the alphabet, numbers, and multiplication tables. Some
consider rote learning to be a necessary step in learning
certain subjects.
Advantages of Rote Learning
• Ability to quickly recall basic facts.
• Helps develop foundational knowledge.
Disadvantage of Rote Learning
• Can be repetitive.
• Easy to lose focus.
• Doesn‘t allow for a deeper understanding of a
subject.
• Doesn‘t encourage the use of social skills.
• No connection between new and previous
knowledge
• May result in wrong impression or
understanding a concept.
4. Discrimination Learning
- If two (or more) different stimuli are
simultaneously presented to the organism, and only one
of them is associated with reinforcement regardless of
position, the organism will learn to select the reinforced
stimulus on future occasions.
"Language is not a habit structure. Ordinary linguistic
behaviour characteristically involves innovation,
formation of new sentences and patterns in accordance
with rules of great abstractness and intricacy." –
Chomsky, 2003
2. GENERATIVE LINGUISTICS AND COGNITVE
PSYCHOLOGY
GENERATIVE LINGUISTICS
According to Chomsky
- Human cannot be scrutinized simply in terms of
observable stimuli and responses, or the volumes of raw
data gathered by field linguists.
- The generative linguist was interested not only
in describing language but also in arriving at an
explanatory level of adequacy in the study of language.
Ferdinand De Saussure (1916)
- Claim that there was a difference between Parole
(what Skinner "observes" and what Chomsky called
"performance") also the Langue (related to the concept
of competence or our underlying and unobservable
language ability).
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
- How scientist study the mind
- The study of how people think and process
information.
- Helps researchers understand the human brain.
Brief history of Cognitive Psychology
Although it is a relatively young branch of psychology,
it has quickly grown to become one of the most popular
subfields. Cognitive psychology grew into prominence
between the 1950s and 1970s.
Prior to this time, behaviorism was the dominant
perspective in psychology. This theory holds that we
learn all our behaviors from interacting with our
environment.2 It focuses strictly on observable behavior,
not thought and emotion. Then, researchers became
more interested in the internal processes that affect
behavior instead of just the behavior itself.
This shift is often referred to as the cognitive revolution
in psychology. During this time, a great deal of research
on topics including memory, attention, and language
acquisition began to emerge.
In 1967, the psychologist Ulric Neisser introduced the
term cognitive psychology, which he defined as the
study of the processes behind the perception,
transformation, storage, and recovery of information.
- The field of Cognitive Psychology is both broad
and diverse,
- There are numerous practical applications it,
such as providing help coping with memory disorders,
making better decisions, recovering from brain injury,
treating learning disorders, and structuring educational
curricula to enhance learning.
- Cognitive psychology helps play a role in how
professionals approach the treatment of mental illness,
traumatic brain injury, and degenerative brain diseases.
Cognitive psychologists explore a wide variety of topics
related to thinking processes. Some of these include:
Attention or our ability to process information in
the environment while tuning out irrelevant details.
Choice-based behavior, these actions driven by a
choice among other possibilities.
Decision-making and Problem-solving, it is how
we decide to solve the unknown.
Forgetting and Memory, it answers on how we
sometimes remember and forget details.
Information processing, how we understand
when there is an input from the outside.
Language acquisition--how we learn to read,
write, and express ourselves.
Speech perception-how we process what others
are saying.
Visual perception--how we see the physical
world around us.
Before the 1970s, many mental health treatments were
focused more on psychoanalytic, behavioral, and
humanistic approaches.
The so-called "cognitive revolution" put a greater
emphasis on understanding the way people process
information and how thinking patterns might contribute
to psychological distress.
New approaches to treatment were developed to help
treat depression, anxiety, phobias, and other
psychological disorders.
3. CONSTRUCTIVISM: A MULTI DISCIPLINARY
APPROACH
- A philosophy of learning that says we create our
own knowledge by reflecting on our own experiences
and building our prior knowledge.
Constructivism in Teaching
- Invents our own concepts and ideas linked to
what we already know.
- Knowledge is constructed by learners through an
active and mental process of development.
The Constructivist Classroom
The Hallmark of a constructivist classroom is the use of
active techniques of learning. (Explanation: like
experiments, solving real life problems, reflection and
discussion.)
The students are encouraged to ask questions, discuss,
and then reflect.
Constructivist Learning
It is based on the idea that learners should have an active
role in classroom‘s problem solving.
Constructivists focus on the instrumental and practical
function of theory and knowledge.
Piaget‘s Contribution
- To discover, or understand is to reconstruct by
rediscovery, and such conditions must be complied with
it in the future individuals are to be formed who are
capable of production and creativity and not simply
repetition.
Focuses on the interaction of experiences and ideas in
the creation of new knowledge.
Explores the importance of learning alongside with peers
and how culture affects the accommodation and
assimilation of knowledge.
Innovation within our hands are ways to create new
learnings. Social interaction develops our confidence and
still used as a tool to show everyone that we are capable
of it. We explore our life through experiences we
encounter. With language, we share this multi-
disciplinary approach has developed ourselves inside the
classroom. We have gained so many things through
constructivist learning and teaching. We have discovered
how a constructivist classroom became active and
participative acquired by all students and also it teaches
us to do learning by doing, we are not just learning from
our lessons but we are training ourselves to become
independent and competitive inside the classroom.
Constructivism teach us analyze information within our
own, in research and in discovery.
SIMILARITIES
Both constructivism and cognitivism are concerned with
meanings.
 Constructivism promotes students' active
engagement with knowledge to extract meaning from it,
whereas cognitivism emphasizes providing information
to the students so they can understand a lesson's meaning
more thoroughly.
Both behaviorism and constructivism emphasize the
importance of experience in the learning process.
Constructivism maintains that students develop and
construct their own knowledge through their learning
experiences in their schools or homes. While
behaviorism tries to prove that students learn from
experiences, reinforcement, imitating their surroundings,
and observing the behaviors of others by listening to or
seeing the actual process they see or hear.
Both cognitivism and behaviorism think that the
environment can affect learning.
With cognitivism and behaviorism, students are
more eager to learn effectively when the concepts that
are presented to them are clearly and easily understood.
The environment can affect the learning of the students
because if you have a good environment, you can adopt
their good behavior, and if your environment is not good
for your learning, you should stay away from it.
Behaviorism and constructivism are similar because
they both involve in action.
In behaviorism, students adjust their behavior in
the hope of achieving the intended results, but in
constructivism, students perform actions in order to
achieve the desired results more successfully. They are
similar in both actions because the students want to learn
more effectively and doing such an action is the best
thing to accomplish those goals.
The similarities of the three schools of thought are that it
involves the student‘s participation and engagement in
the classroom and develop prior knowledge.
DIFFERENCES
Comparison of the three language acquisitions
Constructivism learning states that learners use
prior knowledge, meanwhile cognitivism is an internal
processing of information.
Cognitivism‘s environment requires an
environment where thinking activities and processes take
place.
Constructivism‘s environment facilitates an
active learning environment.
Constructivism uses interactive strategies like
group activities.
Cognitivism uses note taking activities.
Although the goal of those acquiring a first
language and those learning in a classroom are
essentially the same - ‗to map form and function to
produce meaningful utterances based upon their
language experiences‘ (Chenu and Jisa 2009:18)
The three language acquisitions in the classroom:
Behaviorism in the classroom gives students
stimulus, positive conditioning like praise will motivate
the student while negative conditioning like scolding
will result in a stimulus response. (negative)
Cognitivism is all about interactive activities that
activate students‘ thinking potential.
Activities like demonstrating a concept, reciting,
and retaining poetry, giving them hands-on problems,
and interactive discussions are some ways that enforce
cognitive. learning inside the classrooms.
Constructivism allows the students to utilize
their own understanding and experience to gain unique
insights on different subjects. Students have freedom of
interpretation, this way of learning treats knowledge as a
process solely existing inside the mind. Some activities
are discussions, debates, and the sharing of knowledge
between peers.