Niiwin

Yet another cold winter day! I am looking forward to the weekend when the class gets together. I feel like I am hibernating and not getting out much. Our four-legged brothers and sisters who are smart enough to sleep through these cold months at least lose weight. Mostly I have been sitting in, looking out, and eating, thus gaining weight instead of losing.

Our task for this week (actually last week I think.) has been to read Chapter 2 of the Hadley book, and select one of theory to write about. As I was doing that reading, I couldn't help reflecting on what little I have experienced and observed about language learning. In the Catholic high school I attended, it was expected that we would take as much Latin as we could. I remember the nuns always commenting that learning Latin would help with learning other languages which originated with Latin and that learning Latin would help with a better command of English and to be better test takers. (By and large I found that to be true.) My college language was German, which did not have anything to do with Latin, but I enjoyed the two years of learning. I then experimented with French but was not successful and did not enjoy it. More recently, I have observed how my small grandsons learned language. They were fortunate to attend a literacy based pre-school where the reading readiness skills were taught along with Spanish and American Sign. It was facinating to watch. At a pow wow at Bad River when the oldest was in Kindergarten, he was talking with one of the elders, she didn't understand his name so he spelled it for her. When she commented he was smart and could he count too, his response was to ask if she wanted him to count in English, Spanish or Sign. When she said Spanish, he promptly recited the Spanish numbers from 1 to 35. Unfortunately, while they learn it quickly, it is lost without reinforcement. He is now in second grade and his Spanish has almost vanished.

In keeping with my usual style of starting with the end in mind, a quote from Chapter 2, page 76 seems most appropriate. The author discribes research that interviewed language learners who had been highly successful to determine which of the various language learning theories was most successful. The comment was, "... no one theoretical model of second-language acquisition was unambiquously supported, each model was confirmed in some ways by the interview data ..."In reading about each of the theories, once I understood what the theories were about, (that took 2-3 readings), I would get to each one and find parts of each that made perfect sense.

I have gone through each and will provide a quote from each that struck me.
Behaviorism is based on B.F. Skinner's conditioning work. The two summary statements that describe this type of learning, are found on p. 52:
4. All behavior is viewed as a response to stimuli. Behavior happens in associative chains; in fact, all learning is associative in nature
and
5. Conditioning involves the strengthening of association between stimulus and a response through reinforcement.
How ofter are parents/grandparents advised to talk to the children, to read to the children. One of my favorite memories is that of watching my husband with an infant grandson in his lap reading the business and sport pages out loud.
Universal Grammar presented some innate luinguistic properties. These included (1) the ability to distinguish speech sounds from other sounds, (2) the ability to organize language into a system of structures; (3) the knowledge of what was possible and what was not possible in any linguistic system; and the ability to construct the simplist possible system based on linguistic data to which was was exposed. This all seemed to make sense, but unfortunately the author is this brief summary only used one example and that was that of how questions are formed. The examples that I thought of but did not do further research to see if it is what universal grammar means include:
tense: all language needs to differentiate between past, present, future
noun/verb: all language needs to identify things vs. action
person: all language needs to differentiate between self and others
The authors and theorists quoted to seem to make the assumption that the development of language is limited to humans. I don't think we have a way to know that. It seems that all/most animals have a way to communicate, and there is research on dolphins and their communication abilities. How many of our storytellers have we heard start with, "A long time ago, when the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds could talk and communicate ... ". The biblical stories also seem to posit that there was communication among all creatures prior to 'original sin'. (Sorry, just a sidebar.)

Krashen's Monitor Theory makes an intriguing distinction between acquisition and learning. Acquisition is a subconscious process similar to the way children learn a first language and learning which refers to conscious knowledge of the rules of grammar of a second language. The author goes on to say that, " acquistion is the sole initiator of all second-language utterances and is responsible for fluency, while learning can function only as an "editor" or "monitor" for the for the output.

Cognitive Theory: First and Second Language Learning Differ The description of this theory was interesting because it described the movement from learning about the language to speaking. the staged development of skilled automatic performance can be interpreted as a sequence of transitions from controlled to automatic processing ... the development of skilled behavior involves a shift with practice from controlled to automatic processing. Novices of all kinds ... must pay careful attention to every step of the procedure, whereas experts do not . I think this concept is critical in moving language learners to speakers. The author continues to cite Schmidt in saying, "for novice speakers, it is indeed the case that speaking sometimes seems to require as much thought and effort as planning a chess move." This concept needs to be thoughfully considered along with what has been often described as the Aniishinabeg learning style, of watch, listen, observe, before trying a new skill or concept. Some of us are most confortable of watching, listening, observing for a really long time before we are comfortable in trying a new skill. But if we aren't comfortable with trying out the spoken language it will take that much longer to learn.

This theory also places importance on meaningful learning, which is relatable to what one already knows and thus can be easily integrated into one's existing cognitive structures. In listening to the Basil Johnston tapes, it is most helpful when he talks about the "roots" of the words. While he does use some rote learning with new vocabulary, he also will share the cultural knowledge that goes with various words. One of the tapes I listened to yesterday included new words for various birds. He included two stories of how the name, Shiime came to be. I may forget some of the rote meanings, but I won't forget those two stories.

Connectionism was the hardest to understand. The clearest statement, was on page 74, numer 2. Learning consists of the strengthening of connections between and among simple processing unitsin complex neural networks. This theory seemed to have its roots in brain based learning theories, that many schools embrace.

So, I was not able to select one of the various theories but found various aspects of each theory to be thought provoking. I hope we have some furthe discussion, either in the class or in future chapters in the continuum the chapter starts with, i.e. rationalist/empiricist.

Note: for those who commented on previous posts -- Thank you very much. I will go back and respond when I finish our assignment for the other class. I keep getting away from the blog and then find I have forgotten how to post and comment and have to re-learn.