Language and human brain
There has been a longstanding interest among second and foreign language educators in research on language and the brain. Language learning is a natural phenomenon; it occurs even without intervention. By understanding how the brain learns naturally, language teachers may be better able to enhance their effectiveness in the classroom.
Brain research cannot prescribe what we should teach, how we should organize complex sequences of teaching, nor how we should work with students with special needs. Teachers should continue to draw on and develop their own insights about learning based on their classroom experiences and classroom-based research to complement the insights that are emerging from advances in brain research. For most individuals, the left hemisphere is critically involved in most normal language functions. We know this because damage to the left hemisphere in adults leads to language impairment, which is often permanent. However, approximately 10% of normal right-handed individuals have a different pattern of lateralization;their right hemispheres or both hemispheres play a critical role in language (Banich, 1997, pp. 306-312). Males and females have somewhat different patterns of lateralization, with
males being more left-hemisphere dominant than females. In the domain of reading, brain maps of students with dyslexia demonstrate that there are very large individual differences in the areas of the brain that underlie their difficulties (Bigler, 1992).
There is increasing evidence of right hemisphere involvement in early language learning but less in later learning. Young children with lesions to their right hemisphere demonstrate delays in word comprehension and the use of symbolic and communicative gestures. These problems are not found in adults with right hemisphere lesions. Scientists have argued that there may be a link between the word comprehension problems of children and the right hemisphere, because “to understand the meaning of a new word, children have to integrate information from many different sources. These sources include acoustic input, but they also include visual information, tactile information,
memories of the immediately preceding context, emotions—in short, a range of experiences that define the initial meaning of a word and refine that meaning over time” (Stiles& Thal, as cited in Elman et al., 1997, pp. 309-310). We know
from a variety of sources that integration across domains of experience is a right-hemisphere function. By implication, brain research confirms what we know from education research: that educators must make provisions for individual differences in learning styles by providing alternative grouping arrangements, instructional materials, time frames, and so on. Instruction for beginning language learners, in particular, should take into account their need for context-rich, meaningful environments. Individual differences in learning
style may not be a simple matter of personal preference, but rather of individual differences in the hardwiring of the brain and, thus, beyond individual control.
Until recently, the idea that the neural basis for learning resided in connections between neurons remained speculation. Now, there is direct evidence that when learning occurs, neuro-chemical communication between neurons is facilitated, and less input is required to activate established connections over time. For example, exposure to unfamiliar speech sounds is initially registered by the brain as undifferentiated neural activity. Neural activity is diffuse, because the brain has not learned the acoustic patterns that distinguish one sound from another. As exposure continues, the listener (and the brain) learns to differentiate among different sounds and even among short sequences of sounds that correspond to words or parts of words. Neural connections that reflect this learning process are formed in the auditory
(temporal) cortex of the left hemisphere for most individuals. With further exposure, both the simple and complex circuits (corresponding to simple sounds and sequences of In early stages of learning, neural circuits are activated piecemeal, incompletely, and weakly. It is like getting a glimpse of a
partially exposed and very blurry photo. With more experience, practice, and exposure, the picture becomes clearer and more detailed. As exposure is repeated, less input is needed to activate the entire network. With time, activation and recognition are relatively automatic, and the learner can direct her attention to other parts of the task. This also explains why learning takes
time. Time is needed to establish new neural networks and connections between networks. This suggests that the neural mechanism for learning is essentially the same as the products of learning—learning is a process that establishes new connections among networks and the new skills or knowledge that are learned are neural circuits and networks. What are the implications of these findings for teaching? First, effective teaching should include a focus on both parts and wholes. Instructional approaches that advocate teaching parts
and not wholes or wholes and not parts are misguided, because the brain naturally links local neural activity to circuits that are related to different experiential domains. For example, in initial reading instruction, teaching phonics independently of the meaning of the words and their meaningful use is likely to be less effective than teaching both in parallel. Relating the mechanics
of spelling to students’ meaningful use of written language to express themselves during diary writing, for example, provides important motivational incentives for learning to readand write. Second, and related to the preceding point, teaching (and learning) can proceed from the bottom up (simple to complex) and from the top down (complex to simple). Arguments for teaching simple skills in isolation assume that learners can only initially handle simple information and that the use of simple skills in more complex ways should proceed slowly and progressively. Brain research indicates that higher order braincenters that process complex, abstract information can activate and interact with lower order centers, as well as vice versa.
For example, teaching students simple emotional expressions (vocabulary and idioms) can take place in the context of talking about different emotions and what situations elicit different emotions. Students’ vocabulary acquisition can be enhanced when it is embedded in real-world complex contexts that are familiar to them. Third, students need time and experience (“practice”) to consolidate new skills and knowledge to become fluent and articulated.sounds) are activated at virtually the same time and more easily.
Second language learning- evolution of different approaches
In discussing linguistic origins, the Lockean assumption of a 'clean slate' before learning went to extremes with behaviourists like B. F. Skinner, who
dominated language learning in mid-century. The arrival of the linguist Chomsky on the scene restored a balance, in that it favoured a pre-rogramming prior to learning. This pre-programming represented the universal human linguistic gift, that humans are good at learning foreign languages. All humans have a 'linguistic gift', given, at creation. It was Noam Chomsky who restored interest in human universal ability to speak coherently, and he restored the balance by criticising the 'empty slate' stance of Skinner
and others, saying that this was insufficient to account for all the facts.
In fact, Chomsky insists that mid-century studies based
on the evolution of language from apes to humans only 'bring out more clearly the extent to which human language appears to be a unique phenomenon.
Many ideas were suggested in nineteenth century to formulate some credible basis for language arising from primitive communication in social contexts. Some such were:
(a) the 'bow-wow' theory, suggesting that ejaculatory noises began to acquire specific meanings, much in the way that dogs may radiate pleasure, aggression, etc. through different barking styles; (b) the 'ding-dong' theory, with calls for help, as in today's world of sirens, triggering off messages with specific
content; and (c) the 'yo-heave-ho' theory, suggesting that combined
labour encouraged comments and directions to emerge. Still others have exhaustively examined child language in the hope of finding a progression which might in some recapitulatory framework mirror the first human attempts
at communication.
Chomsky insists that grammar is not learnt in the child by trial and error, or else children could not make new grammatical sentences which they have ever heard before.15 That this takes place is shown by experiments using nonsense words and asking the child to respond to questions which they must process. In connection with this Chomsky stated that 'saying apes can acquire language because they can learn some simple signs. . . is like saying humans can fly because they can jump' Children unconsciously process their parents' language in order to work out the grammar. But hearing is an essential part of
language, because by its very nature language has to be a shared code'.
What is remarkable (and miraculous) is that it begins spontaneously in the normal child, and that adults do not in any formal sense 'teach' language.
This, according to Chomsky, showed that the understanding of language is
not merely a mechanical linear process but has a re-creative element sometimes brought into play even when the language has been fully 'learnt'.
If creativity is involved in understanding as much as in the production of language, this helps us to accept the fact that we understand more than we can produce. In both first and second language learning it is clear that in exchanges we understand more than we produce, even in the matter of
learning new sounds. Chomsky's most common description of language is
that it is 'rule-governed behaviour'.
The Development of Language Teaching/Learning Strategy Theory
Over the years many different methods and approaches to the teaching and learning of languages (SOL), each with its own theoretical basis, have come and gone in and out
of fashion (for instance the grammar-translation method, the audio lingual method,
the communicative approach). Language learning strategies, although still fuzzily
defined and controversially classified, are increasingly attracting the interest of
contemporary educators because of their potential to enhance learning. In the light of
this interest, I would like to take a look at the theory underlying language learning
strategies beginning from the perspective of the various other theories, methods and
approaches from which, and alongside which, language learning strategy theory has
developed.
Derived from the way Latin and Greek were taught, the grammar-translation method, as its name suggests, relied heavily on the teaching of grammar and practising
translation as its main teaching and learning activities (Richards, Platt and Platt,
1992). The major focus of this method tended to be reading and writing, with very
little attention paid to speaking and listening. Vocabulary was typically taught in lists,
and a high priority was given to accuracy and to the ability to construct correct
sentences. Instruction was typically conducted in the students’ native language. This
resulted in, as Richards and Rodgers (1986, pp.3-4) put it, the type of grammar-translation courses remembered with distaste by thousands of school learners, for whom foreign language learning meant a tedious experience of memorising endless lists of unusable grammar rules and vocabulary and attempting to produce perfect translations of stilted or literary prose.
The audio lingual method grew partly out of a reaction against the limitations of the grammar-translation method, and partly out of the urgent war-time demands for fluent speakers of languages such as German, Italian and Japanese. The “Army Method” was developed to produce military personnel with conversational proficiency in the target language. After the war, the “Army Method” attracted the attention of linguists
already looking for an alternative to grammar-translation and became known as the
audio lingual method. By the sixties, audiolingualism was widespread (Richards and
Rodgers, 1986). In direct contrast to the grammar-translation method, the audio lingual method was based on the belief that speaking and listening are the most basic language skills and should be emphasised before reading and writing (Richards, Platt and Platt, 1992). Audio lingual teaching methods depended heavily on drills and repetition, which were justified according to behaviourist theories that language is a system of habits which can be taught and learnt on the stimulus, response and reinforcement basis that behaviourists believed controlled all human learning, including language learning.
Since audio lingual theory depended on the automatic patterning of behaviour there
was little or no recognition given to any conscious contribution which the individual
learner might make in the learning process. Indeed, learners were discouraged from
taking initiative in the learning situation because they might make mistakes (Richards
and Rodgers, 1986). If anything, there was even less place for individual language
learning strategies in audio lingual theory than there had been in grammar-translation
theory, except, perhaps, in a very limited form in the exercising of memory and
cognitive strategies by means of repetition and substitution exercises, and even this
was rarely, if ever, made explicit. The effect of audio lingual techniques of rote
learning, repetition, imitation, memorisation and pattern practice was to minimise the
importance of explicit learning strategies in the language learning process (Stern,
1992).
By the end of the sixties, however, the limitations of the audio lingual method were beginning to make themselves obvious. Contrary to audio lingual theory, as Hutchinson and Waters (1990) comment, language learners did not act according to behaviourist expectations. They wanted to translate things, demanded grammar rules, found endless repetition boring and not conducive to learning. It was at this time, in the mid to late sixties, that the ideas of the highly influential linguist, Noam Chomsky (for instance Chomsky, 1965; 1968) began to have a major effect on linguistic theory. Chomsky postulated that all normal human beings are born with a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) which enables them to develop language from an innate set of principles which he called the Universal Grammar (UG).
Chomsky’s theory of Transformational-Generative Grammar attempts to explain how original utterances are generated from a language user’s underlying competence.
Chomsky believed that behaviourist theory could not explain the complexities of
generative grammar and concluded that “the creative aspect of language use, when
investigated with care and respect for the facts, shows that current notions of habit and
generalisation, as determinants of behaviour or knowledge, are quite inadequate”
(Chomsky, 1968, p.84). Although Chomsky’s theories directly related mainly to first language learners, his view of the learner as a generator of rules was taken up by Corder (1967) who argued that language errors made by students who are speakers of other languages indicate the development of underlying linguistic competence and reflect the learners’ attempts to organise linguistic input. The intermediate system created while the learner is trying to come to terms with the target language was later called “interlanguage” (IL) by Selinker (1972) who viewed learner errors as evidence of positive efforts by the student to learn the new language. This view of language learning allowed for the possibility of learners making deliberate attempts to control their own learning and, along with theories of cognitive processes in language learning promoted by writers such as McLaughlin (1978) and Bialystok (1978), contributed to a research thrust in the mid to late seventies aimed at discovering how learners employ learning strategies to promote the learning of language (for instance Rubin, 1975; Stern, 1975; Naiman,Frohlich, Stern and Todesco, 1978). The idea that teachers should be concerned not only with “finding the best method or with getting the correct answer” but also with assisting a student in order to “enable him to learn on his own” (Rubin 1975, p.45) was, at the time, quite revolutionary.
Krashen (Krashen, 1976; 1977) changed language learning strategy movement in almost exactly the opposite direction.Challenging the rule-driven theories of the grammar-translation method, the audio lingual behaviourist theories that language can be taught as a system of habits, as well as the idea of learners being able to consciously control their own learning, Krashen proposed his five hypotheses. Summarised briefly (Krashen and Terrell, 1983), these consist of the Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis (conscious learning is an ineffective way of developing language, which is better acquired through natural communication), the Natural Order Hypothesis (grammatical structures of a language are acquired in a predictable order), the Monitor Hypothesis (conscious learning is of very little value to an adult language learner, and can only be useful under certain conditions as a monitor or editor), the Input Hypothesis (language is acquired by understanding input which is a little beyond the current level of competence (comprehensible input)) and the Affective Filter Hypothesis (a learner’s emotions and attitudes can act as a filter which slows down the acquisition of language. When the affective filter is high it can block language development). Taken to their extreme, Krashen’s hypotheses led to the belief that conscious teaching and learning were not useful in the language learning process, and that any attempt to teach or learn language in a formal kind of a way was doomed to failure. By implication, therefore, since in Krashen’s view conscious learning had so little value, there was very little room for conscious language learning strategies to play a role in the process of language development. Many of Krashen’s ideas have been expressed in his sweeping statements, such as “speech cannot be taught directly but ‘emerges’ on its own as a result of building competence via comprehensible input” (Krashen, 1985, p.2) and “when the filter is ‘down’ and comprehensible input is presented and comprehended, acquisition is inevitable. It is, in fact, unavoidable and cannot be prevented” (Krashen, 1985, p.4)..
In spite of the many challenges, Krashen’s views have been and remain very
influential in the language teaching and learning field. Even a harsh critic such as
Gregg, who censures Krashen for being “incoherent” and “dogmatic” admits that “he
is often right on the important questions” (Gregg, 1984, pp.94-95), and in as far as
Krashen (for instance Krashen, 1981) believed that language develops through natural
communication, he might be considered one of the driving forces behind the
communicative language teaching movement which is in vogue to the present day.
An important theoretical principle underlying the communicative language teaching
movement was called “communicative competence” by Hymes (1972).
Communicative competence is the ability to use language to convey and interpret
meaning, and it was later divided by Canale and Swain (1980) into four separate
components: grammatical competence (which relates to the learner’s knowledge of
the vocabulary, phonology and rules of the language), discourse competence (which
relates to the learner’s ability to connect utterances into a meaningful whole),
sociolinguistic competence (which relates to the learner’s ability to use language
appropriately) and strategic competence (which relates to a learner’s ability to employ
strategies to compensate for imperfect knowledge). Another cornerstone of
communicative language teaching theory is the belief that how language functions is
more important than knowledge of form or structure. The concept of the communicative functions of language promoted by Wilkins (1976) have had a strong influence on contemporary language learning programmes and textbooks. Other wellknown
figures in the field have consolidated and extended the theories of communicative language teaching. Widdowson, for instance, believes that by using a communicative approach language can be developed incidentally, as a by-product of using it (1978), and that “knowing will emerge from doing” (1991, p.160), while Littlewood (1981) stresses the need to give learners extensive opportunities to use the target language for real communicative purposes, and believes that the ability to communicate effectively is more important than perfect mastery. Although “the communicative approach implicitly encourages learners to take greater responsibility for their own learning” (Oxford et al, 1989, p.33), typically the emphasis in the communicative language movement, as in previous methods and approaches, has been on how teachers teach, with relatively little attention paid to how learners learn. Even today, when the communicative approach underlies a substantial number of syllabuses for speakers of other languages, and in spite of insights from a now considerable body of research, it is unusual to find textbooks which include learning strategies in their material. A rare exception is Blueprint (Abbs and Freebairn, 1991), and even in this series, the space dedicated to learning strategies consists of no more than a paragraph at the end of each section.
Other less widely adopted language teaching and learning methods and approaches
include, among others, situational language teaching (whereby grammar and
vocabulary are practised through situations), the natural method (which emphasises
natural acquisition rather than formal grammar study), the direct method (which uses
only the target language), the total physical response method (which stresses the
importance of motor activity), the silent way (which encourages the teacher to be
silent as much as possible) and suggestopoedia (which attempts to harness the
influence of suggestion, such as music or art, on human behaviour).
It would probably be fair to say that to a greater or lesser extent all of these various
methods and approaches have had some influence on the contemporary language
learning and teaching field which has tended in recent years to move away from
dogmatic positions of “right” or “wrong” and to become much more eclectic in its
attitudes and willing to recognise the potential merits of a wide variety of possible
methods and approaches..
There are several important theoretical assumptions which underlie contemporary
ideas on language learning strategies. To comment that some students are more
successful at learning language than others is, of course, to do no more than state the
obvious. Language learning strategy theory postulates that, other things being equal,
at least part of this differential success rate is attributable to the varying strategies
which different learners bring to the task. From this perspective, which views students
as being able to consciously influence their own learning, the learning of language
becomes a cognitive process similar in many ways to any other kind of learning
(McLaughlin, 1978). It is a view diametrically opposed to Krashen’s Monitor and
Acquisition/Learning Hypotheses (Krashen, 1976; 1977) which state that language
cannot be consciously learnt but only acquired through natural communication and
therefore, by implication, that conscious learning strategies are not useful in the
development of language. . Learning from errors (developed from interlanguage theory) involves cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Compensation and social strategies can easily be assimilated into communicative competence theory and the communicative language teaching approach. Methods such as suggestopoedia involve affective strategies. The fact that learning strategy theory can work so easily alongside other theories, methods and approaches means that it has the potential to be a valuable
component of contemporary eclectic syllabuses.
Language Learning Strategies- why do not our children speak English.
One of the difficulties with researching language learning strategies is that they
cannot usually be observed directly; they can only be inferred from language learner
behavior,It is rather like trying to work out the classification system of a library when the only evidence to go on consists of the few books you have been allowed to take out”. t”. Over the years, different researchers have employed a variety of approaches to this rather daunting task, one of the most frequently used of which has been the gathering of data about good language learners and about what it is that they do that makes them more successful than slower language learners.
Studies involving successful and unsuccessful language learners
One of the earliest researchers in this area concluded that successful language learners had a strong desire to communicate, were willing to guess when unsure, and were not afraid of being wrong or appearing foolish. This did not mean that they did not care about correctness, however: good language learners also paid attention to form and meaning in their language. In addition, good language learners practise and monitor their own language and the language of those around them the good language learners spent more time than they should have during class time socialising and minding everyone else’s business.....they were constantly involved in the affairs of their classmates” . Our learners are forced to learn English which results in lack of intrinsic motivation to learn the language.
At around the same time as Rubin, Stern (1975) produced a list of ten language learning strategies. He believed that the good language learner is characterised by a personal learning style or positive learning strategies, an active approach to the learning task, a tolerant and outgoing approach to the target language which is empathetic with its speakers, technical know-how about how to tackle a language, strategies of
experimentation and planning with the object of developing the new language into an
ordered system with progressive revision, constantly searching for meaning, willingness
to practise, willingness to use the language in real communication, critically sensitive
self-monitoring in language use and an ability to develop the target language more and
more as a separate reference system while learning to think about it. These aspects are also found to be in sufficient in our learning environ ment.
In another pioneering piece of research, Naiman, Frohlich, Stern and Todesco (1978) also tried to find out what people known to be good at languages had in common. Using a very broad definition of strategies as “ general, more or less deliberate approaches” (p.4), they discovered that good language learners are able to adapt learning styles to suit themselves, are actively involved in the language learning
process, are able to develop an awareness of language both as a system of rules and as a means of communication, are constantly working at expanding their language
knowledge, develop the target language as a separate system which does not always
have to be related to the first language, and are realistically aware of the demands of
learning language. Higher level students reported greater use of metacognitive strategies (that is strategies used by students to manage their own learning), leading the researchers to conclude that the more successful students are probably able to exercise greater metacognitive control over their learning. This conclusion, however, is somewhat at variance with the results of a study by Ehrman and Oxford (1995) who investigated the relationship between end-of-course proficiency and a number of variables including language learning strategies. The results of this study indicated that cognitive strategies such as looking for patterns and reading for pleasure in the target language were the only kinds of strategies which had a significant positive relationship with success in learning language. Metacognitive learning stratergies are not ussed by our learners.
.
Griffiths (2003) also discovered a positive correlation between course level and
reported frequency of language learning strategy use. In a study involving 348
students in a private language school in New Zealand, Griffiths found that language
learning strategies were reportedly used significantly more frequently by advanced
students than by elementary students. According to an examination of the patterns of
language learning strategy use which emerged from the data, higher level students
reported highly frequent use of strategies relating to interaction with others, to
vocabulary, to reading, to the tolerance of ambiguity, to language systems, to the
management of feelings, to the management of learning and to the utilisation of
available resources.
there is a lot to be learnt by
observation of what unsuccessful language learners do, and, therefore, by implication,
what learners should, perhaps, try to avoid. Writing about her own less than totally
successful efforts to become literate in Chinese, Sinclair Bell (1995) reports that she
found the experience immensely stressful. One of the reasons for her difficulties, she
believes, is “I used the same strategies and approaches for L2 literacy as had given me
success in L1 literacy” (p.701). The difficulty of changing students familiar strategy
patterns is also reported by O’Malley (1987)
Although the research into language learning strategies used by successful and
unsuccessful language learners has produced some interesting insights, the picture
which emerges is far from unified. An alternative approach used by researchers has
been to study some of the various factors which influence individual students in their
choice of learning strategies
The effects of motivation on language learning strategy use were highlighted when Oxford and Nyikos (1989) surveyed 1,200 students studying various languages in a Midwestern American university in order to examine the kinds of language learning
strategies the students reported using. On this occasion, the degree of expressed
motivation was discovered to be the most influential of the variables affecting
strategy choice examined. In their study at the Foreign Service Institute, Ehrman and
Oxford (1989) discovered that career choice had a major effect on reported language
learning strategy use, a finding which they suggest may be the result of underlying
motivation. Our learners are not sufficiently motivated to learn English.
Most of the teachers in the present generation are trained in grammar translation method and probably had some exposure to audiolingual method as a result most of the teachers still resort to these methods knowing pretty well about the limitations of this. This results in teaching about language and with little importance to acquisition of language.
Why don’t our children speech English
The Overuser
Stafford and Covitt (1978) present an instructive case of a Monitor overuser.our learners knows many of the rules of English, but often are unable to communicate in speech. Their self-correction behavior reveals lack of faith in acquired knowledge of English. Stafford, and Covitt report that such people generally do not trust their intuitions about English syntax but relies on conscious rules. Such people describe their situation as follows: "I feel bad... when I put words together and I don't know nothing about the grammar."
The Monitor overuser refers to his conscious grammar all the time when using his
second language. This may be due to an overconcern with correctness, "S", the
overuser described by Stafford and Covitt (1978), who admitted that "I feel bad
when I put words together and I don't know nothing about the rules", is clearly this
sort. Mr. J., described by Nida (1956), also seems to be an overuser of this type.
Those trained only in foreign language classrooms, where the emphasis was on conscious grammar, may develop extensive formal knowledge of the target language, with very little acquisition, and consequently have no choice but to be overusers. Such performers may utilize the first language as an utterance initiator when forced to speak, since they lack acquired competence in the second language.
Overusers, regardless of type, will typically self-correct "by rule", that is, when
correcting errors, they will often be consciously aware of the rule that was broken
and be able to verbalize it.
