Based on the Mentalism ( innatism and Universal Grammar) theory of Chomsky, which has great influence on second language acquisition.
Following this theory, Stephen Krashen five hypotheses called the monitor model is used to explain second language acquisition.
1. The Acquisition and Learning Hypothesis.
There are two ways for adult second language learners to develop a knowledge of second language: Acquisition and learning. Acquisition is by picking up the language in the natural environment subconsciously with no conscious while learning is a conscious process of study and attention to the form and rule of the language.
Acquisition is far more important because only acquired language is readily available for natural, fluent communication. Learning cannot turn into acquisition. For example, a speaker may know the rules but fail to apply them while some speakers are fluent without ever learning the rules. Thus attention is focused on what to say than how they are said.
2. The Monitor Hypothesis
Acquisition helps the speaker to be fluent and correct ( accuracy) while learning helps to edit and monitor what has been acquired.
Learners use the monitor only when they are focused more on being correct than on what they have to say.
Knowing the rules only help speakers to supplement what has been acquired thus the focus of language teaching should be on creating conditions for acquisition rather than learning.
3. The Natural Order Hypothesis
This hypothesis explains that Second language learners acquire language in predictable sequence as in first language acquisition.
The rules which are not necessarily the easiest are not necessarily the first to be acquired.
For example, the rule adding -s to third person singular verbs in the present tense is easy to state but even some advanced second language speakers fail to apply it in rapid conversation.
The natural order is independent of the order in which rules have been learned in language classes.
4. The Input Hypothesis
This hypothesis is based on the principle that there is only one way in which people acquire language- By exposure to comprehensible input. Comphrension occurs when the input contains forms and structures just beyond the learner's current level of competence in the language. This Krashen calls i+1.
input is the source of acquisition. Even though some leaners who are exposed to extensive comphrehensible input still do not achieve high level of proficiency in second language.
5. The affective Filter Hypothesis
The affective filter is an imaginary barrier which prevents learners from acquring language from available input.
Affects refers to such things as motives, needs, attitudes, and emotional states.
A learner who is tense, angry, anxious, or bored may filter out input, making it unavailable for acquisition.
Thus depending on the learner's state of mind, the filters limits what is noticed and what is acquired.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
INTRODUCTION
Applied Linguistics addresses language-related problems and issues in the everyday world. We address these concerns from three complementary vantage points:
language acquisition
language assessment
discourse analysis/functional grammar
We focus on the interface of these perspectives in real world situations. Other departments focus on individual aspects such as first language acquisition, conversation analysis, or computational modeling, but they do not systematically bring these areas together as we do.
For example, while psychometricians in the
While sociologists study the structure of conversation, we apply that study to problems that second language learners have in communicating with native speakers. This work is a product of years of doing research in second language acquisition of child and adult immigrants, the acquisition of discourse competence in written and spoken language, as well as the assessment of language abilities in all types of language learners.
We have changed our focus from teacher education to research and no longer offer language education as an area of specialization.
Language Assessment
Language assessment is concerned with the empirical investigation of theoretical questions on the one hand, and with providing useful tools for assessment in Applied Linguistics on the other. Language testing research has as its goals the formulation and empirical investigation of theories of language test performance and the demonstration of the ways in which performance on language tests is related to communicative language use in its widest sense.
Language Acquisition
Research in language acquisition seeks to:
1) describe inter language systems
2) examine underlying cognitive mechanisms that could account for these systems
3) examine the social, affective, and neurobiological factors that influence second language development
4) explore the effect of instruction on the process
Additional areas of inquiry include the relationship between first and second language acquisition, and comparisons between native and nonnative linguistic systems and how speakers use them in natural discourse.
Unlike first language acquisition, which appears to be inevitable and fairly uniform in all normal humans, second language learners achieve varying degrees of success. In order to explain this variability it is necessary to understand not only the neural underpinning of language, but also the neural basis for perception, attention, memory and emotion.
Discourse Analysis / Functional Grammar
Discourse Analysis is concerned with how language users produce and interpret language in context. Discourse analysts research:
- linguistic structures of speech acts
- conversational sequences
- speech activities
- oral and literate registers
- stance
These analysts seek to relate these constructions to social and cultural norms, preferences and expectations. The field articulates how lexico-grammar and discourse systematically vary across social situations and at the same time help to define those situations.
GABRIEL KEN GADAFFI
BA. PGDEX, MSC, M. ED, Phd Hons
Erudite Lecturer of Applied linguistics and Cultural Studies
Click Here for Lesson 1: What is Applied Linguistics
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
LESSON 1: WHAT IS APPLIED LINGUISTICS
INTRODUCTION TO APPLIED LINGUISTICS
What is Applied Linguistics?
'Applied linguistics' is using what we know about (a) language, (b) how it is learned and (c) how it is used, in order to achieve some purpose or solve some problem in the real world. Those purposes are many and varied, as is seen in a definition given by Vi1kins (1999:7): who defines applied linguistics as
“concerned with increasing understanding of the role of language in human affairs and thereby with providing the knowledge necessary for those who are responsible for taking language-related decisions whether the need for these arises in the classroom, the workplace, the law court, or the laboratory”.
The range of these purposes of a language is varied into several topic areas:
1. language and its acquisition 2. language and assessment
3. language and the brain 4. language and cognition
5. language and culture 6. language and ideology
7. language and instruction 8. language and interaction
9.language and listening 10. language and media
11.language and policy 12.language and reading
13.language and research methodology 14.language and society
15.language and speaking 16.language and technology
17.language and translation/ interpretation 18. language and writing.
CLICK HERE FOR LESSON 2: Theoretical Approaches to Second Language Learning
What is Applied Linguistics?
'Applied linguistics' is using what we know about (a) language, (b) how it is learned and (c) how it is used, in order to achieve some purpose or solve some problem in the real world. Those purposes are many and varied, as is seen in a definition given by Vi1kins (1999:7): who defines applied linguistics as
“concerned with increasing understanding of the role of language in human affairs and thereby with providing the knowledge necessary for those who are responsible for taking language-related decisions whether the need for these arises in the classroom, the workplace, the law court, or the laboratory”.
The range of these purposes of a language is varied into several topic areas:
1. language and its acquisition 2. language and assessment
3. language and the brain 4. language and cognition
5. language and culture 6. language and ideology
7. language and instruction 8. language and interaction
9.language and listening 10. language and media
11.language and policy 12.language and reading
13.language and research methodology 14.language and society
15.language and speaking 16.language and technology
17.language and translation/ interpretation 18. language and writing.
CLICK HERE FOR LESSON 2: Theoretical Approaches to Second Language Learning
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
LESSON 2: THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO EXPLAINING SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING
THEORIES OF LANGUAGE LEARNING
Definition of basic terms:
A theory refers to a set of ideas or principles that explains something or how an activity is based.
An Approach refers to theories about how something is done.
A Method or model is the practical way of doing something or realization of approach.
A procedure is the ordered sequence of doing something.
A technique is the systematic way of doing something.
Theories of learning
The starting point for all language teaching should be an understanding of how people learn. But in most cases, 'learning' factors are the last to be considered. ESP has been particularly guilty in this regard. The overwhelming weight of emphasis in ESP research and materials has been on language analysis. Learning factors, if considered at all, are incorporated only after the language base has been analyzed and systematized.
The basic theories of learning are as follows:
Behaviourism: learning as habit formation
This simple but powerful theory said that learning is a mechanical, process of habit formation which is influenced by means of the frequent reinforcement of a stimulus-response sequence.
Behaviourist theory gave rise to the principles that:
• Never translate.
• New language should always be dealt with in the sequence: hear, speak, read, and write.
• Frequent repetition is essential to effective learning.
• All errors must be immediately corrected.
2 Mentalism: thinking as rule-governed activity
It was found out that the Audiolingual Method and its behaviourist principles did not deliver the results promised.
This theory
• Insisted on translating things
• Asked for rules of grammar
• Found repeating things to a tape recorder boring
• Noted that people somehow failed to learn something no matter how often they repeated it.
3 Cognitive code: Learners as thinking beings
Whereas the behaviourist theory of learning assumed the learner as a passive receiver of information, the cognitive view takes the learner to be an active processor of information.
This theory pointed out that.
• Learning and using a rule require learners to think
• Learning is a process in which the learner actively tries to make sense of information,
• Learning can be said to have taken place when the learner has managed to carry out meaningful interpretation or pattern on the information.
• We learn by thinking about and trying, to make sense of what we see, feel and hear.
4 The affective factor: learners as emotional beings
This theory evolved around the cognitive theory. People think, but they also have feelings. It is one of human nature that, although we are all aware of our feelings and their effects on our actions, we invariably seek answers to our problems in rational terms.
This theory is based on:
• Human beings always act in a logical and sensible manner
• Learners are people with likes and dislikes, fears, weaknesses and prejudices.
• Learning of a language is an emotional experience, and the feelings that the learning process evokes have a crucial bearing on the success or failure of the learning.
The emotional reaction to the learning experience is the essential foundation for the initiation of the cognitive process. How, the learning is perceived by the learner will affect what learning, if any will take place.
We can represent the cognitive/affective interplay in the form of a learning cycle. This can either be a negative or a positive cycle. A good and appropriate course will engender the kind of positive learning cycle represented here:
5 Learning and acquisition
There has been much debate about the distinction between learning, and acquisition. While learning is seen as a conscious process, acquisition proceeds unconsciously). The two terms sometimes are not distinguished but used interchangeably. There are two ways to learning a language. Consciously and subconsciously, the conscious process is the formal learning of the language which refers to learning while the subconscious is the informal picking up of the language which is referred to as acquisition
6 A model for learning
A model for learning presents the process of learning as network of connections in which individual items of knowledge are connected to the main network to form a whole knowledge.
Why have we pictured the mind as operating like this?
a) Individual items of knowledge, like the towns, have little significance on their own. They only acquire meaning and use when they are connected into the network of existing knowledge.
b) It is the existing network that makes it possible to construct new connections. So in the act of acquiring new knowledge it is the learner's existing knowledge that makes it possible to learn new items.
c) Items of knowledge are not of equal significance. Some items are harder to acquire, but may open up wide possibilities for further learning. Like a bridge across a river or a tunnel through a mountain, learning a generative rule may take time, but once it is there, it greatly increases the potential for further learning. This is why so often the relationship between the cognitive and emotional aspects of learning is, therefore, one of vital importance to the success or otherwise of a language learning experience.
d) Roads and railways are not built haphazardly. They require planning. The road builder has to recognize where problems lie and work out strategies for solving those problems. In the same way the learner will make better progress by developing strategies for solving the learning problems that will arise.
e) A communication network is a system. If the road builder can see the whole system, the planning and construction of the roads will be a lot caster. Language is a system, too. If the learner sees it as just a haphazard set of arbitrary and capricious obstacles, learning -will be difficult, if not impossible.
f) Last, but by, no means least, before anyone builds a road, crosses a river or climbs a mountain, they must have some kind of motivation to do so. If they could not care less what is beyond the mountains, dislike the people who come from there or are simply afraid of traveling, the chances of communication links being established are minimal. First of all, there must be a need to establish the links. In ESP, this need is usually taken for granted. But, as anyone who has set out on a long and possibly difficult Journey will know, a need is not enough. You can always find an excuse for not going. The traveler must also want to make the Journey. And the traveler who can actually enjoy the challenges and the experiences of the journey is more likely to want to repeat the activity. So, with learning, a need to acquire knowledge is a necessary factor, but of equal, if not greater importance, is the need to actually enjoy, the process of acquisition.
Definition of basic terms:
A theory refers to a set of ideas or principles that explains something or how an activity is based.
An Approach refers to theories about how something is done.
A Method or model is the practical way of doing something or realization of approach.
A procedure is the ordered sequence of doing something.
A technique is the systematic way of doing something.
Theories of learning
The starting point for all language teaching should be an understanding of how people learn. But in most cases, 'learning' factors are the last to be considered. ESP has been particularly guilty in this regard. The overwhelming weight of emphasis in ESP research and materials has been on language analysis. Learning factors, if considered at all, are incorporated only after the language base has been analyzed and systematized.
The basic theories of learning are as follows:
Behaviourism: learning as habit formation
This simple but powerful theory said that learning is a mechanical, process of habit formation which is influenced by means of the frequent reinforcement of a stimulus-response sequence.
Behaviourist theory gave rise to the principles that:
• Never translate.
• New language should always be dealt with in the sequence: hear, speak, read, and write.
• Frequent repetition is essential to effective learning.
• All errors must be immediately corrected.
2 Mentalism: thinking as rule-governed activity
It was found out that the Audiolingual Method and its behaviourist principles did not deliver the results promised.
This theory
• Insisted on translating things
• Asked for rules of grammar
• Found repeating things to a tape recorder boring
• Noted that people somehow failed to learn something no matter how often they repeated it.
3 Cognitive code: Learners as thinking beings
Whereas the behaviourist theory of learning assumed the learner as a passive receiver of information, the cognitive view takes the learner to be an active processor of information.
This theory pointed out that.
• Learning and using a rule require learners to think
• Learning is a process in which the learner actively tries to make sense of information,
• Learning can be said to have taken place when the learner has managed to carry out meaningful interpretation or pattern on the information.
• We learn by thinking about and trying, to make sense of what we see, feel and hear.
4 The affective factor: learners as emotional beings
This theory evolved around the cognitive theory. People think, but they also have feelings. It is one of human nature that, although we are all aware of our feelings and their effects on our actions, we invariably seek answers to our problems in rational terms.
This theory is based on:
• Human beings always act in a logical and sensible manner
• Learners are people with likes and dislikes, fears, weaknesses and prejudices.
• Learning of a language is an emotional experience, and the feelings that the learning process evokes have a crucial bearing on the success or failure of the learning.
The emotional reaction to the learning experience is the essential foundation for the initiation of the cognitive process. How, the learning is perceived by the learner will affect what learning, if any will take place.
We can represent the cognitive/affective interplay in the form of a learning cycle. This can either be a negative or a positive cycle. A good and appropriate course will engender the kind of positive learning cycle represented here:
5 Learning and acquisition
There has been much debate about the distinction between learning, and acquisition. While learning is seen as a conscious process, acquisition proceeds unconsciously). The two terms sometimes are not distinguished but used interchangeably. There are two ways to learning a language. Consciously and subconsciously, the conscious process is the formal learning of the language which refers to learning while the subconscious is the informal picking up of the language which is referred to as acquisition
6 A model for learning
A model for learning presents the process of learning as network of connections in which individual items of knowledge are connected to the main network to form a whole knowledge.
Why have we pictured the mind as operating like this?
a) Individual items of knowledge, like the towns, have little significance on their own. They only acquire meaning and use when they are connected into the network of existing knowledge.
b) It is the existing network that makes it possible to construct new connections. So in the act of acquiring new knowledge it is the learner's existing knowledge that makes it possible to learn new items.
c) Items of knowledge are not of equal significance. Some items are harder to acquire, but may open up wide possibilities for further learning. Like a bridge across a river or a tunnel through a mountain, learning a generative rule may take time, but once it is there, it greatly increases the potential for further learning. This is why so often the relationship between the cognitive and emotional aspects of learning is, therefore, one of vital importance to the success or otherwise of a language learning experience.
d) Roads and railways are not built haphazardly. They require planning. The road builder has to recognize where problems lie and work out strategies for solving those problems. In the same way the learner will make better progress by developing strategies for solving the learning problems that will arise.
e) A communication network is a system. If the road builder can see the whole system, the planning and construction of the roads will be a lot caster. Language is a system, too. If the learner sees it as just a haphazard set of arbitrary and capricious obstacles, learning -will be difficult, if not impossible.
f) Last, but by, no means least, before anyone builds a road, crosses a river or climbs a mountain, they must have some kind of motivation to do so. If they could not care less what is beyond the mountains, dislike the people who come from there or are simply afraid of traveling, the chances of communication links being established are minimal. First of all, there must be a need to establish the links. In ESP, this need is usually taken for granted. But, as anyone who has set out on a long and possibly difficult Journey will know, a need is not enough. You can always find an excuse for not going. The traveler must also want to make the Journey. And the traveler who can actually enjoy the challenges and the experiences of the journey is more likely to want to repeat the activity. So, with learning, a need to acquire knowledge is a necessary factor, but of equal, if not greater importance, is the need to actually enjoy, the process of acquisition.
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