In the first section you focused on language in general, and on your own ideas on what it is and how it works. For centuries linguists have asked themselves the same questions. In this chapter you will take a closer look at some of their ideas: ideas that helped shape the way (foreign) language education is organised today.
As an introduction, please watch and listen to German Coastguard, under Course Materials. (pronunciation matters!)
Now visit three (or more!) websites and study the history of language methodology. Whilst reading, do two things:
P-assignment 9
Make your own summary of at least 5 theories, using words that your (future) pupils would understand.
Behaviourism
Cognitivism
Social-Constructivism
Nativism
Intercationism
Behaviourism
Children imitate adults. Basically children take adults as an example of behaviour. Correct behaviour is rewarded whilst bad behaviour gets punished. For example, when you don’t learn for a test, you get a bad result. That’s the punishment for your for not learning. So the lesson is that you have to change the current behavior into a good learning behavior.
Cognitivism
Language is just one aspect of a child's overall intellectual development. Children have to face certain levels of intellectual development. When children learn to compare objects to size, they can learn the comparison (grammar): ‘big, bigger, biggest’.
Nativism
Everyone has got a sort of data base for languages which comes naturally at birth. It’s a universal grammar system. It’s called the Language Acquisition Device. Every language around the world starts with the same basic grammar. Like the subject. Another example the LAD contains the concept of verb tens. By listening to forms such as ‘worked’ and ‘played’, the child will have the idea that the past tense of verbs is formed by adding the sound /d/, /t/ or /id/ to the base form
Social constructivism
Depending on your environment you learn new skills. It has to do with language, action and personality. Because of social behavior, there will be situations where children gain new experiences that will teach them. For example, children are playing football, and they learn new tricks from each other. That’s how social constructivism is defined.
Interaction
This theory emphasises the interaction between children and their care-givers. Children learn to speak a certain language the way they hear it. Like accents in a language. When people grow up they adapt the language skills from their environment. When this person meets other persons outside his environment he/she will notice the differences in the language they learned.
