天津保姆最新招聘信息:SLA Lecture 4 Handout

SLA Lecture 4 Handout

BobSchwab.com is maintained by Dr. Robert Schwab,  Professor, Graduate School of Education, Hanyang University and Adjunct Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon

Second Language Acquisition

Theoretical Approaches to

Second Language Acquisition and Learning

Review of Language Subsystems

Language proficiency: The ability to use language effectively and appropriately across a full range of social, personal, academic and work situations necessary for participation and interacting in a given society and setting

nSocial conventions ?how to start, end conversations, interrupting, formal & informal expressions, slang?/P>

nSemantics ?intended speaker meaning of words & sentences

nSyntax ?rules and structure of word order in sentence formation

nMorphology ?the rules and conventions of word formation

nPhonology ?the sounds and sound patterns in a language

Behaviorism ?Key Concepts

nThe Basic Concept: Human behavior is a product of the stimulus-response interaction & behavior can be modified

n Attention focuses on observable behavior and learning, with emphasis on:

/SPAN>External factors that influence learning

/SPAN>Rewards and benefits in explaining behavior

/SPAN>The here and now aspects of the past are downplayed

/SPAN>Change in behavior represents a starting point

nKey terms: - Operant conditioning

     - Reinforcement

     - Extinction

     - Punishment

Concepts?/SPAN>

nBehaviorism does not attempt to account for feelings and other cognitive processes

nOnly observable and verifiable events are considered, avoiding research in the cognitive domain

nFocus is on the behavior of the individual and the external forces that shape that behavior

nThe individual is subject to the control of principles of behavior.  Behavior is a product of contingencies and manipulations that follow that behavior, and not ill-defined internal forces of personality, emotions, or other thought processes

Behaviorism ?Key Theorists

nIvan Pavlov (1900), Russian, Classical Behaviorism based on conditioned learning

/SPAN> focusing on instinctual learning

/SPAN> emphasizing the importance of conditioning,

/SPAN> relates human behavior to the nervous system

/SPAN>the classic experiment, training a hungry dog to salivate at the sound of a bell, which was previously associated with the sight of food.

/SPAN>producing a conditioned response

nEdward Thorndike, (1913),  American, establishes the concept of connectionism to Behaviorism

/SPAN>law of effect - a given behavior requires both practice and rewards and is learned by trial-and-error.  It is more likely to occur if its consequences are satisfying

/SPAN>law of readiness - a series of Stimulus-response connections can be chained together if they belong to the same action sequence

/SPAN>3. Transfer of learning occurs as a result of previously encountered situations.

/SPAN>4. Intelligence is based on the number of connections learned.

nThe classic experiment 揕ittle Albert?/P>

/SPAN>Cat learns to escape from box by pulling levers

nJohn Watson (1915)   American, applied the techniques of animal research ( conditioning) to the study of human beings

/SPAN>Emotional responses are conditioned to various stimuli, a result of pairings that occur between conditioned stimuli e.g. distinctive sounds, smell, sights, love, anger

/SPAN>Emotional responses can spread to stimuli which have not been conditional, but that resemble the conditioned stimuli.

nThe classic experiment 揕ittle Albert?/P>

/SPAN>Albert plays with a collection of stuffed toys without fear.  One toy, a rat, is paired with an objectionable noise.  Albert becomes frightened of the rat (conditioning).  After one week, fear spread to all the stuffed toys in the collection (transfer, or spread)

nB. F. Skinner (1959) American, differentiated between respondent conditioning (instinctive) and operant conditioning (cognitive)

/SPAN>reinforcement is the key element in learning

/SPAN>behavior that is positively reinforced will reoccur; intermittent reinforcement is particularly effective

/SPAN>information should be presented in small amounts so that responses can be reinforced ("shaping")

/SPAN>reinforcement generalizes across similar stimuli (stimulus generalization), producing secondary conditioning

nattempts to provide Behavioral explanations for a broad range of cognitive phenomena - explains motivation in terms of deprivation and reinforcement schedules, verbal learning and language in terms of operant conditioning

nB. F. Skinner proposed a theory of operant conditioning to account for language acquisition; focal concept - learning in not doing; learning is changing what we do

/SPAN>The bell in Pavlov‘s experiment became associated with food, the dog salivates at the sound of the bell. The bell becomes a sign, or call to action.

/SPAN>The learning process for symbols operates similarly. Mom says "Daddy" to the child each time Dad comes in the room. The child learns to associate the sound "Daddy" with the person.

/SPAN>The behavior of children is shaped by the consequences of their actions. This observation resulted in a complex theory of language development based on Operant Conditioning

/SPAN>The baby, in the process of making vocal sounds, hits by chance upon the combination "da-da." Dad, upon hearing this immediately picks him up, reinforcing the verbal behavior

nBehaviorism and B. F. Skinner, continued?/SPAN>

nSkinnerist reinforcement theory as it is applied to the development of programmed instruction (Skinner, 1968)

/SPAN>Practice should take the form of question (stimulus) - answer (response) frames which expose the student to the subject in gradual steps

/SPAN>Require that the learner make a response for every frame and receive immediate feedback

/SPAN>Try to arrange the difficulty of the questions so the response is always correct and hence a positive reinforcement

/SPAN>Ensure that good performance in the lesson is paired with secondary reinforcers such as verbal praise, prizes and good grades.

Behaviorist Theory (FLA)

nBased on the stimulus ?response ?reinforcement model, combined with imitation and association

nTo learn the word 搒poon?(FLA)

/SPAN>Learner associates the word with the object

/SPAN>Learner produces the word by imitation

/SPAN>Learner is praised, learning is reinforced

nThis model assumes the learner抯 mind is a 搕abula rosa? a blank mental slate waiting to be filled with example, experience and knowledge

Behaviorist Theory (SLA)

nBehaviorist theory continues to play a substantial role in SLA practice

/SPAN>Audio-lingual methods developed in the 1960抯, where dialogues are presented for memorization and pattern drills for practicing form and structure.  Typically elicits 5% success in developing foreign language competency

/SPAN>Language labs, which are still popular, where learners focus on imitation, repetition and reinforcement of grammatical structures.  An instructor may listen to learner抯 responses, or voice recognition software is becoming increasingly common as reinforcement

/SPAN>Considered most successful when used in conjunction with other approaches

Notes on Behaviorism

nBehaviorism can not account for utterances that the speaker has never heard before

/SPAN>Incorrect utterances that are produced but not imitated ?揑 goed to the bathroom?/P>

/SPAN>Novel utterances that are produced even though the speaker has never heard that particular combination produced before

/SPAN>Researchers observe that 1^st language learners typically receive reinforcement for meaning rather than grammar, further diluting the Behaviorist model

/SPAN>However, 2^nd language learners typically receive reinforcement for grammar

Innatist (Nativist) ?Key Concepts

nThe Basic Concept: Every human being is born with an innate knowledge of language structures, giving them access to the universal principles of human language

n Attention focuses on theoretical evidence, abstract relationships & linguistic development with emphasis on:

/SPAN>Common structural element across languages

/SPAN>Genetic and Neural-Physiological relationship that could explain language acquisition universals

/SPAN>Grammar rules and transformations

/SPAN>Does not attempt to address the role of the social environment in language development

nKey terms: - Universal Grammar, Innate Parameters, hypothesis testing, Language Acquisition device,

Concepts?/P>

nInnatism does not attempt to account for feelings and other cognitive processes

nChildren learn complex language  with relatively little input where input does not account for the complexity of output (poverty of stimulus)

nHuman are born with the capacity for any human language

nThis capacity takes the form of innate access to general or universal principles of all human languages

nThis innate knowledge allows us to select any particular language, and,  based on a few instances of input, to produce very complex outputs never encountered as input

nThis process may be linguistically based, physiologically based, or both

U.G. & the Innate Parameter Hypothesis

nWe are born with an understanding if innate parameters of language and minimal instances of input will allow us to set the parameters for our own language.

nE.g. the head-first/head-last parameter of language?/P>

In English, phrases are head-first; a noun is at the head of a phrase, a preposition at the head of a PP, a verb at the head of a verb phrase.  The parameter is that if one of these phrases is head-first in a language, they all will be.  A few  inputs is enough to understand the head-first parameter, which allows the learner to correctly construct other phrases. 

In Korean and Japanese, phrases are head-last.  This relates easily with English speakers learning Korean or Korean speakers learning English based on the discovery that everything is basically backwards and is dealt with correctly, automatically and innately on that premise  

Innatism (Nativist) ?Key Theorists

nChomsky ?(1960) American:  Father of Innatism and generative linguistics, more recently a leading political dissident whose critiques of American media and foreign & domestic policies have been scathing.

/SPAN>away from empiricism (the observation of naturally occurring data) and towards rationalism (theory of mind and cognitive plausibility )

/SPAN>Tranformational Generative Grammar Theory - all languages share a common "core grammar" that differs only in their "superficial grammars."

/SPAN>Universal Grammar - if a scientist from another planet were to observe the languages of the earth, he would find that aside from their differing vocabularies, that they were the "same" language

The Basis of Chomsky抯 contribution to Linguistics?/SPAN>

Instead of starting with minimal sounds, as the structural linguists had done, Chomsky began with the primitive or  rudimentary sentence; from this base he developed his argument that innumerable syntactic combinations can be generated by means of a complex series of rules.

According to transformational grammar, every intelligible sentence conforms not only to grammatical rules that are peculiar to its particular language, but also to 揹eep structures,?-  a universal grammar that underlies all languages and corresponds to an innate capacity of the human brain. Chomsky and other linguists who have built on his work have formulated transformational rules, which transform a sentence with a given grammatical structure (e.g., 揓ohn saw Mary?) into a sentence with a different grammatical structure but the same essential meaning ( 揗ary was seen by John?).

nDulay and Bert (1982) American, The Creative Construction Theory

/SPAN>The process of SLA is very similar to that of FLA

/SPAN>Second language learners creatively construct the rules of the second language in a manner that is similar to that observed in first language acquisition

/SPAN>Most English language errors produced by SLA learners are similar to errors made by children acquiring English as a first language and are not attributable to the learner抯 mother tongue (refuting contrastive analysis)

nSteven Krashen, (1992), American, The natural Approach, consisting of 5 hypothesis (following)

/SPAN>Continuing in the innatist tradition, Krashen developed a series of hypothesis about second language acquisition that have been widely accepted in the field of second language teaching. 

/SPAN>The wide acceptance is largely based on the fact that his  hypothesis attempt to address classroom-based second language learning

/SPAN>The initial work and research was accomplished by Krashen (a theorist) and  Terrell (an ESL teacher with extensive experience teaching English in Mexico and the US) which added an important practical perspective

/SPAN>The first notable multidisciplinary approach to SLA

Innatist Theory (FLA & SLA)

Krashen抯 theories continue to be very influential in promoting language teaching practices within the constructs of SLA theory for both 1^st and 2^nd LA.

Application of the various theories (next 4 slides) can be summarized as follows?/P>

/SPAN>Focus on communication, not on form

/SPAN>Allow students a silent period rather than forcing immediate speech production

/SPAN>Create a low-anxiety environment

/SPAN>Comprehensible input provides the theoretical cornerstone for Sheltered Instruction and Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English (SDAIE)

ACQUISITION-LEARNING HYPOTHESIS

/SPAN>Language Acquisition Device (LAD) NEVER shuts off.  The LAD grinds slow but sure.

/SPAN>Acquisition requires conscious focus on meaning.

/SPAN>Learning requires conscious focus on form.

/SPAN>Acquisition and learning are in complementary distribution; can not consciously focus both on form and meaning at the same time.

/SPAN>When speaking fluently (natural spontaneous conversation), you can only use your (subconscious) acquired competence (AC).

/SPAN>Learning does not become acquisition through practice (Non-interface position).

/SPAN>You can acquire what you have learned only through exposure to input, and not through conscious practice.

/SPAN>.Acquisition with or without conscious learning is basically the same.

NATURAL ORDER HYPOTHESIS (NO)

/SPAN>Grammar rules of any language are acquired in a predetermined order.

/SPAN>NO concerns acquisition - not learning.

/SPAN>NO remains the same irrespective of learning environment, language background, intelligence etc.

/SPAN>Teaching/learning order does not correspond to NO of acquisition.

/SPAN>Inalterability of NO supports the non-interface position.

/SPAN>LAD is immune to conscious teaching/learning intervention.

/SPAN>You cannot acquire a rule unless you are psycholinguistically ready.

INPUT HYPOTHESIS (IH)

/SPAN>Acquisition is inevitable when exposed to comprehensible input (CI).

/SPAN>Acquisition takes place when conscious focus is on meaning
3.If you try consciously to focus both on form and meaning, acquisition will not take place.
4.Comprehension precedes production.
5.Speaking emerges on its own after a silent period of active listening (as does writing, after extensive reading).

MONITOR HYPOTHESIS

/SPAN>Learned competence (LC) act as a monitor or editor.

/SPAN>LC can correct utterances initiated by AC over time.

/SPAN>LC enhances comprehension and increase CI potential

/SPAN>Enhanced comprehension & more CI = faster acquisition

/SPAN>The goal of  LC is the facilitation of comprehension (receptive grammar), not the conversion from LC to AC.

AFFECTIVE FILTER (AF) HYPOTHESIS

/SPAN>Only errors causing meaning problems should be corrected.

/SPAN>Error correction does not necessarily lead to the correction of those errors.

/SPAN>Error correction strengthen AF which will block acquisition

/SPAN>Forcing premature production strengthens AF as well.

Notes on Innatist Theory: Interlanguage

nA learner抯 language, at any given point, is a legitimate linguistic system in its own right.

nA learner抯 linguistic development is not a process of developing fewer 搃ncorrect structures, nor is it the production of malformed, imperfect language.  Instead, it is a complete and legitimate linguistic system representing a creative human process that continues to evolve, the result of forming and testing hypothesis that are based on input.

nAs the learner抯 language develops, these hypotheses are continually revised, reshaped, replaced, and sometimes abandoned and reinvented.

Interactionist Theory ?Key Concepts

nThe Basic Concept: Children have  some innate knowledge of the structures of language, but also require meaningful interaction with others to acquire language structures.

nWhile the behavior and innatist models represent two opposite extremes in language development theory, the interactionist approach to language development recognizes and accepts major arguments from both approaches. Interactionists support the belief that many factors including social, linguistic, maturational/biological, and cognitive skills affect the course of development. These cognitive and social factors not only modify language acquisition, but language acquisition in turn modifies the development of cognitive and social skills

Interactionism: Schools of Thought

This theory believes that language acquisition is innate and is dependant on interaction with native speakers.

 Two smaller schools stem from this approach; they are the Cognitivist School and the Social Interactionist school.

The Cognitivist believes that learning language is nothing special and is just a process that fits under regular cognitive development. Therefore, a child learns language like it learns anything else, by doing day-to-day activities.

The Social Interactionist believes that language is mainly picked up through social activity, such as a mother bonding with her baby and caregiver input (FLA) and social language interacting or scaffolding (SLA).

Comprehensible Input

nComprehensible Input is the result of modified interaction (the various modifications that native speakers and learners create in order to make their input comprehensible to the learner 

nAn obvious example of this is caregiver speech, where adults modify their speech to children.  When native speakers talk to non-native speakers, they may slow down speech, over-pronounce, speak deliberately, etc. 

nNon-native speakers may use a trial-and-error process of give-and-take in communication, exerting considerable control over the communication process, causing their partner to provide input that is more comprehensible.

nThey may do this by eliciting repetitions, indicating they don抰 understand, or responding in ways that indicate lack of comprehension.

nThis causes the native/advanced speaker to modify their communication to make the input more comprehensible, e.g. modified caregiver speech, paraphrasing, non-verbal clues, gestures, drawing, etc.

Notes in Interactionist Theory

nInteractionism focuses on causes and consequences of the multiple variables inherent to the interactive classroom.

nInteractionism in SLA research centers on the language classroom, not just as a place where learners of varying abilities, styles and backgrounds come to learn, but also as a place where the contexts for interaction are carefully designed.  Through material and curriculum development, the focus is on creating optimal environments in a socially constructed process that ______________input and learner language

nInteractionism forms the basis for Student Centered and Learner-Centered methods

Information Processing Theory (G. Miller)

Miller has provided two theoretical ideas that are fundamental to cognitive psychology and the information processing framework.  The principles of Millers theories are?

nShort term memory (or attention span) is limited to seven chunks of information.

n2. Planning in the form of TOTE units (test-operate-test-exit) is a fundamental cognitive process.

n3. Behavior is hierarchically organized (e.g., chunks, TOTE units).

Chunking

The first concept is "chunking" and the capacity of short term memory.

short-term memory can only hold 5-9 chunks of information (seven plus or minus two) where a chunk is any meaningful unit. A chunk could refer to digits, words, chess positions, or people‘s faces. The concept of chunking and the limited capacity of short-term memory became a basic element of all subsequent theories of memory.

The phenomenon of chunking has been verified at all levels of cognitive processing.

TOTE (Test-Operate-Test-Exit)

Miller et al. suggested that TOTE should replace the stimulus-response as the basic unit of behavior. In a TOTE unit, a goal is tested to see if it has been achieved and if not an operation is performed to achieve the goal; this cycle of test-operate is repeated until the goal is eventually achieved or abandoned.

Connectionism (E. Thorndike)

nConnectionism is based on the original stimuli/responses framework of behavioral psychology:  Such associations or "habits" become strengthened or weakened by the nature and frequency of the S-R pairings. The paradigm for S-R theory is trial and error learning in which certain responses come to dominate others due to rewards.  Learning is explained without regard to unobservable internal states.

/SPAN>Learning requires both practice and rewards (laws of effect /exercise)

/SPAN>2. A series of S-R connections can be chained together if they belong to the same action sequence (law of readiness).

/SPAN>3. Transfer of learning occurs because of previously encountered situations.

/SPAN>4. Intelligence is a function of the number of connections learned.

Connectionism was meant to be a general theory of learning. Thorndike was especially interested in its application to education including mathematics, various language applications, measurement of intelligence and adult learning

Thorndike‘s theory consists of three primary laws:

/SPAN>law of effect - responses to a situation which are followed by a rewarding state of affairs will be strengthened and become habitual responses to that situation,

/SPAN>law of readiness - a series of responses can be chained together to satisfy some goal which will result in annoyance if blocked

/SPAN>law of exercise - connections become strengthened with practice and weakened when practice is discontinued. A corollary of the law of effect was that responses that reduce the likelihood of achieving a rewarding state (i.e., punishments, failures) will decrease in strength.

nConnectionism that transfer of learning depends upon the presence of identical elements in the original and new learning situations; i.e., transfer is always specific, never general.

nIn later versions of the theory, the concept of "belongingness" was introduced; connections are more readily established if the person perceives that stimuli or responses go together (Gestalt principles).

nAnother concept introduced was "polarity" which specifies that connections occur more easily in the direction in which they were originally formed than the opposite.

nThorndike also introduced the "spread of effect" idea, i.e., rewards affect not only the connection that produced them but temporally adjacent connections as well.

Subsumption Theory (D. Ausubel)

nConcerned with how individuals learn large amounts of meaningful material from verbal/textual presentations in a school setting (rather than laboratory experiments). Key principles are?

/SPAN>The most general ideas of a subject should be presented first and then progressively differentiated in terms of detail and specificity.

/SPAN>Instructional materials should attempt to integrate new material with previously presented information through comparisons and cross-referencing of new and old ideas.

nlearning is based on superordinate, representational, and combinatorial processes that occur during the reception of information.  New material is related to relevant ideas in the existing cognitive structure (subsumption). Cognitive structures represent the residue of all learning experiences,  and forgetting occurs because certain details get integrated and lose their individual identity.

nSubsumption involves reorganization of existing cognitive structures not the development of new structures as constructivist theories suggest.

nSubsumption theory only applies to reception (expository) learning in school settings. He distinguishes reception learning from rote and discovery learning. (expository = presentation if information in clear precise form)

Experiential (Humanistic) Learning (C. Rogers)

Rogers distinguished two types of learning: cognitive (meaningless) and experiential (significant). The former corresponds to academic knowledge such as learning vocabulary or multiplication tables and the latter refers to applied knowledge such as learning about engines in order to repair a car. The key to the distinction is that experiential learning addresses the needs and wants of the learner.

/SPAN>Significant learning takes place when the subject matter is relevant to the personal interests of the student

/SPAN>Learning which is threatening to the self (e.g., new attitudes or perspectives) are more easily assimilated when external threats are at a minimum

/SPAN>Learning proceeds faster when the threat to the self is low

/SPAN>Self-initiated learning is the most lasting and pervasive.

Experiental Learning applies primarily to adult learners and has widely influenced other theories of adult learning s

To Rogers, experiential learning is equivalent to personal change and growth. Rogers feels that all human beings have a natural propensity to learn; the role of the teacher is to facilitate such learning. This includes:

nsetting a positive climate for learning,

nclarifying the purposes of the learner(s),

norganizing and making available learning resources,

nbalancing intellectual and emotional components of learning

n sharing feelings and thoughts with learners but not dominating.

According to Rogers, learning is facilitated when:

/SPAN>the student participates completely in the learning process and has control over its nature and direction

/SPAN>it is primarily based upon direct confrontation with practical, social, personal or research problems

/SPAN>self-evaluation is the principal method of assessing progress or success. Rogers also emphasizes the importance of learning to learn and an openness to change.

For example,  person interested in scuba diving might seek out books or classes on the subject.  Such an individual would perceive (and learn) any information provided on this subject in a much different fashion than a person who is assigned a reading or class.

More Key Concepts

nTransfer The learner抯 use of patterns of the 1^st language in second language production & the processes by which the learner抯 L1 interferes with the acquisition and use of an L2.  Transfer can be positive (beneficial) or negative (disruptive)

nInterference is essentially negative transfer whereby previously learned material interferes with subsequent material and learning

nOvergeneralization describes errors that occur as a result of trying to use a rule in the context where it does not belong ?e.g. a regular past-tense morpheme 揺d?ending on an irregular verb ?goed for went, buyed for bought

Inductive/Deductive Reasoning

Attitudes and Intelligence

THE   END
Lecture 4
Second Language Acquisition
Dr. Robert Schwab, TESOL at Hanyang University, 2002