'Mother Tongue and Foreign Language Learning Essay\r'

'These five basic theories atomic number 18, further more(prenominal), genuinely much complementary to each(prenominal) opposite, serving disparate types of turn backers or representing various cases of phrase training. They moldiness non automatically authorise us presume that commencementum and second lecture study atomic number 18 undistinguishable or alike transitiones, though second address cultivation is strongly tied up with starting time language accomplishment. Obviously, native language vexth moldinessiness pave the bearing for foreign language growth. then these five basic language larn theories be funda cordial pillars of language realiseing whose relevance to development is undeniable.\r\nThe Principle of the behaviouristicic Theory The behaviourist system believes that â€Å"infants experience viva voce language from other piece role models through a go involving imitation, rewards, and practice. mankind macrocosms role models in a n infant’s milieu provide the stimuli and rewards,” (Cooter & Reutzel, 2004). When a child attempts literal language or imitates the sounds or speech patterns they be usually praised and given spunk for their efforts. Thus, praise and friendship becomes the rewards. However, the behaviouristicic possibility is scrutinized for a variety of reasons.\r\nIf rewards mutation such a vital component in language development, what about the parent who is inattentive or non present when the child attempts speech? If a baby’s language reading is propel strictly by rewards would the speech attempts stop further for lack of rewards (Cooter & Reutzel, 2004)? Other cases against this possibleness take on â€Å" training the use and meaning of abstract devises, licence of novel forms of language not modeled by others, and uniformity of language achievement in humanity” (Cooter & Reutzel, 2004).\r\nThe Background of the behaviouristic Theory I) Behaviorist opening dwells on speak language. That is, primary mass medium of language is oral: speech is language because at that en consecrate are many languages without written forms, because we learn to intercommunicate before we learn to read and write. Then, language is in the main what is spoken and secondarily what is written. That’s why spoken language must have a pri¬ority in language tenet. 2)Behaviorist conjecture is the costume formation theory of language teaching and learning, reminding us the learning of structural grammar.\r\nLanguage learning concerns us by â€Å"not problem-solving but the in¬formation and performance of habits” (Nelson Brooks, 1960; 46-47). In other words, language learning is a automatonlike process leading the learners to habit formation whose cardinal scheme is the conditioned reflex. Thus it is definitely full-strength that language is controlled by the con¬sequences of behavior. 3)The comment- respon se chain, Response, is a comminuted ease of learn. Behaviorist learning theory â€Å"emphasizes conditioning and building from the simplest conditioned responses to more and more building complex behaviors” (David S.\r\nPalermo, 1978; 19-20). This comes to mean that clauses and sentences are learned linearly as longer and lon¬ger stimulation-response chains, produced in a left-to right serial publication of sequence like as probabilistic incidents, which are basically Markov’s processes. Each stimulus is then thc caser of a response, and each response becomes the inciter of a stimulus, and this process goes on and on in this way. 4) All learning is the organic law of habits as the get out of rein¬forcement and reward. Positive reinforcement is reward eon negative reinforcement is punishment.\r\nIn a stimulus situation, a response is exer¬ted, and if the response is positively augment by a reward, then the association mingled with the stimulus and resp onse is itself beef up and therefore the response will very likely be manipulated by every appearance of stimulus. The aftermath will leave conditioning. When responses to stimuli are coherently reinforced, then habit formation is established. It is be¬cause of this fact that this theory is termed habit-formation-by-reinfor¬cement theory. 5) The learning, due to its socially-conditioned nature, wad be the kindred for each individual.\r\nIn other words, each person can learn equally if the conditions in which the learning takes issue are the alike(p) for each person. The behavioristic theory believes that â€Å"infants learn oral language from other human role models through a process involving imitation, rewards, and practice. tender role models in an infant’s environs provide the stimuli and rewards,” (Cooter & Reutzel, 2004). When a child attempts oral language or imitates the sounds or speech patterns they are usually praised and given affection for their efforts. Thus, praise and affection becomes the rewards.\r\nHowever, the behaviorist theory is scrutinized for a variety of reasons. If rewards looseness of the bowels such a vital component in language development, what about the parent who is inattentive or not present when the child attempts speech? If a baby’s language learning is motivated strictly by rewards would the speech attempts stop still for lack of rewards (Cooter & Reutzel, 2004)? Other cases against this theory implicate â€Å"learning the use and meaning of abstract words, shew of novel forms of language not modeled by others, and uniformity of language acquisition in macrocosm” (Cooter & Reutzel, 2004).\r\nBehaviorist theory, which is basically a psychological theory in its essence, founded by J. B. Watson, is actually a theory of native language learning, advanced in part as a reaction to traditional grammar. The supporters of this theory are Leonard Bloomfield, O. N. Mowrer, B . F. Skinner, and A. W. Staats. Behaviorism was advanced in America as a immature preliminary to psychology in the early decades of the 20th-century by qualification a particular emphasis on the magnificence of verbal behavior, and received a considerable trust from the educational world of 1950s.\r\nThe major principle of the behaviorist theory rests on the analyses of human behavior in observable stimulus-response interaction and the association between them. E. L. T. Thorndike was the initiatory behaviorist to explore the area that learning is the establishment of associations on particular process of behavior and consequences of that behavior. Basically, â€Å"the behaviorist theory of stimulus-response learning, particularly as developed in the operant conditioning model of Skinner, considers all learning to be the establishment of habits as a result of reinforcement and reward” (Wilga Rivers, 1968, 73).\r\nThis is very reminiscent of Pavlov’s experiment whic h indicates that stimulus and response work together. harmonize to this category, the babies obtain native language habits via varied babblings which check the appropriate words repeated by a person or object near him. Since for his babblings and mutterings he is rewarded, this very reward reinforces further articulations of the same physique into grouping of syllables and words in a equivalent situation.\r\nIn this way, he goes on emitting sounds, groups of sounds, and as he grows up he combines the sentences via generalizations and analogy (as in *goed for went, *doed, for did, so on), which in some complicated cases, condition him to air errors by articulating in permissible structures in speech. By the age of five or six, or babblings and mutterings grow into socialized speech but little by little they are internalized as implicit speech, and thus many of their utterances become indistinguishable from the adults.\r\nThis, then, obviously, meat that behaviorist theory is a t heory of stimulus-response psychology. â€Å"Through a trial-and-error process, in which acceptable utterances are reinforced by comprehension and approval, and un acceptable utterances are suppress by the lack of reward, he gradually learns to make finer and finer discriminations until his utterances approximate more and more closely the speech of the community in which he is growing up (Wilga M. Rivers, 1968; 73).\r\nTo put it in other words, children develop a natural affinity to learn the language of their social adjoins whose importance both(prenominal) over language learning and teaching must never be underestimated. In this respect behaviorist theory stresses the fact that â€Å"human and zoology learning is a process of habit formation. A exceedingly complex learning task, according to this theory may be learned by being worried’ down into smaIl habits. These are formed correct or incorrect responses, are rewarded or, punished, respectively ‘.\r\n(Hubbard Jones and Thornton Wheeler, 1983; 326). Thus it is finish off that the acquisition of learning in infancy is governed the acquisition of other habits. Basic Tenents of Behaviorist Theory The interest principles illustrate the operating principles of behaviouristic psychology: Counterarguments on Behaviorist Theory of Language study Needless to say, language teaching anticipates certain theories on language learning because language learning as a fruitful area that embodies the working of human behavior and mental processes of the learners.\r\nEach theory may not be complete model for the investigation of language learning. The future(a) counter-arguments can be do upon the working principles of behaviorist theory: 1) Basic strategies of language learning at bottom the scope of behaviorist theory are imitation, reinforcement, and rewarding. However, researches made on the acquisition of learning have present that children’s imitation of structures show evidence of cl ose no innovation; moreover children â€Å"vary easily in the amount that they imitate” (L.\r\nM. Bloom, L. Hood, and P. L. Lightbown, 1974; 380-420). Since children do not imitate such structures like words, phrases, clauses and sentences at the same rate they will naturally learn at different rates even though it must be admitted that imitation is very useful in the acquisition of new vocabulary items. As for reinforcement, â€Å" alas this view of learning receives little support from the usable evidence” (Herbert H. Clark and Eve V.\r\nClark, 1977; 336), for the parents only correct the stress structures, and complex structures are occasionally corrected. 2) In behaviorist theory, the process of learning relies more on generalization, rewarding, conditioning, deuce-ace of which support the development of analogical learning in children. But it can be argued that a process of learning or teaching that encourages the learner to spend a penny phrases, clauses and sentences modeled on previously moldtled forget me drug of rules and drills is thought to obstruct the instinctive production of language.\r\nThen, habit formation exercises may not naturally rear inalienableally oriented language learning. 3) Obstructions made on instinctively-based learning will doubtedlessly harm the creative way of learning. It takes a long time to be commensurate enough to master a language at least a bit intrinsically. There is a doorstep level in language learning. This pith that learners must learn consciously supported by repetition and drilling to build up an impelling linguistic intuition, acquisition of which marks the establishment of threshold level.\r\nBefore obtaining the threshold level, the language learner is not creative, cannot use the language properly in new situations in a real sense. it is, then, obvious that the intrinsic learning will be delayed, owing to the Iate acquisition of threshold level because of previously settled set of rules and drills. 4) The rate of social influence on learning is not satisfactorily explained. To what extent and rate, does the social surrounding promote language learning? This question trunk unexplained.\r\n5) 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 patters in language. 6) The main strategies of the behaviorist theory can only be authoritative for the early stages of learning which takes place when the kids are in infancy and in early childhood periods.\r\nMoreover, this theory is fruitful for the most part on animal experimentation and learning. 7) Many of the learning processes are in general similarly complex, and for t his reason there are interfere variable s, which cannot be observed between stimulus and response. â€Å"That’s why, language acquisition cannot take place through habit formation, since language learners are propel between stimulus and response chain, for language is too far complicated to be learned in such a matter, especially given the legal brief time available. CONCLUSION\r\nIt is clear that language learning and its development, for the behaviorists, is a matter of conditioning by means of imitation, practice, reinforcement, and habituation, which constitute the paces of language acquisition. It must be innate(p) in mind that all behavioristic theories of learning are associationistic, including Thorndike’s, Guthrie’s, Hull’s, Skinner’s, and the theory of the schooling of functionalism. Apparently, behaviorism has its shortcomings, but it cannot be denied that learning process is for the most part a behavioristic processing, a verbal beha vior.\r\nIn language teaching area, behaviorism establishes the basic background of exercises, either oral or written in viewing language as stimulus and response. In addition, it gives a great spread over of insight into the recognition of the use of controlled observation to endanger the laws of behavior. It has exerted a great impact by influencing many teaching methods on the area of language teaching, for example, Audiolingual Method, replete(p) Physical Response, and Silent Way embody the behaviorist view of language; also, British Structuralism has created the theory of language called Situational Language doctrine.\r\nIn a word behaviorist theory aims at discovering behavioral justifications for aim language teaching in certain ways, being a hub a of many language teaching and learning theories. It must not be forget that it has given a push for the creation of empiricist language learning which became very fashionable in U . S. A. and in Europe. BIBLlOGRAPHY Bloom, L. M. (1974). â€Å"Imitations in Language Development: If, When, and why”, â€Å"Cognitive psychological science”, pp. 380-420. Brooks, Nelson (1960).\r\nâ€Å"Language and Language Learning”. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World. Clark, Herbert and Eve Clark (1977). â€Å"Language and Psychology: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics”. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich. Jones, Hubbard and Thornton Wheeler (1983). ” A Training Course for TEFL”. Oxford University Press. Palermo, David S. (1978). â€Å"Psychology of Language”. Dallas: Scott, Foresman and Co. Rivers, M. Wilga (1968). â€Å"Teaching Foreign Language Skills”. Chicago: Chicago University Press.\r\n'