Development of a psychologicalperspective in

language teaching

By: Teddy Fiktorius (F5221 2025)

Kasmawita (F52212026)

Postgraduate Study of English Language Education

Teacher Training and Education Faculty

University of TanjungpuraPontianak 2013

List of content

1. Early associationism

2. Educational psychology enters the scene 3. The post-war years: turning to psychology for answers

4. The sixties: questioning psychological assumptions

5. The seventies: fresh theorizing and empirical research

6. Conclusion: The role of psychology in language teaching

A psychological theory

the language learner the learning process

teach a language

Sweet (1899/1964) : language learning

terms of the associationism

psychological foundation of the practical study of languages

learn our own language

associate words and sentences

thoughts, ideas, actions, events

Palmer (1922)

a language teaching theory

psychological components

learning process

learner factors

age, temperament, motivation, nationality and academic background

Palmer (1922/1964)

language learning process

a natural basis

spontaneous capacities for acquiring speech

+Studial capacities

(deliberate, cognitive, co-operative learning)

habit formation and ‘automatic’, unconscious use

NOT

concept formation and systematic thought

Palmer (1964)

Language proficiency

perfectly formed habits

Mastery

Hesitation, conscious synthesis, and conscious analysis

Palmer and Redman

the essentials of the language learning process

‘fusing linguistic symbols to the things $ymbolized’

association

2. Educational psychology enters the scene

the interwar years

the development of psychology

the growth of educational psychology

the application of psychological thought and research techniques

second language teaching

Huse (1931)

the task of language learning (based on educational psychology)

‘essentially a memory problem’

the learning for recognition or recall of a fixed list of units of expression

as precise as learning the multiplication table

the thirties: psychology in language teaching in Britain

Findlay (1932):

theory of second language teaching

psychological insights linguistics pedagogical observations

language learning

psychologically an imitative task

to copy the behaviour of the native

conscious attention

practising again and again

establishing a multitude of new habits

Findlay

memorization

to establish a ‘subconscious store’

Habit

‘unconscious memory’

every new language

immediate purpose

to meet the language as a living reality

Language is presented alive in situations

actual experiences in dramatic form

Brachfeld (1936)

Psychoanalysis

second language learning

life style personality affective psychology

language learning

linguistic talent intelligence reasoning

It is I who am learning, i.e., the entire person

awareness of the psychological relationship

language learning the learner’s ‘life style’

Brachfeld’ observation

language learning

the ‘turning point’

a moment in the development of the second language

After having struggled haltingly, suddenly ‘the miracle happens’

the first time the student speaks the foreign tongue as easily and as “naturally” as his own- though perhaps not correctly

what matters is not correctness in every detail, but above all a feeling for the “form” the “structure”

the “spirit” of the foreign language’

3. The post-war years: turning to psychology for answers

Stott (1946), like Findlay,

the need for memorisation and habituation in language learning

cognitive and active approach

(a) the learner is encouraged to think for himself about the language(b) he is guided to make linguistic observations

(c) he is given the opportunity to participate actively in language games

The fifties:

A psychological issue

question of the optimal age for second language learning

Penfield, a neurophysiologist,

the early years before puberty

a biologically favourable stage for second language learning

the early years of childhood

more intensively for language training.

Carroll (1953):

educational psychology

might be helpful answers to pedagogy

carrying out research on specific questions of language learning,

for example: ‘Should sounds and meanings be presented simultaneously or

successively?’

‘When do linguistic explanations facilitate learning?’

‘At what rate can new materials be introduced?’, etc

From about 1960

an emerging discipline of psycholinguistics

a psychological perspective

studying second language learning

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