Second Language Learning Theories

What makes for a good theory?

We need to understand SLL better than we do, for two basic reasons:

1. Because improved knowledge in this particular domain is interesting in itself, and can also
contribute to more general understanding about the nature of language, of human learning and
of intercultural communication, and thus about the human mind itself, as well as how all these
are interrelated and affect each other.

2. Because the knowledge will be useful. If we become better at explaining the learning
process, and are better able to account for both success and failure in SLL, there will be a
payoff for millions of teachers, and tens of millions of students and other learners, who are
struggling with the task.

We can pursue a better understanding of SLL in an organized and productive way if our efforts
are guided by some form of theory. A theory is a more or less abstract set of claims about the
units that are significant within the phenomenon under study, the relationships that exist
between them and the processes that bring about change. Thus, a theory aims not just at
description but also at explanation.

A description, on the other hand, involves picture of something, often focusing on its
appearance, characteristics, or qualities.

An explanation is a statement or account that makes something clear or understandable, often

by providing reasons

Theories may be Embryonic and restricted in scope, or more elaborate, explicit and
comprehensive.

Example: Krashen talked about comprehensible input hypotheses at first it was a good theory,
suggested good idea that learning cannot occur without comprehensible input but later Michael
H Long said that input is necessary but it is not enough learner needs interact to make input
activate so the theory became explicit and elaborate, then Swain talked about output
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hypotheses and said that productivity and modifying output is necessary so the input will be
dynamic. These three hypotheses join together and theory became elaborate.

The interaction hypothesis is a theory of second-language acquisition which states that the
development of language proficiency is promoted by face-to-face interaction and
communication. Its main focus is on the role of input, interaction, and output in second
language acquisition.

The Output Hypothesis is proposing that in order to increase learners' English proficiency,
they need to generate output, to be specific, produce language via speech or writing and receive
feedback on the comprehensibility of their output

*A property theory will be concerned with modelling the nature of the language system that is
to be acquired

Example: we try to describe what is the nature of language? what language consist of? It
consists of phonological system, semantic, syntax …. such as UG theory. The theory of
Universal Grammar, as proposed by Chomsky, posits that certain grammatical structures and
rules are innate to all human languages. This concept, despite the apparent differences between
languages, suggests a deep and underlying structure that is universal across all languages.

*A transition theory will be concerned with modelling the change or developmental processes
of language acquisition.so the theory that deal with are transition theory. Such as interaction
hypotheses.

Theories are produced collaboratively, it means that sometimes a good theory is the result of
collaboration of different scholars and evolve through a process of systematic enquiry, it
means that it is empirical investigation, in which the claims of the theory are assessed against
some kind of evidence or data. This may take place through a process of hypothesis testing
through formal experiment, or through more ecological procedures, where naturally occurring
data are analyzed and interpreted.

In systematic enquiry, in empirical investigation we control condition but in ecological

procedure we don’t have any control, it is natural occurrence of phenomenon.

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The process of theory building is reflexive: new developments in the theory lead to the need
to collect new information and explore different phenomena and different patterns in the
potentially infinite world of ‘facts' and data. Puzzling 'facts', and patterns which fail to fit in
with expectations, lead to new theoretical insights.

Reflexive means additive it means there is no end to knowledge it is like a research. knowledge
is generative so research is generative too by answering one question in research other question
will arise

Evaluation of theories depends on:

*Clear and explicit statements of the ground the theory is supposed to cover, and the claims
it is making. Claims also need to be clear and explicit.

*Systematic procedures for confirming or disconfirming the theory, through data gathering
and interpretation: a good theory must be testable or falsifiable in some way.

Can we prove a theory? the answer is no why? because the researcher is just one individual
and face with a lot of limitation and similar cases that can’t be assess by researcher.so every
theory can’t be proved but can be falsifiable. Theory can be wrong when researcher face
just one opposite case.

Example: every swans in the world are white. But later they find one black swan in Africa.
the idea will have rejected all swans are not white.so a systemic procedure needs to
confirming or disconfirming a theory.so a good theory must be testable or falsifiable.

*Not only descriptions of second-language phenomena, but attempts to explain why they
are so, and to propose mechanisms for change.

Example: structuralism in linguistic had property of description, they only describe what
phonemes are? what words are? what phrase are?

*Engagement with other theories in the field, and serious attempts to account for at least
some of the phenomena that are 'common ground' in ongoing public discussion (Long,
1990a).

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Views on the nature of language: Competence and Performance:

Two important issues in 20th century: Should researchers be involved in the collection and
analysis of actual samples of language in use; for example, by recording and analyzing people's
speech? Or, should it be to theorize underlying principles and rules that govern language
behavior, in its potentially infinite variety?

These are two important question the first one is that do researcher collect and analyzed people
speech?

The second one, do researcher look for rules underlying language production and
understanding?

Chomsky argued that it is the business of theoretical linguistics to study and model underlying
language competence, rather than the performance data of actual utterances that people have
produced. Competence involves “knowing” the language and performance involves “doing”
something with the language. The difficulty with this construct is that it is very difficult to
assess competence without assessing performance. Competence is the knowledge one has of
a language (in terms of phonology, syntax, morphology etc.) whereas performance is the
ability to use that knowledge.

Competence is our passive knowledge which is not observable we don’t have direct access the
competence so we should find an indirect access to competence, therefore, we have to analyze
performance as an indirect way to get to the competence.

Performance is what we observed and competence consists of principle and rules which are to
be extracted, explained and described. competence was important for Chomsky because it is
the place of principles and rules.

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 views of scholars

Behaviorism: Behaviorism psychology started by Pavlov and experiment by dog it was

Classical conditioning.

Classical conditioning theory says that behaviors are learned by connecting a neutral stimulus
with a positive one, such as when Pavlov's dogs heard a bell (neutral) and expected food
(positive).

Operant conditioning: Classical conditioning develops by Skinner and develop into operant
conditioning it was based on experiment with animals and associated with stimulus and
response and reinforcement learning happen through habits. Operant conditioning, sometimes
called instrumental conditioning or Skinnerian conditioning, is a method of learning that uses
rewards and punishment to modify behavior. Through operant conditioning, behavior that is
rewarded is likely to be repeated, while behavior that is punished is prone to happen less.

John Broadus Watson pioneered the behaviorist sub discipline of psychology. Watson's
theory was that the behaviors of humans and other organisms is what should be focused on in
psychology rather than internal processes, such as thoughts and feeling.

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Chomsky view point: language learning is more complex than just stimuli and response. there
should be some abstract mechanism at work and base on theses abstract mechanism which are
not observable we cannot claim that behavior takes place.

1-There are infinitive number of sentences in one language and children begin to speak when
they are 3 years old and this is a short time for learning all kind of learning.

2-children are resident to correction They don’t repeat what their parents say.

3-children expose to poverty of stimulus .it means that language that is spoken around the
children is imperfect and there are a lot of incomplete structure but the output is perfect. Input
is incomplete but output is complete.

As a result, children should have born with innate ability, they born by principle of language
and need parameters which they expose to them.

Principles and parameters are both parts of Universal Grammar (UG) but whereas principles
are general ('fundamental principles'), i.e. not language-specific but common to all languages,
parameters have to be set during language acquisition to a language-specific value (compare
Meisel 1995).

Chomsky talked something between input and output which is mind, and there should be a
device which children learn first language and this devise is LAD. LAD is a language
acquisition device and it is located in the brain.

The language learning process: Nature and nurture

How much of human learning derives from innate predispositions, that is, some form of
genetic pre-programming, and how much of it derives from social and cultural experiences
that influence us as we grow up? Nature states that a child is born with genetic inheritance.
Nurture is the result of outside influences after the child is born, e.g. exposure and experience
in learning. The nativist theory defends that all children are born with the ability to develop
language skills and to organize them within the grammatical rules of their native language.
Language is innate to the individuals and part of the human experience.

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Problems with this view

Language performance data are believed to be imperfect reflections of competence, partly

because of the processing complications that are involved in speaking or other forms of
language production, and which lead to errors and slips. More importantly, it is believed that,
in principle, the infinite creativity of the underlying system can never adequately be reflected
in a finite data. Many researchers of language competence believe it can be accessed only
indirectly, and under controlled conditions, through different types of tests such as
grammaticality judgment tests.

There is a lot of utterance that language user exposed to and they are asked to say whether the
sentence is acceptable or grammatical. this condition is controlled and its different from real
life situation so it is very difficult to completely accesses to competence of individuals,

Example: When you are under stressful situation al condition you are not able to represent
what is in your competence. people ae creative they can have produced a lot of utterance but
just some of them are materialized in each situation in different context.

Skinner

In Skinner's case, the mechanisms were those envisaged by general behaviorist learning
theory, copying and memorizing behaviors encountered in the surrounding environment.
Children could learn language by imitating the speech of their caretakers. He was of the idea
that a child has a mind that is more productive in studying observable behavior rather than
internal mental events. Behavior that is followed by pleasant consequences is possible to be
repeated, and behavior that is not acceptable by unpleasant penalties or punishment is unlikely
to be repeated. Thus, language is learned through imitation and through rewards from parents.
The strength of this theory is imitation.

Stimuli --------response------------association------------repetition------------reinforcement

That is operant conditioning.

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Chomsky

Chomsky argued consistently that human language is too complex to be learnt in its entirety,
from the performance data actually available to the child. We must have some innate
predisposition to expect natural languages to be organized in particular ways and not others.
For example, all natural languages have word classes, such as Noun and Verb, and grammar
rules that apply to these word classes. It is this type of information which Chomsky doubts
children could discover from scratch; in the speech they hear around them. He argues that there
must be some innate core of abstract knowledge about language form, which pre-specifies a
framework for all natural human languages. This core of knowledge is currently known as
Universal Grammar.

How does the nature-nurture debate affect SLL theories?

If humans are given an innate predisposition for language then perhaps they should be able to
learn as many languages as they need or want to, provided that the time, possibilities and
motivation are available. The Environmental possibilities for SLL differ systematically from
first-language learning, except where infants are raised in multilingual surroundings.

Should we be aiming to reproduce the natural possibilities of first-language learning as far as

possible for the SLL student?

This was a fashionable view in the 1970s, but one which downplayed some very real social
and psychological blocks. In the last 30 years, there has been a closer and more critical
examination of 'environmental 'factors which seem to influence SLL. In cognitivism they
believed that mind plays major role in language acquisition.

The Learning Theory of Cognitivism concentrates on how a person's mind receives, organizes,
saves and retrieves information. The cognitive theory believes that the human mind functions
like an information processor or computer. Cognitive theory suggests that the human mind is
like a computer that is constantly processing and encoding data. According to cognitive theory,
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when a person experiences stimuli, their minds will look toward prior schema (or internal
frameworks created by memories) to help them understand this information.

Generativist believed that language consist of certain rules and principles and their number is
limited and finite. this is why in a short time children are able to mater. And they can combine
and produced infinitive number of sentences for different purpose. According to researchers
working in the generativist paradigm, language acquisition is guided by an innate language-
specific learning device (Universal Grammar) which is activated by exposure to input and
requires little or no negative evidence in the form of feedback from interlocutors or instruction.
The principle of generativist includes:

*Generativity: A finite set of rules can generate an infinite number of sentences.

*Explicitness: The rules used in Generative Grammar are explicit, providing unambiguous
descriptions of sentences' structure.

*Universality: It seeks to identify universal principles that apply to all human languages.

The nativist approach was put forward by Noam Chomsky, stating that children's brains
contain a Language Acquisition Device which holds the grammatical universals. This theory
came about as children have been observed to pick up grammar and syntax without any formal
teaching (in spoken language).