Second Language Acquisition

Second language acquisition

Sa'dullayeva Durdona 2001

Second Language Acquisition

Theories of Language Acquisition

“The Behaviorist theory” and “The Innate (mentalist) theory”

Behaviorism

Late 19 the century to 1960s	Period of popularity
B. F. Skinner , and the title of one of his most major books is Verbal Behavior (1957)	Bes-known proponent of the theory
Language is behavior	Essence of the theory
Language is learnt by a process of habit-formation. It has the following components: 1. The child is faced with a stimuls and produced a response by imitating language (imitation) 2. People appreciate the child’s attempt and reinforce it by approval (reinforcement) 3. To obtain more approval, the child repeats language produced (repetition) 4. The child’s language is conditioned or shaped until it becomes a habit (habit-formation)	How the theory explains language acquisition

Second Language Acquisition

Accounting for differences between learners

2. Opportunities for learning

Another important influence on the proficiency a learner achieves in second language is the quality of the learning opportunities which the environment offers. There are four aspects of this influence.

First is the opportunities to use a second language. It is important that the learner should have access to situations where the language is used as a natural means of communication.

The second aspect is the emotional climate of the learning situation. In an environment where the learner feels anxious or insecure, there are likely to be psychological barriers to communication. In the typical language classroom, learners are often asked to perform in a state of ignorance and dependence. When they don’t perform adequately, they may be subjected to comment and correction. This can be frustrating.