OVERVIEW OF LANGUANGE

LEARNING AND LANGUANGE

TEACHING
Pedagogical principles of teaching
young learners
FACTORS THAT
MOTIVATE YOUNG
LEARNERS
PREPARED BY
NUR AIN SYAFIQA BT MOHD
SHUKRI
WAN NURSYASYA ZULAIKHA
BINTI ZULKEFLI
 FACTORS THAT
MOTIVATE YOUNG
LEARNERS

1. Varying classroom
activities
• Story telling
• Be creative
2. Get them moving
• Prevent children from zoning
out
• Get their hands dirty
3. Play games
• Learning through playing
games
• English games
4. Encourage
• Give positive attention
• Rewards and praises
 Factors that DEMOTIVATE young learners

1. The use of excessive rewards.

• They tend to undermine children's
ability to value themselves.
• Praise and rewards should be based
upon children's effort and
persistence, rather than on the
actual accomplishment.
2. The use of excessive punishments.
• Children will feel shame and low
self-esteem.
• It is preferable to remind them first
or provide the consequences of
3. Poor teacher-student relationship.
• Teachers being biased toward certain
students.
• Students will not corporate in any of
the classroom’s activities.
4. Learning difficulties.
• Teachers use unsuitable teaching
aids.
• Teachers use complex words.
THEORIES OF
LANGUAGE
LEARNING
BEHAVIOURIS
M
-B.F. Skinner-
STIMULUS RESPONSE
REINFORCEMENT
 BEHAVIORISM
It stresses on students’ observable behaviour
to create automatic learning includes the
use of instructional cues, practice, and
reinforcement. In this case, the role of the
teacher in behaviourism theory is
determines what type of cues that could
produce the desired response, to create
conducive situation to reach the target
stimuli and to create environmental
condition.
 Principle of the Behaviourist
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 the
stimuli and rewards”, (Cooter & Reutzel, 2004).
• However, this theory is scrutinized for a variety
reasons. If rewards play such a vital component in
language development, what about the parent
who I inattentive or not present when the child
attempts speech?
• Other cases against this theory include “learning
the use and meaning of abstract words, evidence
of novel forms of language not modelled by
others, and uniformity of language acquisition in
humans.”
• The major principle of the behaviourist theory
rests on the analyses of human behaviour in
observable stimulus-response interaction and
the association between them.
• E.L.T. Thorndike was the first behaviourist to
explore the are that learning is the
establishment of associations on particular
process of behaviour and consequence of that
behaviours.
• Skinner, a famous psychologists applied the
stimulus-response reinforcement theory to the
way humans acquire language.
• He views a language as a form of behaviour
and language learning as a process of habit
 Example:
• STIMULUS: A baby is
hungry

• RESPONSE: he cries

• REINFORCEMENT: he is
given his milk.

• He soon learns that his

cries will be rewarded with
• Skinner placed great importance on
reinforcement/ reward, which may be a
smile, a nod or a word of praise.
• In this theory, reinforcement in very
important in the early stages of learning
and should be given frequently.
• Each correct behaviour in the learning
process will be reinforced with rewards
or praises, whereas mistakes will be
corrected immediately.
 COUNTERARGUMENTS ON
BEHAVIOURISTS THEORY OF
LANGUAGE LEARNING
• The main strategies of the behaviourist theory
can only be true for the early stages of
learning which takes place when the kids are
in infancy and in early childhood periods.
• It is highly unlikely for learning to be the same
for each individual; that is, each person cannot
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. In
addition, according to Chomsky, there must
be some innate capacities which human
beings possess that predispose them to look
for basic patterns in language.
 COGNITIVISM
-Jean Piaget-
-Lev Vygotsky-
-The Information Processing Approach-
 COGNITIVISM
It stresses on the process happens inside the
human mind, acquisition of the language, and
internal mental structure. In this case, the role of
teacher is to understand the position of the
students who have different experience that will
influence to the learning outcome, to determine
the manners that mostly used and which one is
effective to organize the new information, to
provide feedback in order to make the new
information will be more effective and efficient.
 Principle of the Cognitivist Theory
• Cognitivism involves the study of mental processes such as
sensation, perception, attention, encoding, and memory that
behaviourists were reluctant to study because cognition
occurs inside the “black box” of the brain (Jordan, Carlite &
Stack, 2008:36).
• The first principle is sensation. It shows how the stimuli
derived from external stimuli is registered in sensory before it
being sent to the following process.
• The second principle is perception which shows as the
process to interpret and make sense something which can be
seen through our sense. It consists of pattern recognition,
object recognition, bottom up or top down processing, and
conscious perception.
• The third principle is attention which stresses in the
concentrating to one thing, that the most importance than
• The fourth principle is encoding as the principle of cognitive
theory focuses on the importance of encoding information,
after something being perceived and attended to stimuli.
• The way to encode the information can be done through
organizing and then form it in the form of schema. In this case,
to encode the information in the form of experience can be
conducted through two ways. They are bottom up and top
down (Jordan, Carlite, & Stack 2008:43).
• Bottom up is the way to encode experience by transferring the
information that is gained through the external world. It is
mediated through attention and perception.
• While top down is another way to encode experience. It is in
the form of action prior knowledge in order to help in
interpreting the bottom up.
• The fifth principle is memory. Memory is the ability to keep and
remind the information in our mind. It consists of short term
memory, long term memory, and sensory.
 PIAGET’S COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
• According to Hebb(2003: 3) Piaget’s theory states the
children actively construct their understanding of the
world and go through stages of cognitive
development from simple to complex thing.
• There are two processes underlie in cognitive
construction, they are organization and adaptation.
• Organization is important in order the
children construct the meaning of thing which make
sense to them by organizing their experience.
• While adaptation is useful when we add the new
information in our thinking system because there is
important additional information.
• In this case, adaptation is differentiated into two ways.
They are assimilation and accommodation.
• Assimilation occurs when individuals adjust to new
information. For example, new-borns reflexively suck
everything that touches their lips (assimilation) , but
after several months of experience, they construct their
understanding of the world differently . They don’t
suck fuzzy blanket (accommodation).
 VYGOTSKY’S SOCIO CULTURAL
THEORY
• Vygotsky is a Russian psychologist who emphasize the
cognitivist theory based on the role of language and social
relation.
• Vygotsky claims that child’s cognitive skills are mediated
by words, language, and forms of discourse which serve as
psychological tools for facilitating and transforming
mental activity. It means that language is important tool
for children in early childhood in order to plan their
activities and solve the problems.
• Vygotsky’s second claims described knowledge is situated
and collaborative. It means that knowledge occurred in
environments through the interaction with others
collaboratively.
 THE INFORMATION PROCESSING
APPROACH
• Green (2003) states that information processing
approach involves three basic steps. They are
encoding, storage, and retrieval. The information
that is gotten must be transferred through three
basic memory before it can be stored and retrieved.
• Those the basic memories are sensory memory,
short term memory and long term memory.
• Sensory memory is a type of memory that consists
of the important and clear information in order to
give signal for the useful ones.
• Short term memory is a type of memory which
is famous as working memory. It has short
capability and period of time.
• Long term memory is a type of memory that
has very large data and very long duration.
• To make the information is still keep in long
term memory, people usually make
mnemonics, creating outline as a tool to keep
the meaningful information.
 3. SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM
Social constructivism was developed by Vygotsky.
He rejected the assumption made by Piaget that
it was possible to separate learning from its
social context

Social constructivism is a variety of

cognitive constructivism that emphasizes
the collaborative nature of much learning.

According to Vygotsky, language and

culture play essential roles both in human
intellectual development and in how
humans perceive the world.
The Zone of Proximal Development
Vygotsky believed that learning takes
place within the Zone of Proximal
Development.
Learners need help from adult or anyone
who is more advanced, master in concepts
and ideas that they cannot understand on
their own.
This model has two developmental levels:
1. The level of actual development
The point where the learner has already
reached & can problem-solve independently.

2. The level of potential development (ZDP)

The learner is capable of reaching under the
guidance of teachers or in collaboration with peers.

The ZDP is the level at which

learning takes place. It comprises
cognitive structures that are still
in the process of maturing, but
which can only mature under the
guidance of or in collaboration
with others.
 4. HUMANISM

'Humanism' is one of those constructs that people

argue about passionately. Instead of attempting to
define it, perhaps it makes more sense to focus on
some commonly agreed characteristics of humanism.
Humanism is a psychological perspective that
emphasizes the study of the whole person.
Humanistic psychologists look at human behaviour
not only through the eyes of the observer, but through
the eyes of the person doing the behaving.
 The humanistic teacher
The humanistic teacher should have a good grasp of language
learning theories.
• They will realise the importance of change, which is implicit
in all learning.
• They will be aware of the individual learners' 'developmental
readiness' (Piaget, 1970), which will determine when and how
to teach each student something.
• They will offer their students problems to solve, as, according
to cognitivists, this is precisely how we learn things.
Above all, the successful humanistic teacher will probably be a
pragmatist - allowing a combination of language learning
theories and their own experience to interact with each other to
produce effective language lessons.

Those students who are more extrinsically motivated will be

 Abraham Maslow’s Humanistic Theory
Maslow said that human beings strive for self-
actualization, or realization of their full potential, once
they have satisfied their more basic needs. Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs theory is described on page 247.
Maslow also provided his own account of the healthy
human personality.
Psychodynamic theories tend to be based on clinical
case studies and therefore lack accounts of healthy
personalities.
To come up with his account, Maslow studied
exceptional historical figures, such as Abraham Lincoln
and Eleanor Roosevelt, as well as some of his own
contemporaries whom he thought had exceptionally
good mental health.
 Maslow described several characteristics that self-
actualizing people share:

• Awareness and acceptance of themselves

• Openness and spontaneity
• The ability to enjoy work and see work as a
mission to fulfill.
• The ability to develop close friendships without
being overly dependent on other people
• A good sense of humor
• The tendency to have peak experiences that are
spiritually or emotionally satisfying
Humanism
Focus on the ability of human beings to think
consciously and rationally, to control their
biological urges, and to achieve their full potential.
In the humanistic view, people are responsible for
their lives and actions and have the freedom and
will to change their attitudes and behaviour.