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Environmentalist Ideas
Environmentalist then Innatist ideas dominated language learning theories until the end of the 1960s. -
Skinner's idea of imitation and practice
Before the 1960's, the behaviorist school dominated ideas in the field of language learning. Skinner described the learning process in terms of conditioning, specifically imitation and practice. This idea accounted for how young children hear and repeat language, therefore explaining how children learn basic, routine language. This idea did not explain how children acquire complex grammatical structures in a language. -
Chomsky's Language Acquisition Device
In critique of Skinner's behaviorism ideas, Chomsky theorized that we are born with a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) which allows learners to innately learn their native language. This can be considered the "little black box" of language learning. This idea came from the fact that children use language they have not yet heard. They are able to create language using what they already know thanks to the language acquisition device. -
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Interactionist Approach
During the 1970's, researchers began to look more into the idea of discourse, which is additional language than just a sentence. They began to study how sentences are connected. -
Hymes' Communicative Competence
Hymes broadened Chomsky's definition of competence to communicative competence. In addition to language use being based on a system of syntactic rules, communicative competence also includes the role of context and social factors involved in language learning and interpretation. Language has to have a social and cultural context to be meaningful. -
Sleinker's Interlanguage Theory
Interlanguages are "developing language of the learner" and are the result of five cognitive processes: interference, effect of instruction, overgeneralization, strategies in second language learning (rote memorization), and strategies in second language communication (circumlocution). This theory helps teachers understand that a learner's language is a developing system and errors are a natural part of the acquisition process. -
Halliday's Systemic Grammar
Halliday's theory explains that the purpose of language determines the form of language. He theorized that young children talk because they need to accomplish tasks. He developed seven communicative functions regarding the developing language of children and all of these functions relate to social purposes. They are instrumental, regulatory, interactional, personal, heuristic, imaginative, and representational. -
Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development
A sociocultural theory that explains that a learner's language performance will exceed their capabilities with the help of others. A learner has an actual developmental level, which is what they can do alone, and a potential developmental level, which is what they can do with assistance. Collaboration and scaffolding are implications of ZPD. The teacher doesn't provide solutions but rather helps the learner search for solutions. -
Canale and Swain's L2 Communicative Competence
Canale and Swain expanded upon Hymes' idea of communicative competence to include four components; grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, strategic competence, and discourse competence. These competencies were the framework for language proficiency and teaching. -
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Communicative Approach
The communicative approach emphasizes interaction as the purpose, goal, and means of studying language. -
Krashen's Input Hypothesis
Krashen's Input Hypothesis contains 5 main hypotheses, acquisition-learning(acquisition not learning leads to spontaneous communication), monitor (internal monitor checks and edits), natural order (language rules are learned in a predictable sequence), input (i + 1), and affective filter (anxiety needs to be low). This model prompted teachers to use more comprehensible input in the target language in their classroom and created more debate about the use of input in foreign language teaching. -
Lightbown's U-Shaped Behavior
Lightbown's U-Shaped Behavior demonstrates three stages of learning which includes error free language use, then errors in language use, then error free language use once again. This also includes the ideas of restructuring, or when learners seem to understand large bursts, and backsliding, which is when learners generalize rules and make errors. -
Long's Interaction Hypothesis
Long's Interaction Hypothesis accounts for language learners different sources of input and ways they make that input comprehensible. Language learners negotiate meaning when in conversation which helps breakdown and make input comprehensible. Learners have to be active in the conversation and negotiation in order to acquire language. -
Swain's Output Hypothesis
Language learners need output, or to speak in order to discover gaps in learning. Speaking lets learners try new rules and modify as needed. Producing output also allows learners to reflect on what they know about the language. This theory encourages teachers to provide opportunities for output that is meaningful, purposeful, and motivational. When students struggle when producing output, it is a sign that learning is taking place. -
Cecle and Murcia's Competency Model (Revised)
Celce and Murcia revised Canale and Swain's communicative competency model to include sociocultural, discourse, linguistic, formulaic, interactional, and strategic competencies. Discourse is the central competency in the model which uses two way arrows to demonstrate that learners need to draw upon several competencies at once to create messages in the L2.
