Principles of Language Learning and Teaching

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Chapter1. Language, learning and teaching 1. Current issues in second language learning - who, what, where, when, why, how 2. Language ① Language is systematic. ② Language is a set of arbitrary symbols. ③ Those symbols are primarily vocal, but may also be visual. ④ The symbols have conventionalized meanings to which they refer. ⑤ Language is used for communication. ⑥ Language operates in a speech community or culture. ⑦ Language is essentially human, although possibly not limited to humans. ⑧ Language is acquired by all people in much the same way; language and language learning both have universal characteristics. 3. Learning and teaching 1) Learning 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. 2) Teaching: helping someone to learn how to do something, giving instructions, guiding in the study of something, providing with knowledge, causing to know or understand. 4. Schools of thought in second language acquisition 1) Structuralism/behaviorism (1940~50s) - Stimulus/response - descriptive/ structural - Structurist: Language can differ from each other without limit. - When people were born, they don't have any knowledge about the world. => tabula rasa - Language can be spilt up into small pieces or units and be put together for the whole. => scientific, descriptive way to study in human language - Behavioristic paradigm focused on publicly observable responses - perceived, recorded, and measured. - Typical behavioristic models: classical and

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