Principles and Theories of Language Acquisition and Learning

1. Lesson 2
Principles and Theories of
Language Acquisition and
Learning Approaches

2. What we learn
1.To determine the theory of behaviorism
2.To understand the behaviorism theory in language
acquisition and Learning.
3.To analyze the theory of behaviorist theory.

3. The Principle of
Behaviorist Theory
Behaviorism is a learning theory that
studies observable and measurable
behavioral changes, which result from
stimulus-response associations made by
the learner.

4. The Principle of
Behaviorist Theory
This theory stems from the work of
Pavlov who studied animal behavior, and
was able to condition a dog to associate
the ringing of a bell with food.
Pavlovian conditioning is known as
classical conditioning.

5. The Principle of
Behaviorist Theory
Pavlov's premise was later developed by Thorndike,
Watson and Skinner. Skinner introduced the theory of
operant conditioning (i.e., a behavior followed by a
reinforcer results in an increased probability of that
behavior occurring in the future; a behavior followed
by a punishment is weakened or suppressed in the
future).

6. Watch this!
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7. Behaviorism in the Classroom
Behaviorist techniques have long been applied in
educational practices, especially in classroom
and behavior management.

8. Behaviorism in the Classroom
The learning process, according to Behaviorism,
places the teacher in a primary role wherein he
or she adjusts the learner's behavior and directs
learning through drill and practice, through
habit-breaking, and punishment/reward.

9. Behaviorism in the Classroom

10. Behaviorism in the Classroom
Conversely, the learner's activity, be it thinking
or doing, is confined to the framework of
"behavior", and is governed by the stimulus-
response-reinforcement process.

11. Behaviorism in the Classroom
Examples: In Behaviorism
1. Follow the instructions.
2. Take the test.
3. Get the reward.
4. Learn.

12. Behaviorist Theory on
Language Learning &
Acquisition

13. There are some basic theories advanced to describe how language is acquired, learnt
and taught. The behaviorist theory, Mentalist theory (Innatism), Rationalist theory
(otherwise called Cognitive theory), and Interactionism are some of these theories.
Of these, behaviorist theory and mentalist theory are mainly applicable to the
acquisition of native languages while the rest can account for foreign language
acquisition. Yet, these four fundamental theories of language acquisition cannot be
totally divorced from each other, for "the objectives of second language learning
are not necessarily entirely determined by native language competence inevitably
serves as a foil against which to set second language learning." (H.H. Stem, .1983;
30). Mother Tongue and Foreign Language Learning

14. These five basic theories are, furthermore, very much complementary to
each other, serving different types of learners or representing various
cases of language learning. They must not automatically make us presume
that first and second language learning are identical or alike processes,
though second language learning is strongly tied up with first language
acquisition. Obviously, native language growth must pave the way for
foreign language growth. Then these five basic language learning
theories are fundamental pillars of language learning whose relevance to
education is undeniable.

15. The Principle of the Behaviorist
Theory
The behaviorist theory believes that “infants learn oral language
from other human role models through a process involving imitation,
rewards, and practice. Human role models in an infant’s
environment provide the stimuli and rewards,” (Cooter & Reutzel,
2004). When a child attempt oral language or imitates the sounds
or speech patterns they are usually praised and given affection
for their efforts. Thus, praise and affection becomes the
rewards.

16. The Principle of the Behaviorist
Theory
However, the behaviorist theory is scrutinized for a variety of reasons.
If rewards play such a vital component in language development, what
about the parent who is inattentive or not present when the child
attempts speech? If a baby’s language learning is motivated strictly by
rewards would the speech attempts stop merely for lack of rewards
(Cooter & Reutzel, 2004)? Other cases against this theory include
“learning the use and meaning of abstract words, evidence of novel
forms of language not modeled by others, and uniformity of language
acquisition in humans”(Cooter & Reutzel, 2004).

17. The Background of
the Behaviorist
Theory
The behaviorist theory believes that “infants
learn oral language from other human role
models through a process involving imitation,
rewards, and practice. Human role models in
an infant’s environment provide the stimuli
and rewards,” (Cooter & Reutzel, 2004).

18. The Background of
the Behaviorist
Theory
When a child attempts oral language or imitates the sounds or
speech patterns they are usually praised and given affection for
their efforts. Thus, praise and affection becomes the rewards.
However, the behaviorist theory is scrutinized for a variety of
reasons. If rewards play such a vital component in language
development, what about the parent who is inattentive or not
present when the child attempts speech? If a baby’s language
learning is motivated strictly by rewards would the speech
attempts stop merely for lack of rewards (Cooter & Reutzel,
2004)?

19. The Background of
the Behaviorist
Theory
Other cases against this theory include “learning the use and
meaning of abstract words, evidence of novel forms of language
not modeled by others, and uniformity of language acquisition in
humans”(Cooter & Reutzel, 2004).Behaviorist theory, which is
basically a psychological theory in its essence, founded by
J.B.Watson, is actually a theory of native language learning,
advanced in part as a reaction to traditional grammar. The
supporters of this theory are Leonard Bloomfield, O.N. Mowrer,
B.F.Skinner, and A.W. Staats.

20. The Background of
the Behaviorist
Theory
Behaviorism was advanced in America as a new approach to
psychology in the early decades of the 20th-century by making a
particular emphasis on the importance of verbal behavior, and
received a considerable trust from the educational world of
1950s.The major principle of the behaviorist theory rests on the
analyses of human behavior in observable stimulus-response
interaction and the association between them. E.L.T. Thorndike
was the first behaviorist to explore the area that learning is the
establishment of associations on particular process of behavior
and consequences of that behavior.

21. The Background of
the Behaviorist
Theory
Basically, "the behaviorist theory of stimulus-response learning,
particularly as developed in the operant conditioning model of
Skinner, considers all learning to be the establishment of habits as a
result of reinforcement and reward" (Wilga Rivers, 1968, 73). This
is very reminiscent of Pavlov's experiment which indicates that
stimulus and response work together. According to this category, the
babies obtain native language habits via varied babblings which
resemble the appropriate words repeated by a person or object near
him. Since for his babblings and mutterings he is rewarded, this very
reward reinforces further articulations of the same sort into
grouping of syllables and words in a similar situation.

22. The Background of
the Behaviorist
Theory
In this way, he goes on emitting sounds,groups of sounds, and
as he grows up he combines the sentences via generalizations
and analogy (as in*goed for went, *doed,for did,so on), which
in some complicated cases,condition him to commit errors by
articulating in permissible structures in speech. By the age
offive or six, or babblings and mutterings grow into socialized
speech but little by little they are internalized as implicit
speech, and thus many of their utterances become
indistinguishable from the adults.

23. The Background of
the Behaviorist
Theory
This, then, obviously, means that behaviorist theory is a
theory of stimulus-response psychology."Through a trial-
anderror process, in which acceptable utterances are
reinforced by comprehension and approval, and un
acceptable utterances are inhibited by the lack of
reward,he gradually learns to make finer and finer
discriminations until his utterances approximate more and
more closely the speech of the community in which he is
growing up (Wilga M. Rivers,1968; 73).

24. The Background of
the Behaviorist
Theory
To put it in other words, children develop a natural affinity to
learn the language of their social surroundings whose importance
both over language learning and teaching must never be
underestimated. In this respect behaviorist theory stresses the
fact that "human and animal learning is a process of habit
formation. A highly complex learning task, according to this theory
may be learned by being broken' down into smaIl habits. These are
formed correct or incorrect responses, are rewarded or, punished,
respectively'. (Hubbard Jones and ThorntonWheeler, 1983; 326).
Thus it is clear that the acquisition of learning in infancy is
governed the acquisition of other habits.

25. Stage of Language
Acquisition

26. Stage of Language
Acquisition
There are four main stages of normal language
acquisition: The babbling stage, the Holophrastic or
one-word stage, the two-word stage and the
Telegraphic stage. These stages can be broken
down even more into these smaller stages: pre-
production, early production, speech emergent,
beginning fluency intermediate fluency and
advanced fluency. On this page I will be providing a
summary of the four major stage of language
acquisition.

27. Stage of Language
Acquisition
Within a few weeks of being born the baby begins
to recognize it’s mothers’ voice. There are two
sub-stages within this period. The first occurs
between birth – 8 months. Most of this stage
involves the baby relating to its surroundings and
only during 5/6 – 8 month period does the baby
begin using it’s vocals. As has been previously
discussed babies learn by imitation and the babbling
stage is just that. During these months the baby
hears sounds around them and tries to reproduce
them, albeit with limited success.
BABBLING

28. Stage of Language
Acquisition
The babies attempts at creating and experimenting
with sounds is what we call babbling. When the baby
has been babbling for a few months it begins to relate
the words or sounds it is making to objects or things.
This is the second sub-stage.From 8 months to 12
months the baby gains more and more control over
not only it’s vocal communication but physical
communication as well, for example body language
and gesturing. Eventually when the baby uses both
verbal and non-verbal means to communicate, only
then does it move on to the next stage of language
acquisition.
BABBLING

29. Stage of Language
Acquisition
The second stage of language acquisition is the
holophrastic or one word stage. This stage is
characterized by one word sentences. In this stage nouns
make up around 50% of the infants vocabulary while
verbs and modifiers make up around 30% and questions
and negatives make up the rest. This one-word stage
contains single word utterances such as “play” for “I
want to play now”. Infants use these sentence primarily
to obtain things they want or need, but sometimes they
aren’t that obvious. For example a baby may cry or say
“mama” when it purely wants attention. The infant is
ready to advance to the next stage when it can speak in
successive one word sentences.
Holophrastic / One-word
stage

30. Stage of Language
Acquisition
The two word stage (as you may have guessed) is
made of up primarily two word sentences. These
sentences contain 1 word for the predicate and 1
word for the subject. For example “Doggie walk”
for the sentence “The dog is being walked.”During
this stage we see the appearance of single
modifiers e.g. “That dog”, two word questions e.g.
“Mummy eat?” and the addition of the suffix –ing
onto words to describe something that is
currently happening e.g. “Baby Sleeping.”
Two-Word Stage

31. Stage of Language
Acquisition
The final stage of language acquisition is the telegraphic
stage. This stage is named as it is because it is similar to
what is seen in a telegram; containing just enough
information for the sentence to make sense. This stage
contains many three and four word sentences. Sometime
during this stage the child begins to see the links between
words and objects and therefore over generalization
comes in. Some examples of sentences in the telegraphic
stage are “Mummy eat carrot”, “What her name?” and
“He is playing ball.” During this stage a child’s vocabulary
expands from 50 words to up to 13,000 words. At the end
of this stage the child starts to incorporate plurals, joining
words and attempts to get a grip on tenses.
Telegraphic Stage

32. Stage of Language
Acquisition
As a child’s grasp on language grows it may seem
to us as though they just learn each part in a
random order, but this is not the case. There is a
definite order of speech sounds. Children first
start speaking vowels, starting with the rounded
mouthed sounds like “oo” and “aa”. After the
vowels come the consonants, p, b, m, t, d, n, k
and g. The consonants are first because they are
easier to pronounce then some of the others, for
example ‘s’ and ‘z’ require specific tongue place
which children cannot do at that age.

33. Stage of Language
Acquisition
As all human beings do, children will improvise
something they cannot yet do. For example when
children come across a sound they cannot
produce they replace it with a sound they can e.g.
‘Thoap” for “Soap” and “Wun” for “Run.” These
are just a few example of resourceful children
are, even if in our eyes it is just cute.

34. Stage of Language
Acquisition
How do children learn to speak? Behavioural theory
assumes that children imitate what they hear, and
thanks to continuous, positive reinforcement,
children learn language through conditioning and
habit formation. Behaviourist theorists such as
Skinner also claim that all errors during first
language acquisition are due to ‘bad habit
formation,’ which, in due course, children correct
as they hear and imitate accurate speech. In
contrast to behaviourists, ‘nativists,’ like Chomsky,
believe that human beings are born with an innate
capacity for language development.

35. Stage of Language
Acquisition
How do children learn to speak? Behavioural theory
assumes that children imitate what they hear, and
thanks to continuous, positive reinforcement,
children learn language through conditioning and
habit formation. Behaviourist theorists such as
Skinner also claim that all errors during first
language acquisition are due to ‘bad habit
formation,’ which, in due course, children correct
as they hear and imitate accurate speech. In
contrast to behaviourists, ‘nativists,’ like Chomsky,
believe that human beings are born with an innate
capacity for language development.

36. Language Acquisition
as a Result of
Nurture
Behaviourists propose that a child’s
environment is the most important factor in
first language acquisition, and if a child is
exposed to ‘rich language,’ then ‘good habit
formation,’ and proper language development
will occur. It is possible that first language
acquisition includes speech imitation, but:

37. Language Acquisition
as a Result of
Nurture
Children do not imitate everything they
hear; they appear to be very selective
and only reproduce unassimilated
language chunks. Therefore, their
replications seem to be controlled by an
internal language-monitoring process.

38. Language Acquisition
as a Result of
Nurture
Children learn the basic rules of language
at around the age of five; the
behaviourist theory cannot account for
the speed that first language is acquired.

39. Language Acquisition
as a Result of
Nurture
Children say things that are not adult
imitations; in particular they use
inflectional over generalizations such as
‘goed,’ ‘putted,’ ‘mouses,’ and ‘sheeps.’

40. Language Acquisition
as a Result of
Nurture
Children produce language structures
that do not exist; you often hear, “Where
I am?” instead of “Where am I?”

41. Language Acquisition
as a Result of
Nurture
Children that acquire language from
habit formation seem to memorize certain
structures prematurely. These phrases
become lodged in their minds as
unassimilated chunks of information that
they cannot incorporate into their own
verbal expressions.

42. Language Acquisition
as a Result of
Nurture
Children produce many more sound-
combinations than they hear, and
understand many more than they can
produce.

43. Language Acquisition
as a Result of
Nurture
Children are exposed to language performance
and not to language competence. Often they
are exposed to “debilitated” language, yet,
they manage to extract the language rules
from these utterances and speak correctly.

44. “When we study human language, we are approaching what some might
call the ‘human essence,’ the distinctive qualities of mind that are, so far
as we know, unique to man.” (Noam Chomsky)
Unlike the behaviourist approach that does not take into consideration
the child’s own cognitive processes, the ‘Innateness Hypothesis’ proposed
by linguist Noam Chomsky supports the idea that language acquisition has
a biological foundation. Facts that support this theory include the
following:
We are Wired to
Acquire Language

45. Children acquire language sounds in a certain sequence, and the first
sounds that children learn are those that are common to all world
languages: a stop consonant followed by an open vowel: thus a child’s
first utterances are usually those found in words for ‘mother’ and
‘father,’ sounds such as ‘pa,’ ‘ma,’ ‘ba’ or ‘ta,’ as seen in French:
maman, papa; Greek: mama, baba; Hebrew: eema, aba.
· Children tend to learn language in the same sequence, suggesting that
universality of language exists and the environment alone cannot be
responsible for language acquisition.
We are Wired to
Acquire Language

46. Children acquire function words such as ‘or’ and ‘on’ and the less salient
sounds connected to possessives, pluralisation and third person singular in
a certain order. Interestingly, the plural ‘s’ and other forms of ‘s’ are
not all developed in unison.
We are Wired to
Acquire Language

47. Language
Development: An
Innate Neurological
Process
For language development to occur,
interaction has to take place; language
cannot be acquired passively. Although
imitation and habit forming do have a role in
language acquisition, children seem
predisposed to acquire speech and
competency in language by being able to map
language, possibly onto what Noam Chomsky
calls a ‘language acquisition device.’

48. Answer L2 A1
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