Behaviorist Theory on Language Learning and Acquisition
Hi there, everyone!!!!!
Today, we are going to see how the behaviorist theory can be related to learning and acquisition of a laguage. I hope you enjoy the reading!
As we have already seen in a previous post about "Who was B. F. Skinner?", we know that he is one of the pioneers of behaviorism. He made some importants discoveries about human behavior and developed concepts, such as the operant conditioning. In education, Skinner made some relevant assumptions about acquisition and learning of laguages. For him a language is developed according to the level of interaction between a person and the environment context.
One belief of behaviorism is that, children are born without any knowledge, that is, as a blank slate, and they learn oral language by watching and imitating adults. When a child is acquiring a language, she or he imitates the sound or speech patterns produced by adults. However, the child will receive rewards (positive stimuli) or punishments (negative stimuli) and this way the child's behavior will be gradually conditionated.
The process of learning over a behaviorist perspective supports the idea that learning does not involve thinking. It is charecterized as being a mechanical process which has as goal to train people to respond automatically without thinking. The teacher, for instance, encourages the learner to construct phrases, clauses and sentences modeled on previously settled set of rules and drills is thoughtto obstruct the instinctive production of language. Rewards and Punishments are important in process of learning, because they help to shape the learner's behavior.
REFERENCE:
https://www.academia.edu/4456398/Behaviorist_theory_on_language_acquisition
IMAGE:
http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/amit/books/lightbown-1993-how-languages-are.html
