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Stages of language acquisition – and what if the child does not acquire language
in time? – Loss of Speech
Progression form the babbling stage to that of the multi-word sentence. Up to the age
of about 7 a child has usually acquired all structural features of his or her mother-
tongue.
But what if the child shows any retardation and does not start babbling or speaking in
time? Or if one loses his or her ability of speaking through illness or accident?
Problems concerning first language acquisition
Can be due to either pathological processes or as a result of lacking interaction
between the children question and his/her family etc.
Focus: diseases which deal to a later and/or irregular development of speech abilities.
What is Bilingualism?
Proficiency in two or more languages.
It is evident in reading, writing, speaking, and listening
CHILDHOOD BILINGUALISM
Who are Bilingual Children?
Children who can acquire two languages at the same time in early childhood and be
proficient in both.
Childhood Bilingualism
Children’s acquisition of languages starts from the first moment of their childhood and
adds to its variety during school and develop multi-facets of personal, social, and
economic opportunities.
TYPES OF EARLY BULINGUALISM
SIMULTANEOUS BILINGAULISM – Refers to children who are expose to
more than one language prior to age.
SEQUENTIAL BILINGUALISM – Occurs when the child has exposure to the
first language at birth and then begins to have exposure to the second language
later in childhood or adulthood.
MAIN VIEWS OF BILINGUALISM
ADDITIVE BILINGUALISM – A new language is added to the learner’s
language repertoire.
SUBSTRACTIVE BILINGUALISM – The acquisition of L2 would be detrimental
to an individual’s L1.
BENEFITS OF CHILDHOOD BILINGUALISM
Multi-tasking
Social growth
Better focus and attention
Brain health
Abstract reasoning
IMITATION
Can include such everyday experiences as yawning when other yawn a host of
unconsciously and positively learned replications of social conduct, and the
deliberate adoption of the ideas and habits of others.
Imitation is central to the social learning approach of Canadian born American
psychologist Albert Bandura.
REINFORCEMENT
Used can play an important role in how quickly a behaviour is learned and the
overall strength of the resulting response.
Is defined by the effect that is has on behaviour it increases or strengthens the
response.
1. Primary of Reinforcement – Sometimes referred to unconditional
reinforcement. It occurs naturally and doesn’t require learning in order to
work.
2. Secondary of Reinforcement – Also known as conditioned
reinforcement involves stimuli that have become rewarding by being
paired with another reinforcing stimulus.
PRACTICE
The term drill and practice is defined as a method of instruction characterized
by systematic repetition of concepts, examples, and practice problems.
As an instructional strategy, it promotes the acquisition of knowledge or skills
through systematic training by multiple repetitions, rehearse, practices and
engages in a rehearsal in order to learn or become proficient.
HABIT FORMATION
Is the process by which new behaviours become automatic. If you instinctively
reach for a cigarette the moment you wake up in the morning, you have a habit.
By the same token if you feel inclined to lace up your running shoes and hit the
streets as soon as you get home, you acquired a habit.
UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR
History and Background
The concept of a universal grammar (UG) has been traced to the observation
of Roger Bacon (1214-1294) 13th century AD
During the 1st half of 20th century, linguist who theorized the human ability to
speak did so from the Behaviourist perspective that prevailed at that time. They
therefore held that learning language, like any other kind of learning could be
explained by a succession of trials, errors and rewards for success. For
Chomsky’s believes that, acquiring language cannot be reduced to simply
developing an inventory or responses to stimuli.
Components that are considered to be universal include the notion that words
can be classified into different groups such as being nouns or verbs and that
sentences follow a particular structure.
Universal grammar is not to be confused with universal language, or deep
structure of language, or even with a grammar itself.
UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR (UG)
A theory in linguistics usually credited to Noam Chomsky that suggests that
the ability to learn grammar is built into the human brain from birth
regardless of language.
Consist of a set of unconscious constraints that let us decide whether a
sentence is correctly formed or not.
Thus, “Robert book reads the” perceived as incorrect English
Conversely, “Colorless green ideas asleep furiously" – grammatically
correct English
The basic grammar laws are the same for all the languages, a child only
needs to follow the set of particular set of rules.
LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE AND LINGUISTIC PERFORMANCE
Competence: Is what a person knows
-Persons knowledge
-The system rules which a language user has mastered so it would be possible for
that user to produce and understand an infinite number of sentences and recognize
grammatical mistakes and ambiguities.
Performance: What a person can actually produce
-A term use in the linguistic theory of transformational generative grammar refer to
language is seen as a set of specific utterances produced by a native speaker.
-Is the actual use of language in real situation.
According to Noam Chomsky
-Competence is the ideal language system
-Performance is the actual realization of knowledge in linguistic communication.
Competence – the knowledge of the language
Performance – the actual use of language in concrete situations
INFORMATION PROCESSING
RECALL vs RECOGNITION
Recall
Must retrieve the information from your memory
Fill in the blank
Recognition
Must identify the target from possible targets
Multiple-choice test
George A. Miller – An American psychologist who was the one of the founders of
cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience.
INFORMATION PROCESSING (Cognitive Psychologist)
The human mind's activity of taking in, storing, and using information.
Like the computer, the human mind takes information, performs operations.
Do not think that humans have a language-specific module in the brain.
Do not assume that acquisition and learning are distinct mental processes.
See L2 acquisition as the building up of knowledge that can be eventually be
called an automatically for speaking and understanding.
THE MEMORY PROCESS
Encoding – the processing of information into the memory system
STORAGE – the retention of encoded material over time
RETRIEVAL – the process of getting the information out of memory storage
SENSORY MEMORY
Stimuli from the environment constantly bombard our body's mechanisms for
seeing, hearing, smelling, and feeling.
Sensory memory is the initial processing that transforms these incoming stimuli
into information so we can make sense of them.
THE INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEM
Perception - the process of detecting a stimulus
Gestalt – German for pattern or whole
Bottom-up processing (feature analysis) – the stimulus must be analysed into
features or parts.
Top-down processing – to recognize patterns rapidly. In addition to noting features.
RESTRUCTURING
Sometimes changes in language behaviour do not seem to be explainable in
terms of a gradual build-up of fluency through practice.
May account for what appear to be sudden bursts of progress and apparent
backsliding.
TRANSFER-APPROPRIATE TRANSFERING (TAP)
This hypothesizes that information is best retrieved in situations that are similar
to those in which it is acquired.
Type of dependent memory specifically showing that memory performance is
not determined by depth of processing.
CONNECTIONISM
Connectionism in a Nutshell
Pioneered by Edward L. Thorndike, the recognize founder of the learning theory
Thorndike's theory is based on a puzzle box experiment.
Language learning is a process of forming links or associations.
Learning is the result of associations between stimulus and response.
Connectionism deals with associations either strengthened or weakened by the nature
and frequency of the Stimulus-Response or S-R pairings. The paradigm for S-R theory
is a trial and error learning.
PRIMARY LAW OF THORNDIKE’S THEORY
Law of Effect – Connections are strengthened when the result is satisfying and
weakened when annoying.
Law of Readiness – The more ready the learner has to respond to a stimulus, the
stronger the bond between them.
Law of Exercise - Connections are strengthened with practice and weakened when
practice is stopped.
CHARACTERISTICS OF LEARNING THORNDIKE'S THEORY
Multiple Response – When faced with a problem, one will try several
responses to succeed
Set or Attitude – The satisfying results depend on one's attitude or state of
time
Partial Activity – Certain features of a situation may be prepotent in
determining a response
Assimilation – One will respond to a novel stimulus in the way it has responded
to a similar stimulus
Associative Shifting – Transfer of a response evoked by a stimulus to an
entirely different stimulus
Modification
Between 1927 and 1930, Thorndike published twelve lectures with human
subjects.
The results of his experiments led him to modify his laws of connectionism.
Changes on the Laws of Connectionism
Qualifying the Law of Exercise – Thorndike believed that repetition or the law of
exercise must be guided by feedback.
Recasting the Law of Effect – Satisfiers (rewards) and annoyers (punishments) do
not diminish response as initially stated in the law.
Factors Precursors to Cognitive Learning
Belongingness
Polarity
Identifiability
Availability
Scrutinizing the Factors
BELONGINGNESS – A connection between two units are established if the subject
perceives two as going together
POLARITY – Connections are easier in the direction in which they are in the opposite
direction
IDENTIFIABILITY – A situation is easy to link to a response to the extent that it is
identifiable, distinctive and distinguishable
AVAILABILITY – The ease of forming connections id directly proportional to the ease
in which a response is executed
GENERALIZATION
SPREAD OF EFFECT – rewards affect not only the connection that produced them
but temporarily adjacent connections as well.
Applications:
Connectionism was meant to be a general learning theory both for humans and
animals
Thorndike applied his theory to Mathematics, spelling and reading,
measurement of intelligence and adult learning
COMPETITION MODEL
It is a psycholinguistic theory of language acquisition and sentence processing
pioneered by Elizabeth Bates and Brian MacWhinney (1981)
Suggest that language is interpreted by comparing a number of linguistic cues
(signalling specific functions) within a sentence
States that language is learned through the competition of basic cognitive
mechanisms inside a linguistic setting
According to it, competitive cognitive processes operate on a phylogenetic,
ontogenetic, and synchronic scale
THE INTERACTIVE HYPOTHESIS Why You Shouldn’t Learn Languages Alone
What is the Interactive Hypothesis All About?
It is a theoretical account of second-language acquisition.
It attempts to explain the role of interaction in language learning.
The Interactive Hypothesis (IH) is a socio-interactionist approach.
It emphasizes the role of the environment in language acquisition.
Four Construct of the Interactive Theory (Gass and Mackey, 2007)
INPUT – Information received by a learner from an external source.
INTERACTION – The function that the input and output fulfil or the negotiation for
meaning.
FEEDBACK – This refers to something received out of an output.
OUTPUT – Any linguistic form produced by a learner – essentially and internally
generated.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERAVTIVE HYPOTHESIS
KRASHEN – Krashen pointed out the importance of understanding an input in
learning. (1980)
LONG – Long built the idea about the exchanging of information between two parties.
(1983)
PICA – Pica focused on status-induces chances for conversation and feedback.
(1987)
ELLIS – Ellis stated that an interaction enabling learners modify their input facilities
integration. (1991)
Learning with Peers
Having conversation with others helps integrate the crucial information for
language acquisition.
Interactions improve memory for both vocabulary and grammatical functions.
It is much more enjoyable to learn a language with a friend. Having a buddy
helps.
Noticing THE NOTICING HYPOTHESIS
The Noticing Hypothesis is a concept in L2 acquisition proposed by Richard
Schimdt in 1990.
He said that learners cannot learn the grammatical features of a language
unless they notice them.
Noticing alone does not mean that learners automatically acquire language but
rather, it is a starting point for acquisition.
THE INPUT HYPOTHESIS
Input – When they come into direct contact with the language referred as input.
Intake – When learners process that can contribute to the learning.
STEPHEN KRASHEN – expert in the field of linguistics
PROCESSABILITY
Theory states that learners restructure their interlanguage knowledge systems to be
which they are capable at their stage of development.