Researcher on Principles of Language Learning

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0 Principles

10 Basic Principles of Active Learning

These are not the only “10 Basic Principles” but they give a good idea of what Active
Learning is about. The role of the adult is a facilitator, providing the environment,
making sure toys are accessible to the learner’s hands and feet, and not involved in the
act of playing until the end or invited.

1. Every One Can Learn

Lilli has met a very few learners that could not learn – they were dying. Unless impacted
by survival, every child and older learner can learn. It is up to the parent, therapist or
educator to keep finding the right situation/environment with enough support,
responsiveness and interest to engage the learner.

2. Active Learning is Hands Off

Challenged learners often act passive and are treated as passive (everything is done for
them). Active Learning involves creating supportive and responsive environments that
are tuned to entice a learner to become active. When Lilli realized that blind and
disabled learners often resisted any “guided hands” approach, she set about to create
environments and situations that would increase a learner’s inclination to explore on
their own. This means the “teacher” must disengage and not talk nor prompt until the
activity is concluded. Kids learn through repetition (see #8)- don’t interrupt them.

3. Auditory and Tactile Primacy

Learners with vision impairments and neurological deficits rely upon hearing as a
primary sense. Vision tends to be secondary, owing to control and processing
difficulties. Tactile sense is also a prominent sense.

4. Responsive Environment, Short Sessions

The environment should provide excellent auditory and tactile feedback (not just
stimulation). Use of the Resonance Board provides key vibratory input. The Essef Board
provides optimal reaction to leg movements. The Little Room provides a warm inviting
echo and exploration chamber. As Lilli says, “if the child cannot go to the room, the
room must come to the child.” Many short sessions are better than one long one,
especially when first using an environment.

5. Mix Variety and Constancy, Provide Comparisons

As anyone does, a learner benefits from moderated variety. That is, don’t change
everything every time, but provide enough variation so that the environment has
interest. Also, provide “alike but different” objects to invite comparison. Cycling through
a large inventory of objects/toys allows for a rich, constantly interesting environment.
Change some of the objects whenever the learner shows habituation to the objects
available.

6. Work up to Weight Bearing

Given the discomfort of bearing weight, provide support until the learner has some
control, and slowing increase the weight load. The Support Bench and HOPSA Dress
are used to control weight on the legs. Start with no weight, toes barely touching.

7. Emotional Development Involves Mastery

It’s that smile of accomplishing something, doing something to their environment, rather
than the environment doing it to them that fosters a critical step in emotional
development. Related to the Active vs. Passive learning, that “ see what I can do” smile
is a crucial goal.

8. Learning is by Repetition – Allow to fail

Kids learn by repetition. They must do something over and over to invoke memory and
get the variations to make sense. Therefore, allowing them to have negative results
without intervention (e.g. without moving an object into their hand as they miss on a
reach) is as important as not interrupting with any cheerleading.

9. Talk and Reward at the End of Play

At the end of play is the time for the adult input, the language and commentary to
describe what the learner was doing, and to positively reinforce their activity. Point at
and jiggle the objects and talk about what they did. Ask questions and use short
sentences. When a learner is ready and can engage in turn-taking games, then a new
level has been achieved.

10. Limit Input, Wait for Response

As a general principle, remember that neurologically impacted learners usually need
more time to take in, process and assemble a response. If you ask a question, remain
quiet as long as possible before asking something again, and try not to supply their
answer without some sign. This is always subject to judgment, as after a while the
question may be forgotten. Repeat using the exact same words, so additional
processing to understand new input is not needed.

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Design Principles of Active Learning Equipment

The basic principles involved in designing the Active Learning environments are:

Feedback
The environment must supply strong responses in multiple modes (auditorily, tactically,
visually).
Support
The child must be supported so as not to be in pain, typically not bearing weight on their
legs fully or even partially.

Richness
Related to feedback, the environment must be thick with objects so that minor actions
are rewarded with feedback.

Variety
However rich and responsive the environment is, it must be changed periodically—
probably more often than we are inclined to think.

LilliWorks Active Learning Foundation is a primary source of information on Active

Learning (AL) and the sole source of Active Learning equipment authorized by Dr. Lilli
Nielsen in North America.
Contact: LilliWorks Active Learning Foundation · 2517 Blanding Ave. · Alameda, CA
94501 · 510.814.9111 · Fax: 510.814.3941 · [email protected]

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Why Is It Important for Language Teachers to Be Language Learners?

For the reasons stated above, the focus of this book is frequently on language learning as much
as on language teaching. To become increasingly effective as a language teacher, you must
understand as much as possible about how the process of language learning works and what it
feels like. Therefore, as you embark on your career as a language teacher, you also need to
either continue or begin your career as a language learner. Given that this point is not normally
emphasized in books on language teaching, we make this argument in some detail here. There
are at least four main reasons language teachers should also be language learners.

1. Personal experience: The first and perhaps most obvious reason is that the more experience
you have as a language learner, the more you will know about what does and doesn’t work in
language learning. Decisions you as a language teacher make about what you require of
students will have a significant impact on how students invest their study and practice time, so
you must be sure that what you ask students to do will actually enhance their language
learning. One of the best ways to assess the effectiveness of a given method is by trying it out
yourself. Granted, what works for one person may not always be effective for another, so your
personal experience as a language learner does not provide a perfect guide for what will benefit
students, but it certainly provides a very good start. Furthermore, as you try different
approaches and methods in your own language learning, your bag of language learning ideas
and tricks will gradually fill, and you will have more alternatives to offer to students when they
need to try something new.

2. More effective encouragement: A second reason your ongoing experience as a language

learner will enhance your language teaching is that it will deepen your understanding of what it
feels like to try to learn a new language. As we argue, language learning is a battle of the heart
as much as of the mind, and your ability to empathize with students—to know how they feel—
is the first step toward knowing how to more effectively encourage and motivate them (not to
mention knowing how to avoid overwhelming them).

3. Conviction: Let us tentatively suggest that a third important benefit of language study has do
with the level of conviction underlying your teaching. Novice teachers (NTs) may have only
limited experience with foreign language study themselves, and many—especially those from
English-speaking nations—have not achieved a significant level of proficiency in a foreign
language. In fact, some NTs’ primary takeaway from high school or college foreign languages
classes is that language study can be hard work. Rubin and Thompson (1994) make the
interesting observation that “if an individual’s first experiences with a foreign language were
not particularly pleasant or successful, he or she will tend to expect the next language learning
experience to be just as stressful and unfruitful as the first” (p. 8). It would seem reasonable to
assume that negative language study experiences could color one’s language teaching.
Teachers who have never experienced success or reward in language study may find it difficult
to be emotionally convinced that such success is possible, and they may not really expect
students to achieve a high degree of proficiency. These teachers may, in turn, communicate this
lack of expectation to students through teaching practices that focus more on grades than on
proficiency. We do not mean to suggest that someone who does not speak a foreign language
cannot be a good English teacher. We do suggest, however, that language teachers who have
never felt the rewards and successes of language learning may not have as much enthusiasm or
as strong a proficiency orientation as those who are at least beginning to experience those
rewards and successes in their own language study.

4. An equal exchange and mutual need: A final reason for you to be a language learner has to
do with the symbolic message that choosing to study the host language sends to your host
community. Presumably, one motivation for teaching English lies in a desire to build bridges of
understanding between people of different nations and cultures, and the growing role of
English as the world’s international language makes its mastery especially important in a world
brought ever closer together by globalization. However, the same dominant role of English and
its close association with globalization can make it a threat—symbolic or real—to other nations,
languages, and cultures. English may be seen as a symbol and driving force of world
homogenization or of the growing power of English-speaking nations. We believe this problem
makes it imperative for English teachers to be not merely advocates of the English language and
Western culture but rather ambassadors who believe in the value of all languages and cultures
and who promote the value of language and culture learning in general. If this is a message that
you as a teacher wish to embody in a convincing way, it is one you must practice as well as
preach. One of the most convincing ways to demonstrate respect for the value of languages
other than English is by actively making the effort to learn another language (and culture). One
additional symbolic advantage of studying the language of your host country is that it changes
the nature of your relationship with your host. If you arrive in your host country solely as a
knower and giver of the English language, your presence suggests an unequal exchange in
which you have gifts to bring but need nothing that the host country has to offer. If, on the
other hand, you arrive with the desire to learn as much as to teach, your presence suggests a
more equal exchange, a mutual need to both teach and learn. Though the primary function of
this book is to introduce you to the teaching of English, our hope is that you also read it as a
language learner, perhaps one about to embark on the study of a language you have not had
much previous experience with.

What Are Some Basic Principles of Language Learning?

Of the great many points one could make about language learning, we focus on four that
deserve special attention because they are central to communicative language teaching (CLT)
and because they are points that learners in EFL settings can easily lose sight of:

1. Language is a tool for communication,

2. learning a language involves mastery of both skill and knowledge,

3. learners need to give serious consideration to the impact of feelings on language study, and

4. learners vary considerably in their preferred approaches to learning.

Language Is a Tool for Communication

Perhaps the most fundamental reality of language learning is that language is a tool for
communication. As obvious as this point may seem, its implications are not always clear to
students. Remember that many students’ experience of English learning trains them to see
English as anything but a communication tool. The daily reality of English study for many
students is one of memorizing words and rules in preparation for a test and rarely involves
using English for communicative purposes. After years of this kind of non communicative study,
students often lose interest and begin to see language learning as an exercise geared toward
formal accuracy, especially on tests. When English is presented as a tool for establishing
communication with a new world, it is potentially more appealing. This communication can take
a variety of forms; it can mean sharing ideas face to face with someone from a foreign country
or gaining access to the knowledge embedded in the world’s vast library of material published
in English. Although learning any language opens new doors, English’s growing role as an
international language means it is now the language of publishing and speech for most
international communication; it is often used even by people from non-English-speaking
countries when they need to interact with people from other nations (Crystal, 2003). Learning
English means developing the ability to understand and interact with a universe that is largely
inaccessible to those who don’t know English. There are other reasons to focus on
communication in your teaching, one being that such a focus may make language teaching
easier for you and interesting for your students. Many aspects of language teaching may
initially seem unfamiliar and awkward to you; for example, most native speakers of English
don’t start out with a natural knack for explaining the rules of English grammar. However, it is
entirely natural for you to want to communicate with your students—and for them to want to
communicate with you. Though your English courses can’t and shouldn’t focus entirely on
“getting to know you” chats, they most definitely can and should harness the natural human
desire to communicate. You will generally find that the more often you can give students the
opportunity to communicate genuinely with you and each other in class, the more quickly you
will be comfortable in your new teaching role. Students must experience language as
communication as early as possible in their learning if they are to see language as a
communication tool and if they are to taste the thrill that mastery of a new language can entail.
In an English class, this means using speaking or writing practice as an opportunity for students
to share what they really think, feel, or believe. It also means that when students say or write
something, you should respond to the ideas expressed rather than only to the accuracy of the
language.

Building Skills Is as Important as Building Knowledge

A second important truth of language learning is that it requires mastery of a skill as much as
acquisition of knowledge. In other words, it is not enough for students to know word meanings
and structure rules; students need to be able to apply this knowledge quickly, even
automatically, to express themselves smoothly, read competently, and comprehend spoken
English rapidly. To build these skills, practice is necessary; study alone will not suffice Again, this
point might seem obvious, but remember the unintended lessons that many approaches to
language teaching leave students with. For many students, language learning has always been
about learning grammar rules and memorizing vocabulary to perform well on tests. Many
students have had little experience using English in actual conversation, and have not built the
speed and automaticity that can only be developed through repeated practice. Naturally,
students’ perceptions of the important parts of language learning are shaped by their
experience in language classes, and it is not surprising if students are inclined to neglect
practice in favor of study.

Language use has a heavy skill component, which demands that the user perform complex
operations accurately and quickly, and this has some important implications for the ways in
which students must learn:

1. Language learners need a lot of practice. To learn to speak well, students need to spend a lot
of time speaking; in order to learn to read quickly and effectively, they need to spend a lot of
time reading, and so forth. Almost all teachers would assent to this principle in theory, but in
many English classrooms, the teacher still talks most of the time. Sometimes this is because
teachers feel they need to dominate in order to maintain control in class; sometimes it is
because teachers feel that if they aren’t “teaching,” they aren’t really earning their pay. For
whatever reasons, stepping off the podium and giving students a chance to speak (read, write,
etc.) is more problematic than it may initially seem.

2. Language learners need repeated practice. One important concept related to language
learning is automaticity (Omaggio Hadley, 2001; Brown & Lee, 2015). The idea here is that
many language skills require a student to do many different things at the same time; for
example, speaking involves choosing words, applying grammar rules, and attending to
pronunciation and intonation— all while trying to decide what to say. A speaker cannot
consciously pay attention to all of these operations simultaneously, so some of them must be
practiced often enough that they can be performed automatically. It takes repeated practice to
learn to perform any skill smoothly and automatically, and language learning is no exception.
This point is important because students and teachers often unconsciously assume that their
job is to cover the material in the book and ensure students complete any related exercises.
Part of this unconscious assumption is that each point should only be covered one time and
that, once the material is covered, students should know it. (Among students who have
internalized this view of language learning, the protest that “We’ve done this already” is
expected to effectively veto an activity whether or not they have really learned the skill in
question.) The problem, of course, is that covering material in a textbook is often not enough to
allow learners to build necessary skills, and you may need to repeat activities several times
before students can use the new material automatically.
Language Learning Is a Battle of the Heart

A third fundamental reality of language learning is that feelings play a major role in language
study and need to be taken seriously in planning a successful language learning campaign. As
Ehrmann, Leaver, and Oxford (2003) put it, “It is at least as important to manage feelings as it is
to use more cognitive strategies, since negative feelings reduce the effectiveness of most
[language] learning activities. Appropriate self-efficacy promotes persistence in the face of
difficulty” (p. 319). Learners who have a strong desire to learn and who feel good about their
progress are far more likely to continue working hard in the long term.

One reason emotions play such an important role in language learning is that learning a foreign
language well involves a great deal of effort over a long period of time. The basic rules of
English grammar and a survival vocabulary can be learned within a few months, but mastering
the language takes much longer. Students need considerable practice to develop effective skills
in listening and speaking, not to mention reading and writing. It also takes a long time to amass
a sufficient vocabulary for reading texts and listening to speech (e.g., movies, television)
intended for native speakers. Finally, students can benefit from a good understanding of the
cultures of English. All of this is particularly difficult for students in an EFL environment to
achieve because they have few opportunities for practice and contact with Western culture.
The problem is especially severe for English students in places such as Asia, the Middle East,
and Africa whose native languages, writing systems, and cultures have little in common with
those of the English-speaking world and whose English study entails far more learning

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y ALEX BREEDEN

The Search for a Unified Theory of Language Learning

Language. It’s all around us. It’s vital for our everyday existence.
And yet many of us find it challenging to pick up a new one.

The problem, we tell ourselves, is that we’re thinking too hard.

The solution, we say, is to be more like those kids that we once were when we learned our first
language. Simply absorbing things the way kids do without really thinking about the language must surely
be our best bet, we convince ourselves.
But here’s the thing. We’re not kids anymore and we never will be again.

We’re not going to have the same opportunities as we did in our native language where we were in
constant contact with mothers, fathers and siblings who corrected our every mistake (though a girlfriend
or boyfriend might compensate). Nor do most of us want to spend 18 years of our lives studying a
language just to achieve high school level fluency.
We don’t need to abandon the lessons we’ve taken from childhood language learning, but we must surely
temper them with something else. And that thing is theory.

Theory, that most highly condensed form of thought based on principles and evidence, can help us as
adults to excel in language learning in ways that would otherwise not be possible.

Of course, learning about language learning theory in no way needs to occupy the bulk of your time. By
devoting just a fraction of your time to theory right now, you’ll reap benefits far beyond getting in an
extra 10 minutes of studying. So without further ado, let’s start at the beginning.
 

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7 Great Theories About Language Learning by Brilliant

Thinkers
Theories of language learning have been bandied about since about as far back as one would care to look.
It may be surprising to know that the problems that philosophers in Ancient Greece and 16th century
France were concerned about are largely still relevant today.

To get a quick rundown of early language learning theory, let’s take a quick look at the ideas of three
brilliant philosophers who you’ve probably already heard of.
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1. Plato’s Problem

The writings of Plato stretch all the way back to the beginnings of Western philosophical thought, but
Plato was already posing problems critical to modern linguistic discourse.

In the nature versus nurture debate, Plato tended to side with nature, believing that knowledge
was innate.
This was his answer to what has become known as Plato’s Problem, or as Bertrand Russell summarizes it:
“How comes it that human beings, whose contacts with the world are brief and personal and limited, are
nevertheless able to know as much as they do know?” Being born with this knowledge from the get-go
would naturally solve this little quandary and consequently he viewed language as innate.
2. Cartesian Linguistics, by Descartes
Centuries later, the French philosopher Descartes took a crack at linguistic philosophy. In his opinion,
language acquisition was a simple and easy process, barely worthy of his attention. Like Plato he believed
in the innateness of language because he thought it reflected the general rationality of human beings.
But rather than Descartes himself, it was the rationalist movement that he symbolized and that was
thriving in the time period when he lived that was most important for linguistics. This “Cartesian”
movement, according to Chomsky (who we’ll get to later), noted the creativity involved in everyday
language and presented the idea that there were universal principles behind every language.
3. Locke’s Tabula Rasa
Most people familiar with Locke’s philosophy have heard of his concept of tabula rasa, or the blank
slate.
To state it briefly and in a simplified manner, this is the idea that all knowledge comes from outside
ourselves through sensory experience rather than through innate knowledge that we have at birth. This
naturally carried over to language theory with Locke rejecting the idea that there was an innate logic
behind language.
Obviously these theories don’t touch too much on the practical, everyday level of language learning.
They’re far less detailed and more philosophical than the modern scientific theories we’re used to. But
they have important implications. If Plato and the Cartesians are right, then the emphasis in language
learning must lie on what we already know, using our innate abilities to come to an understanding of
the particularities of a specific language. If Locke is right, then we must focus our attention on sensory
input, gaining as much external input as possible.
In the practical, everyday world, all of this can easily be done with FluentU. FluentU takes real-world
videos with familiar formats—like movie trailers, music videos, news and inspiring talks—and turns them
into personalized language lessons.
4. Skinner’s Theory of Behaviorism
In the middle of the 20th century, B.F. Skinner took Locke’s ideas of sensory input and ran with them.
According to behaviorism, a radical variant of which was put forward by Skinner, all behavior is no
more than a response to external stimuli and there’s no innate programming within a human being
to learn a language at birth.
What differentiates Skinner from those who came before him is the level of detail he went into when
connecting behaviorism and language learning. In his concept of what he called “operant
conditioning,” language learning grew out of a process of reinforcement and punishment whereby
individuals are conditioned into saying the right thing. For instance, if you’re hungry and you’re able to
say “Mommy, I’m hungry,” you may be rewarded with food and your behavior will thereby be reinforced
since you got what you wanted.
To put it another way, Skinner described a mechanism for language learning that hadn’t existed before on
the tabula rasa side of the language acquisition debate. What this means for us as language learners,
should his theory be even partially true, is that a process of conditioning must be achieved for us to
succeed. When we say the right thing, we must be rewarded. When we say something incorrectly, that too
must be made clear. In other words, we need feedback to succeed as language learners.
5. Chomsky’s Universal Grammar

Around the same time as Skinner there came another linguistic powerhouse who would leave a lasting
impression on the field of linguistics. Namely, Noam Chomsky.

The theory that Chomsky proposed would be called Universal Grammar and it would assert nearly the
exact opposite of what Skinner had offered in his theory. Where Skinner saw all learning coming from
external stimuli, Chomsky saw an innate device for language acquisition. What Skinner understood to
be conditioning according to particular events Chomsky, understood to be the result of the universal
elements that structure all languages.

In fact, one of Chomsky’s major bones to pick with Skinner’s theory had to do with Plato’s problem, as
described above. After all, if Skinner is right, how is it that children can learn a language so quickly,
creating and understanding sentences they have never heard before?

Universal Grammar has been around for roughly a half a century by now, so it’s hardly the last word on
the subject. It has also received plenty of criticism. One critique that particularly concerns us is that it
may have little to do with learning a second language, even if it’s how we learn a first language. There are
certainly theories about applying this concept to organize syllabi for language learning, but this seems
unnecessarily complex for the average, independent learner.

In short, while Chomsky’s theory may be still be important in the linguistics field as part of an ongoing
discussion, it offers little help for learning a second language other than to provide you with the
confidence that the grammar for all languages is already inside your head. You just need to fill in the
particulars.

Over the past half century or so, a slew of other language learning theories have cropped up to try to deal
with the perceived flaws in Chomsky’s theory and to fill in the cracks for more specific areas of language
learning (i.e. areas of particular interest to us).
 Next up are two theories that, while not the philosophical bombshells like the ones listed above,
arguably have more of a practical edge.

6. Schumann’s Acculturation Model

John Schumann’s Acculturation Model describes the process by which immigrants pick up a new
language while being completely immersed in that language.
This theory doesn’t deal with the process of language learning as we normally think of it (such as how we
acquire grammar or listening skills), but rather focuses on social and psychological aspects that
influence our success.

For instance, an immigrant is more likely to acquire their new target language if their language and the
target language are socially equal, if the group of immigrants is small and not cohesive and if there is a
higher degree of similarity between the immigrant’s culture and that of their new area of residence.

The obvious takeaway is that language learning is not an abstract subject like physics that can be learned
out of a book regardless of the world around you. There are sociological factors at play, and the more we
do to connect with the culture on the other end of our second language, the faster and easier it will be for
us to learn that language.

7. Krashen’s Monitor Model

Stephen Krashen’s Monitor Model in fact consists of several distinct hypotheses which make up what is
probably the most cited theory in second language acquisition. There’s so much to take away from
Krashen’s theory that I’ll just let you peruse the link given for details and give a rundown of the
highlights here.
 Language acquisition is subconscious and results from informal, natural communication.
 Language learning is conscious and driven by error correction (more formal).
 Grammar structures are acquired in a predictable order.
 Language acquisition occurs with comprehensible input (i.e. hearing or reading things that are just
slightly above our current language level).
 A monitor is anything that corrects your language performance and pressures one to “communicate
correctly and not just convey meaning” (such as a language teacher who corrects you when you make a
grammatical mistake).

It should be noted that this is just Krashen’s theory. While this theory is quite popular, there has been
criticism and direct contradiction of certain parts of it (particularly his idea about the predictable order of
grammar structures). Still, it’s useful to get ideas for language learning.

This theory suggests that we should both strive to increase our second language inputs (like by watching
video clips on FluentU and going through books for reading) and make sure we receive proper error
correction in one form or another.
 

As this selection of important theories should make clear, the subset of linguistics which deals with
language learning is both wide and deep.

Some of it is highly theoretical and complex and is most relevant to scholars of the field. Other parts are
extremely zoomed in and tell us highly specific details about how to learn a language.

Regardless, it’s all connected.

By understanding more bits and pieces of it all, you’ll gradually begin to understand yourself and your
own language learning process better than ever before.
 

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And One More Thing…

Here’s another credible theory: Learning languages with fun videos can make the journey to fluency
faster and more enjoyable.

FluentU makes it possible to learn languages from music videos, commercials, news and inspiring
talks.

With FluentU, you learn real languages—the same way that natives speak them. FluentU has a wide
variety of videos like movie trailers, funny commercials and web series, as you can see here: