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Behaviorist Theory

Behaviorism is a school of psychology that focuses on objectively measurable behaviors and reactions to stimuli, without considering conscious experience. John Watson established behaviorism, believing all human and animal actions are learned behaviors. Ivan Pavlov's dog experiments demonstrated classical conditioning, where a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a response. B.F. Skinner expanded on this with operant conditioning, where rewards reinforce responses. In the 1950s-60s, behaviorism was applied to language learning, establishing the behaviorist theory of second language acquisition. This led to the audiolingual method using drills and repetition for habit formation. However, it did not achieve desired communication results and was replaced after Chomsky rejected behaviorism's view of language as learned

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327 views2 pages

Behaviorist Theory

Behaviorism is a school of psychology that focuses on objectively measurable behaviors and reactions to stimuli, without considering conscious experience. John Watson established behaviorism, believing all human and animal actions are learned behaviors. Ivan Pavlov's dog experiments demonstrated classical conditioning, where a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a response. B.F. Skinner expanded on this with operant conditioning, where rewards reinforce responses. In the 1950s-60s, behaviorism was applied to language learning, establishing the behaviorist theory of second language acquisition. This led to the audiolingual method using drills and repetition for habit formation. However, it did not achieve desired communication results and was replaced after Chomsky rejected behaviorism's view of language as learned

Uploaded by

Jenipher Abad
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Have you ever heard about behaviorist theory applied as a strategy for Second Language

Acquisition (SLA)?

Before giving you an insight into the topic of this week’s Video Fix ‘Behaviorist Theory of
Second Language Acquisition’, let’s start with Merriam-Webster’s definition of behaviorism
(also known as behavioral psychology): it is […] a school of psychology that takes the objective
evidence of behavior (such as measured responses to stimuli) as the only concern of its research
and the only basis of its theory without reference to conscious experience […]

Historically John B. Watson is recognized as the father of behaviorism. Behavioral psychology


in general believes that all actions of humans and animals are learned behaviors which can be
learned and unlearned.

It was Ivan Pavlov who investigated classical conditioning with his experiment using dogs: he
rang a bell every time he fed the dogs, teaching them to associate the sound of the bell with food.
As a result the dogs salivated every time the bell rang, whether there was food or not. Thus
Pavlov discovered a process in which a previously neutral stimulus came to provoke a specific
response by being repeatedly paired with another stimulus that evoked the response.

Eventually the American psychologist Burrhus F. Skinner expanded classical conditioning to


the so-called operant conditioning. According to this theory, if a reward or reinforcement
follows the response to a stimulus, then the response will become more likely in the future.

In the 50s and 60s it became popular to apply behaviorism to all types of learning, including
language learning, which gave rise to the behaviorist theory of second language acquisition.
The most well-known teaching method that emerged from behaviorism was audiolingualism,
where repetitions and drills formed the basis of learning with the aim of habit formation.

Audiolingualism was widely introduced in schools across the U.S. and reached its peak in the
1960s. But, since the learning method did not achieve the desired results (for example, students
were unable to transfer the learned language skills to a real communication situation), it lost its
popularity quite quickly.

In the late 60s the American linguistic theory began to take a different direction. Part of the
reason for this change was Chomsky’s rejection of the behaviorist theory of language learning.
Chomsky said that language is not a habit structure, and argued that much of human language is
not imitated behavior, “but is created anew from underlying knowledge of abstract rules.”

After this short introductory explanation we invite you to watch the full video and find out
more about behaviorist theory and second language acquisition!

You might also be interested in some previous related posts:

 Cinema Fix: Is dubbing detrimental to language acquisition?


 The age factor in second language acquisition
 University Language Centres: new resources and methods for language learning (and
self-learning) purposes
 Video fix: How to Learn a Second Language Faster
 Video fix: Why you should play an instrument and learn a foreign language

Written by Iris Rinner – Terminology trainee at the Terminology Coordination Unit of the


European Parliament, BA in Modern Foreign Languages and Cultures from the University of
Sassari and MA in Specialized Translation from the University of Vienna.

Sources:

 Culatta, Richard (2015) Behaviorist Learning Theory, Available at: http://bit.ly/2jxr4aN


(Accessed 23 May, 2017)
 Kendra Cherry (2016) An Overview of Behavioral Psychology, Available at:
http://bit.ly/2mOkKeD (Accessed 23 May, 2017)
 Merriam-Webster, Available at http://bit.ly/2qRnZ7J (Accessed 23 May, 2017)
 Jack C. Richards, Theodore S. Rodgers (2014) Approaches and Methods in Language
Teaching. Third Edition, Cambridge University Press, Available at: http://bit.ly/2qfTRkr
(Accessed 23 May, 2017)

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