H. Douglas Brown's Principles of Language Learning and Teaching PDF

PRINCIPLES of LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING H. Douglas Brown San Francisco State University Principles of language learning and Teaching, Fifth Edition Copyright (S 200? by Pearson Education, Inc All nghcs reserved. No pan of this publication may be reproduced. stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted m any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise. without the prior peimi>sion of the publisher Pearson Education. 10 Bank Street. White Plains, MY 10606 Staff credits: The people who made up the Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, Fifth Edition team, representing editorial, production, design, ;ind manufacturing, are Danielle Belfiore. TraCev Munz Cataldo. Dave Dickev, Laura Lr Dr&in. and Melissa lewa Text design; Wendy Woir Text composition Laserwords Private Limited Text font. Garamond Library of Congress Cataioging-in Publication Data Brown, H Douglas, 1941-Principles of language learning and teaching / Douglas Drown.—5th ed p cm Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 0 13-199I28-0 (student book alk paper) 1. Language and languages—Study and teaching. 2 Language acquisition I Title P5J.B775 2006 416 0071-—dc22 2005027564 ISBN: 0-13-199128-0 Primed m the United States of America 6 7 8 9 10-RRD-IO 09 08 CONTENTS Preface to the Fifth Edition, xi Chapter 1 Language, Learning, and leaching Questions about Second Language Acquisition, 1 Learner Characteristics, 2 Linguistic: Factors, 2 Learning Processes, 2 Age and Acquisition, 2 Instructional Variables, 3 Context, 3 Purpose. 3 Rejoicing in Our Defeats, 3 Language, 5 Learning and Teaching, 7 Schools of Thought in Second Language Acquisition. 9 Structural Linguistics and Behavioral Psychology, 9 Generative Linguistics and Cognitive Psychology, U Constniaivisni: A M nit (disciplinary Approach, 12 Nineteen Centuries of Language Teaching. 15 Language Teaching in the Twentieth Century, 17 Topics and Questions for Study and Discussion, 19 Suggested Readings, 20 language Learning Experience: Journal Entry 1, 21 Guidelines for Entry 1,21 PARI I. AGE FACTORS Chapter 2 First language Acquisition Theories of First Language Acquisition, 25 Behavioral Approaches, 26 Challenges to Behavioral Approaches, 27 iv Contents The Naiivist Approach, 28 Challenges to Nauvist Approaches. 31 Functional Approaches. 33 Issues in Firs: Language Acquisition. 35 Competence and Performance, 35 Comprehension and Production, 39 Nature or Nurture'. 39 Universale, 40 Systematicity and Variability, 4 2 Language and Thought. 42 Imitation, 43 Practice and Frequency, 45 Input, 46 Discourse, 47 First Language Acquisition Insights Applied to Language Teaching, 48 Topics and Questions Jar Study and Discussion. 51 Suggested Readings, 52 language Learning Experience, journal Ltitry 2, 53 Chapter 3 Age and Acquisition Dispelling Myths, 54 Types of Comparison and Contrast, 56 The Critical Period Hypothesis, 57 Neurobiological Considerations. 58 Hemispheric Lateralization. 58 Biological Timetables. 59 Right-Hemispheric Participation, 60 Anthropological Evidence. 61 The Significance of Accent. 62 Cognitive Considerations. 65 Affective Considerations, 68 Linguistics Considerations. 71 Bilingual ism, 72 Interference Between First and Second Languages, 72 Order of Acquisition. 73 Issues in First Language Acquisition Revisited, 75 Competence and Performance. 75 Comprehension and Production, 7S Narure or Nurture', 76 LJniversals, 76 Systematicity and Variability, 76 Language and Thought, 77 Imitation, 77 Con fpfiW V Practice and Frequency. 77 Input, 78 Discourse, 78 Some "Age-and-Acquis it ion-Inspired" Language Teaching Methods, 78 Total Physical Response, 78 The Natural Approach, 79 Topics and Questions for Study and Discussion, 81 Suggested Readings, 82 language Learning Experience Journal Entry.1 83 PART n. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS Chapter 4 Human Learning 86 Learning and Training, 86 Pavlov's Classical Behaviorism, 87 Skinner's Operant Conditioning, #8 Ausubel's Subsumption Theory. 91 Kote vs. Meaningful Learning, 91 Systematic Forgetting, 94 Rogers's Humanistic Psychology, 97 Types of Learning, 99 Transfer, Interference, and Overgeneralization, 102 Inductive iind Deductive Reasoning, 104 Language Aptitude, 105 Intelligence and Language Learning, 107 Learning Theories in Action- Two Language Teaching Methods in Contrast, 110 The Audiolmgual Method, 111 Community Language Learning, 112 Topics and Questions for Study and Discussion, 11 H Suggested Readings. 115 Language Learning Experience. Journal Entry 4, 116 Chapter 5 Styles and Strategies 11 8 Process. Style, and Strategy. 118 Learning Styles, 119 Field Independence. 121 Left- and Right-Brain Dominance, 12T ArnbiguiLy Tolerance, 126 Reflectivity and Impulsivity, 127 Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic Styles. 129 vi t'pnfenls Autonomy, Awareness, and Aclion. 130 Strategies, 132 Learning Strategies, 133 Communication Strategies, 137 Avoidance Strategies, 137 Compensatory Strategies, 139 Strategies-Based Instruction, 140 Identifying Learners' Styles and Strategies, 133 Incorporating SBI into the language Classroom, 145 Stimulating Strategic Action Beyond the Classroom, 147 Topics and Questions for Study and Discussion, 148 Suggested Readings, 149 Language Learning Experience: journal Entry 5, 150 Chapter 6 Personality Factors The Affeciive Domain, 153 Affective Factors in Second Language Acquisition, 154 Self-Esteem, 154 Attribution Theory and Self-Efficacy, 156 Willingness to Communicate, 156 Inhibition, 157 Risk Taking, 160 Anxiety, 161 Empathy, 164 Extroversion, 166 Motivation, 168 Theories of Motivation, 168 Instrumental and Integrative Orientations, 170 Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation, 172 The Netirobiology of Affect. 175 Personality Types and language Acquisition. 176 Measuring Affective Factors, 179 Intrinsic Motivation in die Classroom, 180 Topics and Questions for Study and Discussion, 182 Suggested Readings, 184 Language Learning Experience: Journal Entr}' 0, 185 PART m. SOCIOCULTURAL FACTORS Chapter 7 Sociocultural Factors Culture: Definitions and Theories. 188 Stereotypes or Generalizations.'', 190 Aiiuudes, 192 Second Culture Acquisition, 193 Social Distance, 196 Teaching Intercultural Competence, 200 language Policy and Politics, 203 World Englishes, 204 ESL and EFL. 205 Linguistic Imperialism and Language Rights, 206 Language Policy and the "English Only" Debate, language. Thought, and Culture, 208 Framing Our Conceptual Universe, 208 The Whorfian Hypothesis, 211 Culture in the Language Classroom, 213 Topics and Questions for Study and Discussio}}, 214 Suggested Readings, 215 Language learning Experience Journal Entry 7, 217 Chapter 8 Communicative Competence Defining Communicative Competence. 218 language Functions, 223 Halliday's Seven Functions of Language, 223 Functional Approaches to language Teaching, 225 Discourse Analysis, 226 Conversation Analysis, 228 Corpus Linguistics, 230 Contrastive Rhetoric, 231 Pragmatics. 232 Sociopragmatics and Pragmalinguistics, 233 Language and Gender, 234 Discourse Styles, 235 Nonverbal Communication, 237 Kinesics, 238 Eye Contact. 238 Proxemics, 239 Artifacts, 239 Kinesthetics, 239 Olfactory Dimensions, 240 CC in the Classroom: CLT and Task-Based Teaching, 241 Communicative Language Teaching, 241 Task-Based Instruction, 242 Topics and Questions for Study and Discussion, 243 Suggested Readings. 244 Language Learning Experience: Journal Entry 8, 246 vm' Contain PART IV. LINGUISTIC FACTORS Chapter 9 Cross-Linguistic Influence and Learner Language 248 The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis, 248 From the CAH ro CU, 251 Markedness and Universal Grammar, 251 Learner Language, 255 Error Analysis, 257 Mistakes and Errors, 257 Errors in Error Analysis, 259 Identifying and Describing Errors, 260 Sources of Error, 263 Interlingual Transfer, 26j Iniralingual Transfer, 264 Context of Learning, 266 Communication Strategies. 266 Stages of Learner Language Development, 266 Variation in Learner Language, 268 Fossihzation or Stabilization?, 270 Errors in the Classroom A Brief History. 273 Form-Focused Instruction, 276 Categories of Error Treatment. 277 Effectiveness of FFl, 278 Toptcs and Questions for Study and Discussion, 281 Suggested Readings, 282 Lanyitage Learning Experience /uiimal Eum % 2§3 Chapter 10 Toward a Theory of Second Language Acquisition 285 Building a Theory of SLA. 287 Domains and Generalizations, 287 Hypotheses and Claims, 288 Criteria for a Viable Theory, 290 I lot Topics in SLA Research, 291 Explicit and Implicit Learning. 291 Awareness, 292 Input and Output. 293 Frequency, 293 An Innatist Model: Krashcns Input Hypothesis. 294 Five Hypotheses, 29-1 Evaluations of the Five Hypotheses. 296 The Output Hypothesis, 297 Cognitive Models, 299 McLaughlins Attention-Processing Model. 299 Implicit and Explicit Models, 302 A Social Construaivist Model Long's interaction Hypothesis, 304 Out on a Limb. A Light-Hearted "Horticultural" Theory of SLA, 306 From Theory to Practice. 308 A Reciprocal Relationship, Not a Dichotomy, 309 Suggestions for Theory Building, 3 1 0 The Believing Game and the Doubting Game, 310 The Art and Science of SLA. 31 1 The Role of Intuition. 311 Topics and Questions for Study and Discussion, 313 Suggested Readings, 315 Language Learning Exfjenence Final Journal Entty, 316 Bibliography, 319 Glossary, 376 Index, 393 Names, 393 Subjects, 400 PREFACE W HI -. N rut first edition of Principles of Language Learning and Teaching appeared in 1980, the field of second language acquisition (SLA) was relatively manageable. We had a handful of professional journals devoted to SLA, a good collection of anthologies and conference proceedings, a small but respectable number of books on SLA and teaching, and a budding community of researchers devoted to the field. Today the field of SLA has a mind-boggling number of branches and sub-fields and specializations—so many that it is virtually impossible for one person to "manage" them all. In the most recent issue of Language Teaching, an abstracting journal covering S1A and its pedagogical implications and applications. 162 periodicals were listed as potential sources of research on SLA. In two recent Handbooks surveying research on second language acquisition (Doughty & Long, 2003; Hinkel, 2005), readers are treated to over 2000 pages and over 70 chapters of surveys of current research! AU these publications, coupled with literally thousands of conference presentations annually on SLA worldwide and an impressive number of books, now cover dozens of major subject matter areas. From "A to Z"—Accent to the Zone of proximal development—SLA is a rich and diverse field of inquiry. Today we can see that the manageable stockpile of research of just a few decades ago has been replaced by a coordinated, systematic storehouse of information. Subfields have been defined and explored. Researchers around the world are meeting, talking, exchanging findings, comparing data, and arriving at some mutually acceptable explanations. A remarkable number of respectable, refereed journals are printing the best and most interesting of this research. Our research miscarriages are fewer as we have collectively learned how to conceive the right questions. On the other hand, the mysteries and wonder of human language acquisition still perplex of the best of our sleuthing minds. It is a rare research report that docs not end with some sort of caveat like,"more research is needed." In the 888-page compendium edited by Doughty and Long (2003), The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, the penultimate author's closing sentence reads: "It is hardly surprising, though, that theoretical and methodological problems still abound; x\ xii Preface SLA is a newly merging scientific field, and problems come with the territory" (Gregg, 2003, p- 856), PURPOSE AND AUDIENCE Since its first publication in 1980, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, here in its fifth edition, has served a number of purposes for many audiences around the world. For graduates or advanced undergraduates in language-teacher education programs, it is a textbook on the theoretical foundations of language teaching, a survey of what research has revealed about how human beings acquire a second language. For a surprising number of people it has become a book that Master's degree candidates pore over in preparation for the SLA section of their comprehensive examinations or for references for their thesis research. For experienced teachers, it has become a handbook that provides an overview of current issues in the field with an index and bibliographic entries to aid in that overview. For the most part, you do not need to have prior technical knowledge of linguistics or psychology in order to comprehend this book. An attempt has been made to build, from the beginning, on what an educated person knows about the world, life, people, and communication. And the book can be used in programs for educating teachers of any foreign language, even though many illustrative examples here are in English since that is the language common to all readers. CHANGES IN THE FIFTH EDITION The first question people ask me when they hear that a new edition is about to appear is,"What changes will you make?" or from some students I hear.'ls the last edition really different from the current one?" In anticipation of these questions about the fifth edition, 1 offer the following highlights: 1. New issues and topics. In a field growing as rapidly as ours, a period of six or seven years sees many advances. In a reflection of this growth, the current edition features a number of new topics, listed in capsulized form below, sequenced in the order they appear in chapters. Vygotsky's and Bakhtin's theories; language teaching historical overview Connectionism. emergemism, principles and parameters * Age-related evidence—new findings; order of acquisition—new research * Thorndike's law of effect, language aptitude—new research, multiple intelligences—update * Kinesthetic style, autonomy, awareness, strategies-based instruction—new research Preface xiii Attribution theory, self-efficacy, willingness to communicate. LCDH (in anxiety research), Flow theory, orientations—new perspectives Culture definitions—update, NESTs and non-NESTs, linguistic imperialism— new perspectives Corpus luiguistics, contrastive rhetoric Competition model, fossilization (stabilization) critique, noticing, attention, feedback types, recasts, uptake, frequency of input "Hot topics" in SLA research, output hypothesis—new research, awareness 2. Updates and new references. Other topics from the previous edition have been updated with new findings and new perspectives. Some of these updates are reflected in a reorganization of material within the chapters. And out of literally thousands of new articles, books, and chapters that have appeared since the last edition, I have added a selection of over 300 new bibliographic references that report the latest work in SLA. 3. Permutation of Chapters 8 and 9 With recent emphases on the blending of linguistic factors with related macro-theories of SLA, a better logical continuity is provided by (1) connecting sociocultural factors (Chapter 7) with questions about communicative competence, pragmatics, and conversation analysis (formerly Chapter 9, now Chapter 8); and (2) connecting learner language, error analysis, and form-focused instruction (formerly Chapter 8, now Chapter 9) with overall theoretical perspectives (Chapter 10). 4. Amalgamation of pedagogical (methodological) implications Users of the previous edition have suggested that the end-of-chapter vignettes on methodology be amalgamated into the text. E have followed this suggestion by incorporating methodological concerns and issues into appropriate chapters. So for example, Chapter 4, which covers learning theories, now has a new section on two learning theory-inspired methods that were in stark contrast: the Audiolingual Method, and Community Language Learning. 5. New "Classroom Connections." Another way to bridge what might still be too much of a gap between research findings and classroom praxis is now featured in periodic capsules called "Classroom Connections." Here, the reader is reminded of a research issue that is being discussed, and on the same page is referred to some thoughts about how such research may have implications or applications for language classroom pedagogy. 6. Glossary of technical terminology. Throughout the book, new terminology that is central to the study of second language acquisition is boldfaced in its first appearance.To provide the reader with a convenient reference to all such terms, this Fifth Edition features a glossary of technical terminology at the end of the hook. I suggest that such a lexicon become a tool for reminders and review rather than a method of long-term internalization of concepts. Retention is always better served by embedding terminology into concurrent reading and by association with one's experience, and not by the rote memorization of endless lists of jargon. xiv Preface ADDITIONAL FEATURES 7. Classroom-oriented end-of-chapter exercises. In previous editions, the end-of-chapter exercises were designed for individual contemplation and possibly for teachers to adapt to classroom discussion. In this edition, new and improved classroom-tested exercises are explicitly designed for in-class group work, pair work, whole-class discussion, and individual work, 8. Accessible suggestions for further reading. In this edition the suggestions for further reading target an audience of students just beginning in the field of SLA. Few esoteric, technical articles are listed, and instead students are led to more reader-friendly material. 9. Journal guidelines for a language learning experience. I have always recommended that the information in a book like this is best internalized if the reader is concurrently taking a course in a foreign language.At the end of each chapter in this edition is a new section that offers classroom-tested journal-writing guidelines for the reader either to reflect on a current experience learning another language or to take a retrospective look at a previous foreign language learning experience. In both cases, the reader is asked to apply concepts and constructs and models to a personal experience learning a foreign language. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book has grown out of graduate courses in second language acquisition that I have taught at San Francisco State University, the University of Illinois, and the University of Michigan. My first debt of gratitude is therefore to my students—for their insights, enthusiasm, and support. They offered invaluable comments on the first four editions of die book, and I have attempted to incorporate those insights into this fifth edition. I always learn so much from my students! 1 am also grateful to faculty colleagues both here at San Francisco State University, at the American language Institute, and around the world for offering verbal commentary, informal written opinion, and formal published reviews, ail of which were useful in fashioning this fifth edition. 1 also want to thank the publisher's anonymous reviewers for constructive feedback and encouragement. Finally, on a personal note, my wile, Mary, and I have this past year just become first-time grandparents—Carson William Brown, born to Jeff and Christina Brown in 2004, So readers can took forward to the Sixth edition in which Carson's budding first language acquisition skills will be well documented! And I of course want to say yet another huge thank you to Mary once again for being so patiently supportive of a cranky, driven author as I churned out this fifth edition. H. Douglas Brown San Francisco, California CHAPTFR 1 x\ LAIMGUAGF, LEARNING, AND TFACHTNG ___________ LEARNING A second language is a long and complex undertaking. Your whole person is affected as you struggle to reach beyond the confines of your first language and into a new language, a new culture, a new way of thinking, feeling, and acting. Total commitment, total involvement,a total physical, intellectual.and emotional response are necessary to successfully send and receive messages in a second language. Many variables are involved in the acquisition process. Language learning is not a set of easy steps that can be programmed in a quick do-it-yourself kit. So much is at stake that courses in foreign languages are often inadequate training grounds, in and of themselves, for the successful learning of a second language. Few if any people achieve fluency in a foreign language solely within the confines of the classroom. It may appear contradictory, then, that this book is about both learning and teaching. But some of the contradiction is removed if you look at the teaching process as the facilitation of learning, in which you can teach a foreign language successfully if, among other things, you know something about that intricate web of variables that are spun together to affect how and why one learns or falls to learn a second language. Where does a teacher begin the quest for an understanding of the principles of language learning and teaching? By first considering some of the questions dial you could ask. QUESTIONS ABOUT SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Virtually any complex set of skills brings with it a host of questions. WTule these questions can quickly turn into "issues," because there is no simple answer to the questions, nevertheless we usually begin the process with a set of focused questions to guide our study. Current issues in second language acquisition (SLA) may be initially approached as a multitude of questions that are being asked about this complex process. Let's look at some of those questions, sorted here Into.some commonly used topical categories. 13 CHAfrfw ) Language.Learning, and Teaching Learner Characteristics Who are the learners that yon are teaching? What is their ethnic, linguistic, and religious heritage? What are their native languages, levels of education, and socioeconomic characteristics? What life's experiences have they had that might affect their learning? What are their intellectual capacities, abilities, and strengths and weaknesses? How would you describe the personality of any given learner? These and other questions focus attention on some of the crucial variables affecting both learners' successes in acquiring a foreign language and teachers' capacities to enable learners to achieve that acquisition. Linguistic Factors No simpler a question is one that probes the nature of the subject matter itself. What is it that the learner must learn? What is language? what is communication? What does it mean when we say someone knows how to use a language? What is the best way to describe or systematize the target (second) language? What are the relevant differences (and commonalities) between a learner's first and second language? What properties of the target language might be difficult for a learner to master? These profound questions are of course central to the discipline of linguistics. The language teacher needs to understand the system and functioning of the second language and the differences between the first and second language of the learner. It is one thing for a teacher to speak and understand a language and yet another matter to attain the technical knowledge required to understand and explain the system of that language—its phonemes, morphemes, words, sentences, and discourse structures. Learning Processes How does learning lake place? How can a person ensure success in language learning' What cognitive processes are utilized in second language learning? What kinds of strategies are available to a learner, and which ones are optimal? How important are factors like frequency of input, attention to form and meaning, memory and storage processes, and recall? What is the optimal interrelationship of cognitive, affective, and physical domains for successful language learning? Age and Acquisition When in the life of a learner does second language learning take place? One of the key issues in second language research and teaching is a cluster of questions about differences between children and adults in learning a second language. Common observation tells us that children are "better" language learners than adults. Research shows that to be an overgeneralization, if not downright questionable. [f so, in what way does the age of learning make a difference? How do the cognitive and emotional developmental changes of childhood and young adulthood affect language acquisition? Instructional Variables Some second language acquisition successfully takes place outside of any educational context or classroom or teacher, in such "natural'' environments, do all people learn a language equally successfully? If not, what are the ingredients for success? In what has come to be called "instructed" SLA. many questions arise. What are the effects of varying methodological approaches, textbooks, materials, teacher styles, and institutional factors? Consider the amount of time spent in classrooms learning a second language: is there an optimal length of time required for successful mastery? Should the learner be exposed to three or five or ten hours a week in the classroom? Or a five-to-seven-hour day in an intensive language program? And how "active" should a learner be outside of the classroom? Context 14 CHAfrfw ) Language.Learning, and Teaching Are the learners attempting to acquire the second language within the cultural and linguistic milieu of the second language, that is, in a "second" language situation in the technical sense of the term? Or are they focusing on a "foreign" language context in which the second language is heard and spoken only in an artificial environment, such as the modern language classroom in an American university or high school? How might the sociopolitical conditions of a particular country or its language policy affect the outcome of a learner's mastery of the language? How' do intercultural contrasts and similarities affect the learning process? Purpose Finally, the most encompassing of all questions: Why are learners attempting to acquire the second language? What are their purposes? Are they motivated by the achievement of a successful career, or by passing a foreign language requirement, or by wishing to identify closely with the culture and people of the target language? Beyond these categories, what other, emotional, personal, or intellectual reasons do learners have for pursuing this gigantic task of learning another language? REJOICING IN OUR DEFEATS The above questions have been posed, in very global terms, to give you an inkling of the diversity of issues involved in the quest for understanding the principles of language learning and teaching. By addressing such questions carefully and critically, you can begin to achieve a surprising number of answers as you move 4 CHAPTER 1 Language, Learning, and Tedcliing through the chapters of this book. And you can hone the global questions into finer, subtler questions, which in itself is an important task, for often being able to ask the right questions is more valuable than possessing storehouses of knowledge. At the same time, you should not labor under the impression that you can satisfactorily find final answers to all the questions, By some evaluations, the field of SLA is still in its infancy, with all the methodological and theoretical problems that come with a developing discipline (see Gregg, 2003, for example). Therefore, many of these questions will receive somewhat tentative answers, or at best, answers that must begin with the phrase, "it depends." Answers must almost always be framed in a context that can vary from one learner to another, from one moment to another, The wonderful intricacy of complex facets of human behavior will be very much with us for some time. Roger Brown's (1966, p. 526) wry remark of over four decades ago still applies: Psychologists find it exciting when a complex mental phenomenon— something Intelligent and slippery—seems about to be captured by a mechanical model. We yearn to see the model succeed, But when, at the last minute, the phenomenon proves too much for the model and darts off on some uncapturable tangent, there is something in us that rejoices at the defeat. We can rejoice in our defeats because we know that it is the very elusiveness of the phenomenon of SLA that makes the quest for answers so exciting. Our field of Inquiry is no simple, unidimensional reality. It is "slippery" in every way, The chapters of this book are designed to give you a picture of both the slip-periness of SLA and the systematic storehouse of reliable knowledge that is now available to us. As you consider the issues, chapter by chapter, you are led on a quest for your own personal, integrated understanding of how people learn—and sometimes fail to learn—a second language. That quest is eclectic no single theory or hypothesis wilt provide a magic formula for alt learners in all contexts. And the quest is cautious: you will be urged to be as critical as you can in considering the merit of various models and theories and research findings. By the end of the final chapter, however, you will no doubt surprise yourself on how many pieces of this giant puzzle you can actually put together! Thomas Kuhn (1970) referred to "normal science" as a process of puzzle solving in which part of the task of the scientist, in this case the teacher, is to discover the pieces and then to fit the pieces together Some of the pieces of the language learning puzzle have been located and set in place. Others are not yet discovered, and the careful defining of questions will lead to finding those pieces. We can then undertake the task of fitting the pieces together into a paradigm—an interlocking design, a theory of second language acquisition. CHAprm 1 Language. Learning, and Teaching 16 CLASSROOM CONNECTIONS Research Findings: Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions has sold over a million copies and has been translated into sixteen languages. Applying Kuhn's popular theory to our current language teaching practice, we can say that Communicative Language Teaching (and, perhaps, Task-Based Teaching—see Chapter 8) is accepted as "normal" and as our current "paradigm." Teaching Implications: As you look at language classes you have taken (and perhaps taught), do you think there will be an "intellectually violent" change (to paraphrase Kuhn) in which our pedagogy will be markedly transformed? If so, what do you suppose the next "revolution" in language teaching will look like? That theory, like a jigsaw puzzle, needs to be coherent and unified. If only one point of view is taken—if you look at only one facet of second language learning and teaching—you will derive an incomplete, partial theory. The second language teacher, with eyes wide open to the total picture, needs to form an integrated understanding of the many aspects of the process of second language learning. In order to begin to ask further questions and to find answers to some of those questions, let's first address a fundamental concern in problem-posing: defining or delimiting the focus of our inquiry. Since this book is about language, learning, and teaching, let's see what happens when wc try to "define" those three terms. LANGUAGE A definition is a statement tiiat captures the key features of a concept. Those features may vary, depending on your own (or the lexicographer's) understanding of the construct. And. most important,that understanding is essentially a "theory" that explicates the construct. So a definition of a term may be thought of as a condensed version of a theory. Conversely, a theory is simply—or not so simply—an extended definition. Defining, dicrefore, is serious business: it requires choices about which facets of something are worthy of being included. Suppose you were stopped by a reporter on the street, and in the course of an interview about your field of study, you were asked: "Well, since you're interested in second language acquisition, please define language in a sentence or two." You would no doubt dig deep into your memory for a typical dictionary-type definition of language. Such definitions, if pursued seriously, could lead to a lexicographer's wild-goose chase, but they also can reflect a reasonably coherent synopsis of current understanding of just what it is that linguists are trying to study. If you had had a chance to consult the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003, p. 699), you might have responded to your questioner with a relatively standard statement like "a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings." Or, if you had read Pinker's Tfte Language Instinct (1994), you might have come up with a sophisticated statement such as: Language is a complex, specialized skill, which develops in the child spontaneously, without conscious effort or formal instruction, is deployed without awareness of its underlying logic, is qualiiatively the same in every individual, and is distinct from more general abilities to process information or behave intelligently (p. 18). On the other hand, you might, with Ron Scollon (2004, p, 272), wish to emphasize that, first of all, language is not something that comes in "nicely packaged units" and that it certainly is "a multiple, complex, and kaleidoscopic phenomenon" Further, depending on how fussy yoti wanted to get in your CHAprm 1 Language. Learning, and Teaching 17 response, you might also have included some mention of (I) the creativity of language, (2) die presumed primacy of speech over writing, and (3) the universality of language among human beings. A consolidation of a number of possible definitions of language yields the following composite definition. 1. Language is systematic. 2. Language is a set of arbitrary symbols. 3. Those symbols are primarily vocal, but may also be visual, 4. The symbols have conventionalized meanings to which they refer. 5. Language is used for communication. 6. Language operates in a speech community or culture. 7. Language is essentially human, although possibly not limited to humans. 8. Language is acquired by all people in much the same way; language and language learning both have universal characteristics. These eight statements provide a reasonably concise "25-word-or-less" definition of language. But the simplicity of the eightfold definition should not be allowed to mask the sophistication of linguistic research underlying each concept. Enormous fields and subfields and yearlong university courses, are suggested in each of the eight categories, Consider some of these possible areas: 1. Explicit and formal accounts of the system of language on several possible levels (e.g.,phonological, syntactic, lexical, and semantic analysis) 2. The symbolic nature of language; the relationship between language and reality; the philosophy of language; the history of language 3- Phonetics; phonology; writing systems; the role of gesture, distance, eye contact,and other "paralinguistic" features of language 4. Semantics; language and cognition; psycholinguistics 5. Communication systems; speaker-hearer interaction; sentence processing 6. Dialectology: socio linguistics; language and culture; pragmatics; bilingual ism and second language acquisition 7. Human language and nonhuman communication: neurolinguistics; innate factors; genetic transmission; nature vs. nurture 8. Language universals; first language acquisition Serious and extensive thinking about these eight topics involves a complex journey through a labyrinth of linguistic science—a maze that continues to be negotiated. Yet the language teacher needs to know something about this system of communication that we call language. Can foreign language teachers effectively teach a language if they do not know, even in general, something about the rela- tionship between language and cognition, writing systems, nonverbal communication, sociolinguistics, and first language acquisition? And if the second language learner is being asked to be successful in acquiring a system of communication of such vast complexity, isn't it reasonable that the teacher have awareness of what the components of that system are? Your understanding of the components of language determines to a large extent how you teach a language. If, tor example, you believe that nonverbal communication is a key to successful second language learning, you will devote some attention in your curriculum to nonverbal systems and cues. If you perceive language as a phenomenon that can be dismantled into thousands of discrete pieces and those pieces programmaticalJy taught one by one, you will attend carefully to an understanding of the discrete forms of language. Lf you thmk language is essentially cultural and interactive, your classroom methodology will be imbued widi socioiinguistic strategies and communicative tasks. This book touches on some of the general aspects of language as defined above. More specific aspects will have to be understood in the context of an academic program in a particular language, in which specialized study of linguistics is obviously recommended along with a careful analysis of the foreign language itself. CHAprm 1 Language. Learning, and Teaching 18 LEARNING AND TEACHING We can also ask questions about constructs like learning and teaching. Consider again some traditional definitions. A search in contemporary dictionaries reveals that learning is "acquiring or getting of knowledge of a subject or a skill by study, experience, or instruction." Oddly, an educational psychologist would define learning even more succinctly as "a change in an individual caused by experience" (Slavin,2003,p. 138). Similarly, teaching, which is implied in the first definition 8 CHAPTFR t language. Learning, and Teaching of learning, may be defined as "showing or helping someone to learn how to do something, giving instructions, guiding in the study of something, providing with knowledge, causing to know or understand." Isn't it curious that professional lexicographers seem to have such difficulty in devising a definition of something as universal as teaching? More than perhaps anything else, such definitions reflect the difficulty of defining complex concepts. Breaking down the components of the definition of learning, we can extract, as we did with language, domains of research and inquiry, 1. Learning is acquisition or "getting." 2. Learning is retention of information or skill. 3. Retention implies storage systems, memory, cognitive organization. 4. Learning involves active, conscious focus on and acting upon events outside or inside the organism. 5- Learning is relatively permanent but subject to forgetting. 6. Learning involves some form of practice, perhaps reinforced practice. 7. Learning is a change in behavior. These concepts can also give way to a number of subfields within the discipline of psychology: acquisition processes.perception, memory (storage) systems,short- and long-term memory, recall, motivation, conscious and subconscious learning styles and strategies, theories of forgetting, reinforcement, the role of practice. Very quickly the concept of learning becomes every bit as complex as the concept of language. Yet the second language learner brings all these (and more) variables into play in the learning of a second language. Teaching cannot be defined apart from learning. Teaching is guiding and facilitating learning, enabling the learner to learn, setting the conditions for learning. Your understanding of how the learner learns will determine your philosophy of education, your teaching style, your approach, methods, and classroom techniques. If, like B. fi Skinner, you look at learning as a process of operant conditioning through a carefully paced program of reinforcement, you will teach accordingly. If you view second language learning as a deductive rather than an inductive process, you will probably choose to present copious rules and paradigms to your students rather than let them "discover" those rules inductively. An exrended definition—or theory—of teaching will spell out governing principles for choosing certain methods and techniques. A theory of teaching, in harmony with your integrated understanding of the learner and of the subject matter to be learned, will point the way to successful procedures on a given day for given learners under the various constraints of the particular context of learning. In other words, your theory of teaching is your theory of learning "stood on its head." SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT IN SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION While the general definitions of language, learning, and teaching offered above might meet with the approval of most linguists, psychologists, and educators, points of disagreement become apparent after a little probing of the components of each definition. For example, is language primarily a "system of formal units" or a "means for social interaction"? Or, for better retention, should a teacher emphasize extrinsic or intrinsic motivation in students? Differing viewpoints emerge from equally knowledgeable scholars, usually over the extent to which one viewpoint or another should receive primacy. Yet with all the possible disagreements among applied linguists and SLA researchers, some historical patterns emerge that highlight trends and fashions in the study of second language acquisition. These trends will be described here in die form of three different schools of thought—primarily in the fields of linguistics and psychology—that follow somewhat historically, even though components of each school overlap chronologically to some extent. Bear in mind that such a sketch may suggest dichotomies in philosophical positions, and such contrasts are rarely so simplistic in the study of issues in SLA. Structural Linguistics and Behavioral Psychology In the 19-iOs and 1950s, the structural, or descriptive, school of linguistics, with its advocates—Leonard Bloonifield,Edward Sapir,Charles Hockett,Charles Fries,and others—prided itself in a rigorous application of scientific observations of human languages. Only "publicly observable responses" could be subject to investigation. The linguist's task, according to the structuralist, was to describe human languages and to identify the structural characteristics of those languages. An important axiom of structural linguistics was that languages can differ from each other without limit, and that no preconceptions could apply across languages. Freeman Twaddeli (1935, p. 57) stated this principle in perhaps its most extreme terms: Whatever our attitude toward mind, spirit, soul, etc., as realities, we must agree that the scientist proceeds as though there were no such things, as though all his uiformation were acquired through processes of his physiological nervous system. Insofar as he occupies himself with psychical, nonmateria) forces, the scientist is not a scientist. The scientific method is quite simply the convention that mind does not exist... Twaddeli was underscoring die mandate for the structural linguist to examine only overtly observable data, and to ignore the "mind" insofar as the latter represented a raentalistic approach that gave credence to unobservable guesses, hunches.and intuition. Such attitudes prevailed in B. E Skinner's thought.particularly CHAPTtR I Language, Learning, and Teaching in Verbal Behavior (1957), in which he said that any notion of "idea" or "meaning" is explanatory fiction, and that the speaker is merely the locus of verbal behavior, not the cause. Charles Osgood (1957) reinstated meaning in verbal behavior, explaining it as a "representational mediation process" but still did not depart from a generally nonmentahstic view of language. Of further importance to the structural or descriptive linguist was the notion that language could be dismantled into small pieces or units and that these units could be described scientifically, contrasted, and added up again to form the whole. From this principle emerged an unchecked rush of linguists, in the 1940s and 1950s, to the far reaches of the earth to engage in the rigorous production of detailed descriptions of "exotic" languages. CLASSROOM CONNECTIONS Research Findings: The prevailing paradigm in linguistic research in the 1940s and 1950s viewed language as a linear, structured system dial described grammatical sequences in terms of separate components that could comprise a sentence. These analyses were what Noam Chomsky later called "surface structure" relationships. Teaching Implications: No one may have better manifested structural linguistics in the classroom than Charles Fries, whose "structural drills" and "pattern practices" were described in his (1945) book, Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language, and in his (1952) book, The Stmcture of English. The very popular Audiolingual Method (see Chapter 4) drew many insights from Frles's seminal work. What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of pattern drills in the language classroom? Among psychologists, a behavioral paradigm also focused on publicly observable responses—those that can be objectively perceived, recorded, and measured. The scientific method was rigorously adhered to, and therefore such concepts as consciousness and intuition were regarded as mentaltstic, illegitimate domains of Inquiry. The unreliability of observation of states of consciousness, thinking, concept formation, or the acquisition of knowledge made such topics impossible to examine in a behavioral framework. Typical behavioral models were classical and operant conditioning, rote verbal learning, instrumental learning, discrimination learning, and other empirical approaches to studying human behavior. You may be familiar with the classical experiments with Pavlov's dog and Skinner's boxes; these o-tAprtR 1 tangvafjG, Learning, and Teaching 11 too rypify the position that organisms can be conditioned to respond in desired ways, given the correct degree and scheduling of reinforcement. (Behaviorism wUI he described in more detail in Chapter 4.) Generative Linguistics and Cognitive Psychology In the decade of the 1960s, generative-transformational linguistics emerged through the influence of Noam Chomsky and a number of his followers. Chomsky was trying to show that human language cannot be scrutinized simply in terms of observable stimuli and responses or the volumes of raw data gathered by Held linguists. The generative linguist was interested not only in describing language (achieving the level of descriptive adequacy) but also in arriving at an explanatory level of adequacy in the study of language, that is, a "principled basis, independent of any particular language, for the selection of the descriptively adequate grammar of each language" (Chomsky, 1964, p. 63). Early seeds of the generative-transformational revolution were planted near the beginning of the twentieth century. Ferdinand de Saussure (1916) claimed that there was a difference between parole (what Skinner "observes," and what Chomsky called performance), on the one hand, and langue (akin to the concept of competence, or our underlying and unobservable language ability). A few decades later, however, descriptive linguists chose largely to ignore langue and to study parole, as was noted above. The revolution brought about by generative linguistics broke with the descriptivists' preoccupation with performance—the outward manifestation of language—and capitalized on the important distinction between the overtly observable aspects of language and the hidden levels of meaning and thought that give birth to and generate observable linguistic performance. Similarly, cognitive psychologists asserted that meaning, understanding, and knowing were significant data for psychological study. Instead of focusing rather mechanistically on stimulus-response connections, cognitivists tried to discover psychological principles of organization and functioning, David Ausubel (1965. p. 4) noted: from the standpoint of cognitive theorists, the attempt to ignore conscious states or to reduce cognition to mediational processes reflective of implicit behavior not oidy removes from the field of psychology what is most worth studying but also dangerously oversimplifies highly complex psychological phenomena. Cognitive psychologists, like generative linguists, sought to discover underlying motivations and deeper structures of human behavior by using a rational approach. That is. they freed themselves from the strictly empirical study typical of behaviorists and employed the tools of logic, reason, extrapolation, and inference in order to derive explanations for human behavior. Going beyond merely descriptive adequacy to explanatory power took on utmost importance. 23 CHAPTER 1 Language, Learning, and Teaching Both the structural linguist and the behavioral psychologist were interesred in description, in answering what questions about human behavior; objective measurement of behavior in controlled circumstances. The generative linguist and cog nitive psychologist were, to be sure, interested in the what question; but they were far more interested in a more ultimate question, why: what underlying factors-innate, psychological, social, or environmental circumstances—caused a particular behavior in a human being? If you were to observe someone walk into your house, pick up a chair and fling it through your window, and then walk out, different kinds of questions could be asked. One set of questions would relate to what happened: the physical description of the person, the time of day, the size of the chair, the impact of the chair, and so forth. Another set of questions w rould ask why the person did what he or she did: what were the person's motives and psychological stare, what might have been the cause of the behavior, and so on. The first set of questions is very rigorous and exacting: it allows no flaw, no mistake in measurement; but does it give you ultimate answers? The second set of questions is richer, but obviously riskier. By daring to ask some difficult questions about the unobserved, we may lose some ground but gain more profound insight about human behavior. Constructivism: A Multidisciplinary Approach Constructivism is hardly a new school of thought. Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, names often associated with constructivism, are not by any means new to the scene of language studies. Yet, in a variety of post-structuralist theoretical positions, constructivism emerged as a prevailing paradigm only in the last part of the twentieth century, and is now almost an orthodoxy. A refreshing characteristic of con- structivism is its integration of linguistic, psychological, and sociological paradigms, in contrast to the professional chasms that often divided those disciplines in the previous century. Now, with its emphasis on social interaction and the discovery, or construction, of meaning, die three disciplines have much more common ground. What is constructivism, and how docs it differ from the other two viewpoints described above? First.it will be helpful to think of two branches of constructivism: cognitive and social. In the cognitive version of constructivism, emphasis is placed on the importance of learners constructing their own representation of reality. "Learners must individually discover and transform complex inform at ion if they are to make it their own, [suggesting] a more active role tor students in their own learning than is typical in many classrooms" (Siavin, 2003. pp. 257-258). Such claims are rooted in Piaget's (1954, 1955, 1970; Piaget & Inlielder. 1969) seminal work in the middle of the twentieth century, but have taken that long to become widely accepted views, for Piaget, "learning is a developmental process that involves change, self-generation, and construction, each building on prior learning experiences" (Kaufman, 2004, p. 304). Social constructivism emphasizes the importance of social interaction and cooperative learning in constructing both cognidve and emotional images of reality. Spivcy (1997, p. 24) noted that const rue Ovist research tends to focus on "individuals engaged in social practices,... on a collaborative group, [or] on a global community." "Hie champion of social constructivism is Vygotsky (1978), who advocated the view that "children's thinking and meaning-making is socially constructed and emerges out of their social interactions with their environment" (Kaufman, 2004. p. 304). CLASSROOM CONNECTIONS Research Findings: Constructivism is a school of thought that emphasizes both the learner's role in constructing meaning out of available linguistic input and the importance of social interaction in 24 CHAPTER 1 Language, Learning, and Teaching creating a new linguistic system. Early constructivists like Vygotsky and Piaget actively emphasized their views many decades ago. Wliat took the language teaching profession so long to apply such thinking to classroom practices? Teaching Implications: Perhaps prevailing views of behavioral psychology curbed an outburst of interactive language teaching. However, as early as the 1970s, some methods advocated the central role of the learner's construction of language (the Silent Way and Community Language Learning) and the importance of meaningful interaction (early forms of the Notional-Functional Syllabus, which started in the United Kingdom). What evidence of constructivism do you sec in current foreign language classrooms? One of the most popular concepts advanced by Vygotsky was the notion of a zone of proximal development (ZPD) in every learner: the distance between learners'existing developmental state and their potential development. Put another way, the ZPD describes tasks that a learner has not yet learned but is capable of learning with appropriate stimuli. The ZPD is an important facet of social constructivism because it describes tasks "that a child cannot yet do alone but could do with the assistance of more competent peers or adults" (Slavin, 2003. p. 44; see also Karpov & Haywood, 1998). A number of applications of Vygotsky's ZPD have been made to foreign language instruction (Lantolf, 2000; Nassaji & Cumming, 2000; Marcbenkova. 2005) in both adult and child second language learning contexts. Vygotsky's concept of the ZPD contrasted rather sharply with Piaget's theory of learning in that the former saw a unity of learning and development while die latter saw stages of development setting a precondition, or readiness, for learning (Dunn &. Lantolf, 1998). Piaget stressed the importance of individual cognitive development as a relatively solitary act Biological timetables and stages of development were basic; social interaction was claimed only to trigger development at 14 CH*PT£R 7 i anguage, I earning, and Teaching the right moment in time. On the other hand,Vygotsky maintained that social interaction was foundational in cognitive development and rejected the notion of predetermined stages. Closely allied to a Vygotskian social constructivist perspective is that of Mikhail Bakhtin (1986, 1990), the Russian literary theorist who has now captured the attention of SLA researchers and practitioners (Hall,Vitanova, & Marchenkova, 2005). Bakhtin contended that language is "immersed in a social and cultural context, and its centra) function is to serve as a medium of communication." In this spirit, the early years of the new millennium have seen increasing emphasis on sociocultural dimensions of SLA, or what watson-Gegeo (2004) describes as a language socialization paradigm for SLA: a new synthesis that "involves a reconsideration of mind, language,and epistemology.and a recognition that cognition originates in social interaction and is shaped by cultural and sociopolitical processes'XWatson-Gegeo,2004,p. 330- Researchers studying first and second language acquisition have demonstrated constnictivist perspectives through studies of conversational discourse, sociocultural factors in learning.and interactionist theories. In many ways,constructivist perspectives are a natural successor to cognitively based studies of universal grammar, information processing, memory, artificial intelligence, and interlanguage system-aticity.(Note: These terms will be defined and explained in subsequent chapters of this book.) All three of the historical positions described in this section—structural/behav- ioral,generative/cognitive, and constructivist—must be seen as important in creating balanced descriptions of second language acquisition. Consider for a moment the analogy of a very high mountain, viewed from a distance. From one direction the mountain may liave a sharp peak, easily identified glaciers, and distinctive rock formations. From another direction, however, the same mountain might now appear to have two peaks (the second formerly hidden from view) and different configurations of its slopes. From still another direction, yet further characteristics emerge, heretofore unobserved. The study of SLA is very much like the viewing of our mountain: we need multiple tools and vantage points in order to ascertain the whole picture-Table 1. 1 summarizes concepts and approaches described in the three perspectives above. The table may help to pinpoint certain broad ideas that are associated with the respective positions.The patterns that are illustrated are typical of what Kuhn (1970) described as the structure of scientific revolutions. A successful paradigm is followed by a period of anomaly (doubt, uncertainty, questioning of prevailing theory), then crisis (the fall of the existing paradigm) with all the professional insecurity that comes therewith;and then finally a new paradigm,a novel theory, is put together. This cycle is evident in both psychology and linguistics,although the limits and bounds are not always easily perceived—perhaps less easiiy perceived in psychology,in which all three paradigms currently operate somewhat simultaneously. The cyclical nature of theories underscores the fact that no single theory or paradigm is right or wrong. It is impossible to refute with finality one perspective with another. Some truth can be found in virtually every critical approach to the study of reality. CH*PT£x I Language, Learning, and Teaching 26 Table 1.1 Schools of thought in second language acquisition Time Frame Schools of Though! Typical Themes Early 1900s and 1940s and Behavioral Psychology Empiricism and 1950s Description Surface structure Structural Linguistics Observable performance Conditioning Scientific method Reinforcement 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s Generative Linguistics and Cognitive Psychology Generative linguistics Acquisition, innateness Interlanguage Systematicity Universal grammar Competence Deep structure 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s Constructivism Interactive discourse Sociocultural variables Cooperative learning Discovery learning Construction of meaning Interlanguage variability NINETEEN CENTURIES OF LANGUAGE TEACHING A survey of" research and theoretical trends in SLA remains abstract and unfocused without its application to the practical concerns of pedagogy in the classroom. Besides, most readers of this book are ultimately interested in language pedagogy in one form or another, and so in an attempt to help to build bridges between theory and practice, I will offer occasional relevant historical commentaries on language teaching, and link those descriptions to topics and issues being treated. In so doing, I hope to acquaint you progressively with some of the major methodological trends and issues on the pedagogical side of the profession. So far in this chapter, the focus lias been on research over the past century or so of linguistics and psychology, and in the last section of this chapter, I will draw your attention to pedagogical trends and issues in the twentieth century. What do we know about language teaching in the two or three millennia prior? The answer is: not very much. Kelly's (1969) informative survey of language teaching over "twenty-five centuries" revealed interesting anecdotal accounts of foreign language instruction but few if any research-based language teaching methods. In the Western world,"foreign" language learning in schools was synonymous with the learning of Latin or Greek. Latin, though! to promote intellectuality through "mental gymnastics," was until relatively recently held to be indispensable to an adequate higher education. Latin was taught by means of what has been called the Classical Method: locus on grammatical rules, memorization of vocabulary and of various declensions and conjugations, translation of texts, doing written exercises. As other languages began to be taught in educational institutions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Classical Method was adopted as the chief means for teaching foreign languages. Little thought was given at the time to teaching oral use of languages; after all, languages were not being taught primarily to learn oral/aura! communication, but to learn for the sake of being "scholarly" or, in some instances, for gaining a reading proficiency in a foreign language. Since there was little if any theoretical research on second CH*PT£x I Language, Learning, and Teaching 27 language acquisition in general, or on the acquisition of reading proficiency, foreign languages were taught as any other skill was taught. So language teaching before the twentieth century is best captured as a "tradition" that, in various manifestations and adaptations, has been practiced in language classrooms worldwide even up to the present time. Late in the nineteenth century, the Classical Method came to be known as the Grammar Translation Method. There was little to distinguish Grammar Translation from what had gone on in foreign language classrooms for centuries, beyond a focus on grammatical rules as the basis for translating from the second to the native language. But the Grammar Translation Method remarkably withstood attempts at the outset of the twentieth century to "reform" language teaching methodology, and to this day it remains a standard methodology for language teaching in educational institutions. Prator and Ceice-Murcia (1979, p. 3) listed the major characteristics of Grammar Translation: 1. Classes taught in the mother tongue; little use of the L2 2. Much vocabulary taught in the form of lists of isolated words 3- Elaborate explanations of the intricacies of grammar 4. Reading of difficult classical texts begun early 5. Texts treated as exercises in grammatical analysis 6. Occasional drills and exercises in translating sentences from LI to L2 7. Little or no attention to pronunciation It is remarkable, in one sense, that this method has been so stalwart among many competing models. It docs virtually nothing to enhance a student's communicative ability in the language. It is "remembered with distaste by thousands of school learners, for whom foreign language learning meant a tedious experience of memorizing endless lists of unusable grammar rules and vocabulary and attempting to produce perfect translations of stilted or literary prose" (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p. 4). In another sense, however, one can understand why Grammar Translation is so popular. It requires few specialized skills on the part of teachers. Tests of grammar rules and of translations are easy to construct and can be objectively scored. Many standardized tests of foreign languages still do not attempt to tap into communicative abilities, so students have little motivation to go beyond grammar analogies, translations, and rote exercises. And it is sometimes successful in leading a student toward a reading knowledge of a second language. But, as Richards and Rodgers (2001, p. 7) pointed out,"it has no advocates. It is a method for which there is no theory, There is no literature that offers a rationale or justification for it or that attempts to relate it to issues in linguistics, psychology, or educational theory."As we continue to examine theoretical principles in this book, 1 think we will understand more fully the"theorylessness" of the Grammar Translation Method. LANGUAGE TEACHING IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Against the backdrop of the previous 19 centuries, a glance through the past century or so of language teaching gives us, ironically, a rather refreshingly interesting picture of varied interpretations of the "best" way to teach a foreign language. Perhaps beginning with Francois Gouin's (1880) Series Method, foreign language teaching underwent some revolutionary trends, all of which in one way or another came under the scrutiny of scientific (or observational) research. As schools of thought have come and gone, so have language teaching trends waxed and waned in popularity. Historically, pedagogical innovation has been the beneficiary of the theoretical research described in the previous section, as witnessed by the influence of such research on trends in language teaching. At the same time, language classrooms and their innovative teachers and students have been laboratories of research that have, in turn, informed theoretical stances as they have changed over time. Albert Marckwardt (19*72, p. 5) saw these "changing winds and shifting sands" as a cyclical pattern in which a new paradigm (to use Kuhn's term) of teaching methodology emerged about every quarter of CH*PT£x I Language, Learning, and Teaching 28 a century, with each new method breaking from the old but at the same time taking with it some of the positive aspects of the previous paradigm. More recently, Mitchell and Vidal (2001) described our perhaps misguided penchant for characterizing the last century of language teaching metaphorically as a pendulum swinging back and forth between a number of opposing options: focus on accuracy vs. focus on fluency, separation of skills vs. integration of skills, and teacher-centered vs. learner-centered approaches, to name a few. Mitchell and Vidal suggested that a new metaphor may better depict our journey across time: "that of a major river, constantly flowing, fed by many sources of water—rivers, streams, springs in remote territories, all fed by rain on wide expanses of land" (p. 27). One of the best examples of both the cyclical and fluvial nature of methods is seen in the revolutionary Audiolingual Method (ALM) of the late 1940s and 1950s. The ALM. with its overemphasis on oral production drills, borrowed tenets from its predecessor by almost half a century the Direct Method, but had essentially CiMTEft T language, learning. andTeaching sprung from behavioral theories of learning of the time. The ALM was a rejection of its classical predecessor, the Grammar Translation Method, by diminishing if not obliterating the need tor metacognitive focus on the forms of language. Within a short time, however, with the increasing popularity of cognitive psychology, AI.M critics were advocating more attention to rules and to the "cognitive code" of language, which, to some, smacked of a return to Grammar Translation! Shifting sands indeed, and the ebb and flow of paradigms. Since the early 1970s, the symbiotic relationship of theoretical disciplines and teaching methodology has been continued to manifest itself. The field of psychology, as noted above in outlining tenets of constructivism, has witnessed a growing interest in interpersonal relationships, the value of group work, and the use of numerous cooperative strategies for attaining desired goals, The same era has seen linguists searching ever more deeply for answers to the nature of communication and Communicative competence and for explanations of the interactive, socio-cultural process of language acquisition. The language teaching profession has mirrored these theoretical trends with approaches and techniques that have stressed the importance of self-esteem, intrinsic motivation, students cooperatively learning together, of developing individual strategies for constructing meaning, and above all of focusing on the communicative process in language learning. Some of these methodological innovations will be described in subsequent chapters of this book, as they pertain to issues and topics being discussed. Today, many of the pedagogical springs and rivers of the last few decades are appropriately captured in the term Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), now a catch phrase for language teachers. CLT, to be discussed further in Chapter 8, is an eclectic blend of the contributions of previous methods into the best of what a teacher can provide in authentic uses of the second language in the classroom. Indeed, the single greatest challenge in the profession is to move significantly beyond the teaching of rules, patterns, definitions, and other knowledge "about" language to the point that we are teaching our students to communicate genuinely, spontaneously, and meaningfully in the second language. A significant difference between current language teaching practices and those of, say, a half a century ago, is the absence of proclaimed "orthodoxies" and "best" methods. We are well aware that methods,as they were conceived of 40 or 50 years ago or so, are too narrow and too constrictive to apply to a wide range of learners in an enormous number of situational contexts. There are no instant recipes. No quick and easy method is guaranteed to provide success. As Bell (2003), Brown (.2001), Kumaravadivelu (2001), and others have appropriately shown, pedagogical trends in language teaching now spur us to develop a principled basis—sometimes called an approach (Richards & Rodgers, 2001)—upon which teachers can choose particular designs and techniques for teaching a foreign language in a specific context. Every learner is unique. Every teacher is unique. Every learner-teacher relationship is unique, and every context is unique. Your task as a teacher is to understand the properties of those relationships and contexts. CHAI'TER 1 Language. Learning, and Teaching 29 Then, using a cautious, enlightened, eclectic approach, you can build a set of foundation stones—a theory, if you will—based on principles of second language learning and teaching. The chapters that follow are designed to help you understand relevant concepts and issues in SLA and in so doing to formulate that approach. TOPICS AND QUESTIONS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION Note: Items listed below are coded for individual < I) work, group/pair (G) work, or (whole) class (C) discussion, as suggestions to the instructor on how to incorporate the topics and questions into a class session. 1. (G) At the beginning of this chapter, a number of categories of questions about second language acquisition are described, with numerous specific questions in each category. In a small group, in which each group is assigned one category only, try to generate some possible answers to selected questions, especially those questions that involve some complexity To personalize your responses, include examples from the learning experiences of members of your group. 2. (C) Look at the two definitions of language, one from a dictionary and the other from Pinker's book (page 6). Why are there differences between these two definitions"' What assumptions or biases do they reflect on the pan of the lexicographer? How do those definitions represent "condensed theories"? 3- G/G) Write your own "25-words-or-less" definitions of language, learning, and teaching. What would you add to or delete from the definitions given in this chapter? Share your definitions with another classmate or in a small group. Compare differences and similarities, 4. (G) Consider the eight subfields of linguistics listed on pages 6-7, and, assigning one subfield to a pair or small group, discuss briefly the type of approach to second language teaching that might emerge from emphasizing the exclusive importance of your particular subfield. Report your thoughts to the whole class. 5. (O What did Twaddeli (1935, p. 57) mean when he said, "The scientific method is quite simply the convention that mind does not exist"? What are the advantages and disadvantages of attending only to "publicly observable responses" in studying human behavior? Don't limit yourself only to language teaching in considering the ramifications of behavioral principles. 6. (T) In the discussion of constructivism as a school of thought, Vygotsky is cited as a major influence in our understanding of constructivism, especially social constructivism. Restate Vygotsky's philosophy in your own words and offer some classroom examples of Vygotsky's theories in action. 7- (G) Looking back at the three schools of thought described in this chapter, in a small group, suggest some examples of activities in the language classroom that would be derived from one of the three perspectives, as assigned to your Stf /a?w/$ jffrf&tnt/ff group From those examples, try to derive some simple descriptors of the three schools of thought 8- (O Considering die productive relationship between theory and practice, think of some examples (from any field of study) that show that theory and practice are interactive. Next, think of some specific types of activities typical of a foreign language class you have been in (choral drills, translation, reading aloud, using a vocabulary word in a sentence,etc.), What kind of theoretical assumptions underlie these activities? How might ihe success tor failure) of the activity possibly alter the theory- behind it? 9. (G) Richards and Rodgcrs (2001. p. 7) said the Grammar Translation Mel hod "is a method for which there is no theory "Why did they make that statement? Do you agree with them? Share in a group any experiences you have had with Grammar Translation in your foreign language classes, and evaluate its effectiveness. 10. (T)At the end of the chapter, twentieth) claimed that conceptual development is a process of progressively moving from states of disequilibrium to EQUILIBRIUM and that periods of disequilibrium mark virtually all cognitive development up through age 14 or 15. when formal operations finally are firmly organized and equilibrium is reached. It is conceivable thai disequilibrium may provide significant motivation tor Ian guage acquisition language interacts with cognition to achieve equilibrium Perhaps until that state of final equilibrium is reached, the child is cognitivety ready and eager to acquire the language necessary for achieving the cognitive equilibrium of adulthood. That same child was, until that time, decreasingly tolerant of cognitive ambiguities. Children are amazingly indifferent to contradictions, but intellectual growth produces an awareness of ambiguities about them and heightens the need for resolution. Perhaps a general intolerance of contradictions produces an acute awareness of the enormous complexities of acquiring an additional language, and so perhaps around the age of 14 or 15, the prospect of learning a second language becomes overwhelming, thus discouraging the learner from proceeding a step at a time as a younger child would do. The final consideration in the cognitive domain is the distinction that Ausubel made between rote and meaningful learning. Ausubel noted that people of all ages have little need for rote, mechanistic learning that is not related to existing knowledge and experience. Rather, most items are acquired by meaningful learning, by anchoring and relating new items and experiences to knowledge that exists in the cognitive framework. It is a myth to contend that children are good rote learners, that they make good use of meaningless repetition and mimicking. We have already-seen in Chapter 2 that children's practice and imitation is a very meaningful activity that is con text ualized and purposeful. Adults have developed even greater concentration and so have greater ability for rote learning, but they usually use rote learning only for short-term memory or for somewhat artificial purposes, by inference, we may conclude that the foreign language classroom should not become the ItKrus of excessive rote activity: rote drills, pattern practice CH APT IX i Age and Acquisition 68 without context, rule recitation, and other activities that are not in the context of meaningful communication. It is interesting to note that C2-A2 comparisons almost always refer, in the case of children, to natural untutored learning, and for adults, to the classroom learning of a second language. Even so, many foreign language classrooms around the world still utilize an excessive number of rote-learning procedures. So. if adults learning a foreign language by rote methods are compared with children learning a second language in a natural, meaningful context,the child's learning will seem to be superior. The cause of such superiority may not be in the age of the person, but in the context of learning. The child happens to be learning language meaningfully, and the adult is not. The cognitive domain holds yet other areas of interest for comparing first and second language acquisition. These areas will be treated more fully in Chapters A and 5. We turn now to what may be the most complex, yet the most illuminating, perspective on age and acquisition: the affective domain. AFFECTIVE CONSIDERATIONS Human beings are emotional creatures. At the heart of all thought and meaning and action is emotion. As "intellectual" as we would like to think we are, we are influenced by our emotions. It is only logical, then, to look at the affective (emotional) domain for some of the most significant answers to the problems of contrasting the differences between first and second language acquisition Research on the affective domain in second language acquisition has been mounting steadily for a number of decades. This research has been inspired by a number of factors. Not the least of these is the fact that linguistic theory is now asking the deepest possible questions about human language, with some applied linguists examining the inner being of the person to discover if, in the affective side of human behavior, there lies an explanation to the mysteries of language acquisition. A full treatment of affective variables in second language acquisition is provided in Chapters 6 and 7; in this chapter it is important to take a brief look at selected affective factors as they relate to the age and acquisition issue. The affective domain includes many factors:empathy,self-esteem, extroversion, inhibition, imitation, anxiety, attitudes—the list could go on. Some of these may seem at first rather far removed from language learning, but when we consider the pervasive nature of language, any affective factor can conceivably be relevant to second language learning. A case in point is the role of egoccntricity in human development. Very young children are highly egocentric. The world revolves about them, and they see ail events as focusing on themselves. SmaU babies at first do not even distinguish a separation between themselves and the world around them. A rattle held in a baby's hand, for example, is simply an inseparable extension of the baby as long as it is grasped; when the baby drops it or loses sight of it, the rattle ceases to exist. As children grow older they become more aware of themselves, more self-conscious as they seek both to define and to understand their self-identity. In preadolescence children develop an acute consciousness of themselves as separate and identifiable entities but ones which, in their still-wavering insecurity, need protecting. They therefore develop inhibitions about this self-identity, fearing to expose too much self-doubt. At puberty these inhibitions are heightened in the trauma of undergoing critical physical, cognitive, and emotional changes. Adolescents must acquire a totally new physical, cognitive, and emotional identity. Their egos are affected not only in how they understand themselves but also in how they reach out beyond themselves, how they relate to others socially, and how they use the communicative process to bring on affective equilibrium. Several decades ago, Alexander Guiora, a researcher in the study of personality' variables in second language learning, proposed what he called the language ego (Guiora et al.. 1972b; see also Ddrnyei, 2005; Ehrman, 1993) to account for the identity a person develops in reference to the language CH APT IX i Age and Acquisition 69 he or she speaks. For any monolingual person, the language ego involves the interaction of the native language and ego development. Oneself-identity is inextricably bound up with one's language, for it is in the communicative process—the process of sending out messages and having them "bounced" back—that such identities are confirmed, shaped, and reshaped. Guiora suggested that the language ego may account for the difficulties that adults have in learning a second language. The child's ego is dynamic and growing and flexible through the age of puberty. Thus a new language at this stage does not pose a substantial "threat" or inhibition to the ego, and adaptation is made relatively easily as long as there are no undue confounding socioculmral factors such as, for example, a damaging attitude toward a language or language group at a young age. Then the simultaneous physical, emotional, and cognitive changes of puberty give rise to a defensive mechanism in CHAPTER 3 Age and AcQLihtfion which the language ego becomes protective and defensive. The language ego clings to the security of the native language to protect the fragile ego of the young adult. The language ego, which has now become part and parcel of self-identity, is threatened, and thus a context develops in which you must be willing to make a fool of yourself in the trial-and-error struggle of speaking and understanding a foreign language. Younger children are less frightened because they are less aware of language forms, and the possibility of making mistakes in those forms—mistakes that one really must make in an attempt to communicate spontaneously—does not concern them greatly. It is no wonder, then, that the acquisition of a new language ego is an enormous undertaking not only for young adolescents but also for an adult who has grown comfortable and secure in his or her own identity and who possesses inhibitions that serve as a wall of defensive protection around the ego. Making the leap to a new or second identity is no simple matter; it can be successful only when one musters the necessary ego strength to overcome inhibitions. It is possible that the successful adult language learner is someone who can bridge this affective gap. Some of the seeds of success might have been sown early in life. In a bilingual setting, for example, if a child has already learned one second language in childhood, then affectively, learning a third language as an adult might represent much less of a threat. Or such seeds may be independent of a bilingual setting; they may simply have arisen out of whatever combination of nature and nurture makes for the development of a strong ego. CLASSROOM CONNECTIONS Research Findings: It is common to find research that compares children and adults acquiring second languages, witii the assumj*-rion that the two categories are easily defined. But not enough research examines differences between younger (6-7-year-old) and older (10-11-year-old) children. Teaching Implications: If you were teaching two groups of children—a 6-7-year-old group and a 10-1 1 -year-old group—how would your approach and classroom activities differ? In looking at SLA in children, it is important to distinguish younger and older children. Preadolescent children of 9 or 10. for example, are beginning to develop inhibitions, and it is conceivable that children of tliis age have a good deal of affective dissonance to overcome as they attempt to learn a second language. This could account for difficulties that older prepubescent children encounter in acquiring a CHAPTER i Age and Acquisition 71 second language Adult vs. child comparisons are, of course, highly relevant. We know from both observational and research evidence that mature adults manifest a number of inhibitions. These inhibitions surface in modern language classes where the learner's attempts to speak in the foreign language are often fraught with embarrassment. We have also observed the same inhibition in the "natural" setting (a nonclass-room setting, such as a learner living in a foreign culture), although in such instances there is the likelihood that the necessity to communicate overrides the inJii bit ions. Other affective factors seem to hinge on the basic notion of ego identification. It would appear that the study of second language learning as the acquisition of a second Identity might pose a fruitful and important issue in understanding not only some differences between child and adult first and second language learning but second language learning in general (see Chapter 7). Another affectively related variable deserves mention here even though it will be given fuller consideration in Chapter 6: the role of attitudes in language learning. From the growing body of literature on attitudes, it seems clear that negative attitudes can affect success in learning a language. Very young children, who are not developed enough cognitively to possess "attitudes" toward races, cultures, ethnic groups, classes of people, and languages, may be less affected than adults. Macnamara (1975. p. 79) noted that "a child suddenly transported from Montreal to Berlin will rapidly learn German no matter what he thinks of the Germans." But as children reach school age, they also begin to acquire certain attitudes toward types and stereotypes of people. Most of these attitudes are "taught," consciously or unconsciously, by parents, other adults, and peers, The learning of negative attitudes toward the people who speak the second language or toward the second language itself has been shown to affect the success of language learning in persons from school age on up. Finally peer pressure is a particularly important variable in considering child-adult comparisons. The peer pressure children encounter in language learning is quite unlike what the adult experiences. Children usually have strong constraints upon them to conform. They are told in words, thoughts, and actions that they had better "be like the rest of the kids," Such peer pressure extends to language. Adults experience some peer pressure, but of a different kind. Adults tend to tolerate linguistic differences more than children, and therefore errors in speech are more easily excused. If adults can understand a second language speaker, for example, they will usually provide positive cognitive and affective feedback, a level of tolerance that might encourage some adult learners to "get by." Children are harsher critics of one another's actions and words and may thus provide a necessary and sufficient degree of mutual pressure to learn the second language. LINGUISTIC CONSIDERATIONS We have so far looked at learners themselves and considered a number of different issues in age and acquisition. Now we turn to some issues that center on the subject matter itself: Language. What are some of the linguistic considerations in age-related questions about SLA? A growing number of research studies are now available to shed some light on the linguistic processes of second language learning and how those processes differ between children and adults. A good deal of this research will be treated in Chapters 8 through 10, but here we will look briefly at some specific Issues that arise in examining the child's acquisition of a second language. Bilingualism It is clear that children learning two languages simultaneously acquire them by the use of similar strategies. They are, in essence, learning two first languages, and the key to success is in distinguishing separate contexts for the two languages. People who learn a second language in such separate contexts can often be described as coordinate bitinguals: they have two meaning systems, as opposed to compound bilinguals who have one meaning system from which both languages operate. Children generally do not have problems with "mixing up languages," regardless of the separateness of contexts CHAPTER i Age and Acquisition 72 for use of the languages. Moreover, "bilinguals are not two monolinguals in the same head" (Cook, 19

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