-
Behavorist Skinner held the belief that people learn language through stimuli, imitation, practice and positive reinforcement.
-
Chomsky proposed that humans are born with an innate "language acquisition device" which enables them to process language. Children hear language and select the innate rules. His views are considered to be "innatist" or "nativist".
-
Chomsky's definition was expanded to a broader notion of communicative competence by Hymes to account for the role of context and social factors involved in language rules and interpretation.
-
Selinker says the developing learner's language is the "interlanguage". This development includes five cognitive processes: interference from native language, effect of instruction, generalization of target language rules, strategies in second lang. learning and strategies in second lang. communication.
-
From the 1920's on Vygotsky defined the ZPD as "the distance between the actual development level ...and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance...", which means what learners can do with assistance today, they will be able to do on their own tomorrow or at a future date.
-
The teacher or more knowledgeable peer helps the learner to move through his ZPD until the learner can perform the task alone. The expert helps the learner while simplifying the task, motivating, highlighting certain features, reducing stress, etc., helping the student achieve the task
-
Krashen proposed how language is required with the monitor model: acquisition-learning, monitor, natural-order, input and affective-filter hypothesis. This approach resulted in the teaching of vocabulary.
-
Language production provides a meaningful practice of one's linguistic resources helping the development of automaticity in their use. Learner notices gaps in language and can modify output (Merill Swain).
-
Learners make connections between form and meaning, which s/he calls binding. The new word is directly associated with the meaning and not with a translation, for example presenting the vocabulary in meaningful groups, such as clothing, weather, etc.
-
Collaborative activities in the classroom will benefit the students, such as students reflecting together on their own output and modifying the language according to their own knowledge (Kowal).
-
Intercultural competence refers to the knowledge of how to speak in a special sociocultural context. It involves knowledge of cultural and non-verbal communication, such as knowing the the length of pauses during communications (Celce-Murica and Olshtain).
-
Also called grammatical competence by Canale and Swain is the ability to make meaning when using four types of knowledge: phonological - sound system, intonation, lexical - words, morphological - parts of speech, syntactic - sentence structure, word order.
-
The unanalyzed parts of language that speakers use in interacting with others, such as idioms ("pulling ones leg"), routines ("Nice to meet you") and lexical frames ("see you ..later") (Celce-Murica).
-
Students need more than grammatical or linguistic knowledge to function in a communicative setting, as shown by Celce-Murica. The following communicative competence points should be noted by the language teacher.
-
This refers to pragmatic knowledge which means it refers to how speakers express themselves within the social and cultural context of communication. Our sociocultural competence enables us to greet friends, use body language, appropriate words which is most likely different from a formal setting (Canale and Swain).
-
Hands-on component of sociocultural competence, which includes actional competence (knowledge of how to perform speech acts), conversational competence and non-verbal/paralinguistic competence (use of gestures, body language, space). (Canale and Swain)
-
The use of learning strategies and communication strategies to communicate and compensate for deficiencies in the other areas of competence. (Celce-Murica)
-
The way which language elements, such as words and phrases are selected, sequenced and arranged to express a message on a topic (Celce-Murica).
