SOCIOLINGUISTIC AND

PSYCHOLINGUISTIC FOUNDATIONS OF

LANGUAGE TEACHING

Prepared by:

Prof. Elena A. Navas, Ph.D.

LEARNING A

L2/ FOREIGN

LANGUAGE

Who does the

learning and

teaching?

What is to

be learned?

What is to

be taught?

How does learning

takes place? How can

success be ensured?

Where is

the

learning

attempted

to take

place?

Why is the

learner

attempting to

learn a L2?

What a Language teacher

should have

A teacher should have an integrated understanding of

the many aspects of the process of second language

learning.

What is language?

How do persons learn and teach a language?

What is language?

Language is systematic—possibly a generative—system

Language is a set of arbitrary symbols.

Those symbols are primarily vocal, but may also be

visual.

The symbols have conventionalized meanings to which

they refer.

Language is used for communication.

Language operates in a speech community or culture.

Language is essentially human, although possibly not

human.

Language is acquired by all people in much the same

way—language and language learning both have universal

characteristics.

Subfields or categories

1. Explicit or formal accounts of the system of language on several

possible levels (most commonly syntactic, semantic and

phonological).

2. The symbolic nature of language; the relationship between

language and reality; the philosophy of language; the history of

language.

Subfields or categories

3. Phonetics; Phonology; Writing systems; kinesics, proxemics and

other “paralinguistic” features of language.

4. Semantics; language and cognition; psycholinguistics.

5. Communication systems; speaker-hearer interaction; sentence

processing.

6. Dialectology;sociolinguistics; language and culture;

bilingualism and second language acquisition.

Subfields or categories

7. Human language and nonhuman

communication; the physiology of language.

8. Language universals; first language

acquisition.

A successful language

teacher

Understands the nature of language, the fact of

language varieties—social, regional, and functional,

the structure and development of the English

language system…

Concepts in learning and

teaching a second language?

1. Learning is acquisition or “getting”.

2. Learning is retention of information or skill.

3. Retention implies storage systems, memory, cognitive

organization.

4. Learning involves active, conscious focus on and acting

upon events outside or inside the organism.

5. Learning is relatively permanent, but subject to

forgetting.

6. Learning involves some form of practice, perhaps

reinforced practice.

7. Learning is a change in behavior.

Learning and Teaching

1. Learning is acquisition or “getting”.

2. Learning is retention of information or skill.

3. Retention implies storage systems, memory, cognitive

organizations.

4. Learning involves active, conscious focus on and

acting upon events outside or inside the organism.

Learning and Teaching a

second/foreign language

5. Learning is relatively permanent, but subject to forgetting.

6. Learning involves some forms of practice, perhaps reinforced

practice.

7. Learning is a change in behavior.

Subfields: memory system, recall, conscious and subconscious,

learning, learning styles and strategies, theories of forgetting,

reinforcement, role of practice.

Teaching is …

Guiding and facilitating, enabling the learner to learn,

setting the conditions for learning.

Building a theory of teaching

(What to consider)

Understanding of how

learners learn

Philosophy of

education

Teaching style

Approach, method,

technique

Activities

Is language …

A set of habits?

A system of internalized

rules?

Structural School Generative School

(1940s, 1950s) (1960s- present)

Leonard Bloomfield, Edward Sapir, Charles Hockett,

Charles Fries, etc.

Observation

Task - describe observable responses, identify structures

Languages differ without limit;Verbal behavior by

Skinner (1957)-any notion/idea is explanatory fiction

Language can be dismantled to pieces/units

1960s Generative-transformational school (Chomsky)-

advocated that language cannot be scrutinized simply in

terms of observable stimuli & responses

Not only to describe but arrive at explanatory level of

adequacy (principled basis)

Ferdinand de Saussure (1916) – difference between

“parole” (what Skinner “observes” and what Chomsky calls

“performance” and langue (“competence”, which

generative theory seeks to account for).

Generative linguistics capitalized on surface level and

deep structure

Generation of observable linguistic performance

Behavioristic view publicly observable responses

(perceived, recorded,measured)

Scientific method

consciousness, mentalistic view –discarded

Classical conditioning, rote learning

Cognitive psychologists-understanding & knowing are

significant data.

Tried to discover psychological principles of organization

and functioning.

Rationalistic instead of strictly empirical

Sought to discover underlying motivations and deeper

structures of human behavior

Is there difference?

Structural and behavioral – interest in description,

answering “what”

Generative linguist and cognitive psychologist – interest in

what and why – underlying reasons and circumstances

Schools of Psychology Schools of Linguistics Characteristics

Behaviorism

Neobehaviorism

SR

Structural

Descriptive

Repetition and

reinforcement

Publicly observable

responses

Empiricism

Scientific method

Performance

Surface structure

Description--“What”

Cognitive

Process

Generative

Transformational

Acquisition, innateness

States of consciousness

Rationalism

Mentalism, intuition

Competence

Deep structure

References:

Brown, Douglas. Principles of Language

Learning and Teaching. Prentice-Hall