1. Methodology of Language Teaching and Research ( 940/617:501) Liliana Sanchez Lsanchez@rci.rutgers.edu Phone: 732- 932-9412 ext 18 Spanish and Portuguese CPH 301- Douglass Campus

2. Language Teaching, Language Learning and Language Acquisition • A shift in focus: • From: • How to teach languages? • To: • How does an individual learn/acquire languages? • How to facilitate that process?

3. The Acquisition of a Language • What is language? • A social object. • The result of the interaction between a biological endowment and the environment.

4. What do we think about language learning? • Please answer the questionnaire individually. (Lightbowm and Spada xv) • Please share your responses with the class.

5. Developmental sequences in first language acquisition • Negation: Stage 1 No go. No cookie. No comb hair Stage 2 Daddy no comb hair Stage 3 I can’t do it. He don’t want it. Stage 4 She doesn’t want it. I don’t have no more candies

6. How Do We Acquire Language? • The behaviorist position • Language is acquired through imitation • Mother: Would you like some bread and peanut butter? • Katie: Some bread and peanut butter • Michel: I can handle it. Hannah can handle it. We can handle it.

7. Arguments Against Imitation 1. Children Entertain Hypotheses About Grammar • Child: My teacher holded the rabbits and we. patted them. • Adult: Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits? • Child: Yes. • Adult: What did you say she did? • Child: She holded the rabbits and we patted them. • Adult: Did you say she held them tightly? • Child: No, she holded them loosely.

8. Arguments Against Imitation (2) 2. Children Entertain Hypothesis About the Meaning of Expressions Mother: I love you to pieces David: I love you three pieces Randall: You took all the towels away because I can’t dry my hands.

9. The Innatist Position • Children are biologically programmed for language. • Language develops in the same way as other biological functions. • The child’s innate biological endowment allows her/him to acquire language.

10. Arguments in Favor of the Innatist Position • Under normal physiological conditions, all children learn successfully a first language. • All children acquire the structure of the language spoken around them. • The linguistic input does not contain examples of all the information the children eventually know. • Children do not need negative evidence to acquire language.

11. The ‘critical period’ hypothesis • Lenneberg’s Critical Period Hypothesis: There is a specific and limited time period for language acquisition. • The natural experiments: • Victor (“L’enfant sauvage) • Genie (California, 1960’s) • Deaf signers

12. The Interactionist Position • One-to-one interaction between child and care-taker is necessary for language development • A case study: Jim

13. Learner profiles • Please fill out the tables. (Lightbowm and Spada p. 33)

14. Theories of Second Language Learning • Learner profiles: • Previous knowledge of language • Cognitive maturity • Metalinguistic awareness • World knowledge • Anxiety

15. Theories of Second Language Learning (2) • Learning conditions • Freedom to be silent • Ample time • Corrective feedback (direct negative input) • Availability of positive input • Modified input

16. The Behaviorist Position • Language development is the acquisition of a a set of habits • Errors in SLA are due to the interference of first language habits with second language acquisition • The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH): Similarities/differences between L1 and L2 predict ease of acquisition

17. Arguments Against the CAH • Word order transfer. French learners of English. Transfer is bounded by grammatical rules. It is not transfer of habits. (3) I see them. (4) I them see (unattested). English learners of French. (5) Le chien a mangé les. (6)Il veut les encore. (Ervin-Tripp 1974).

18. Cognitive Theories • The monitor model Acquisition is guided by Universal Principles. Learning is guided by other cognitive abilities such as reasoning and memory. Acquisition is ordered and it takes place through exposure to comprehensible input.

19. Cognitive Theories (2) Learning serves a a Monitor for the acquired system. It may alter the output. Use of the monitor requires time, focus on form and conscious knowledge of rules. (Krashen 1985) Methodological consequence: Shift towards a communicative approach that allows acquisition to take place along with learning.

20. Communication Strategies • Interaction • Negotiation of meaning • Production allows the learner to test hypotheses and to develop automaticity • Methodological consequence: Importance of negotiation of meaning through interaction as a source of positive and negative evidence.

21. The theories behind our textbooks • Please analyze one activity from the elementary textbook you are using. • What are the theoretical basis for these textbooks?