Research Centre for Foreign Language Education (ReFLEct)

1. Research Centre for Foreign Language Education (ReFLEct) Language Didactics Seppo Tella Theories in SLA/L2 Learning Seppo Tella, 1

2. Theories in SL Acquisition (1) • a continuum (1) nativist (2) interactionist (3) environmentalist (4) ecological theoriesat least 40 proposed so far • NB. SLA or SL/L2 Learning

3. 4) Ecological Theories (1/16) • an ecological approach to cognition, learning and language (van Lier 2000; Vygotsky, Bakhtin; Peirce, Dewey) • challenges the 3 premises underlying scientific thinking that has dominated Western civilisation since Galileo and Descartes

4. 4) Ecological Theories (2) • The 3 scientific premises: • 1) in order to conduct coherent investigations it is necessary to simplify and select from the infinite variety of the real world

5. 4) Ecological Theories (3) • The 3 scientific premises: • 2) in accordance with Occam’s razor, the simplest explanations that minimally account for the data are to be preferred • William of Occam (1284-1347), an English philosopher and theologian: “Entities must not be multiplied beyond what is necessary.”

6. 4) Ecological Theories (4) • The 3 scientific premises: • 3) problems must be broken down into their component elements and these must be analysed one by one • “There’s physics, and there is stamp collecting.” (Rutherford)

7. 4) Ecological Theories (5) • shifts the emphasis from scientific reductionism to the notion of emergence • at every level of development properties emerge that cannot be reduced to those of prior levels

8. 4) Ecological Theories (6) • Not all of cognition and learning can be explained in terms of processes that go on inside the head(vs. learning takes place in the brain, by means of computational mechanisms that process information received by the senses)

9. 4) Ecological Theories (8) • Learning = the development of increasingly effective ways of dealing with the world and its meanings • To look for learning is to look at the active learner in her environment (not at the contents of her brain)

10. 4) Ecological Theories (13) • it also relates verbal utterances to other aspects of meaning making, such as gestures, drawings, artefacts • the totality of meaning-making is not merely linguistic; it is semiotic • in terms of learning, language emerges out of semiotic activity

11. 4) Ecological Theories (14) • The environment provides a ‘semiotic budget’, ie the opportunities for meaningful action that the situation affords • [≠ the amount of input available] • —> affordance

12. 4) Ecological Theories (15) • affordance = a reciprocal relationship between an organism and a particular feature of its environment (Gibson 1979) • knowledge of language for a human is like knowledge of the jungle for an animal

13. Raudaskoski (2003) affordanssista:”Tarjoumilla kuvataan artefaktien käytössä aktualisoituvia ominaisuuksia eli merkityksellisiä toimintamahdollisuuksia”

14. 4) Ecological Theories (16) • Provide a rich ‘semiotic budget’, ie structure the learner’s activities and participation so that access is available and engagement encouraged • then ecological LL in line with • situated learning (Lave & Wenger 1991), • apprenticeship, • participatory appropriation (Rogoff 1995)

15. Conclusion—SLA Theories • over 40 different theories, difficult to compare and evaluate as they often differ greatly in • (1) scope, or the range of SLA phenomena they treat; • (2) the type of data to which they are held accountable, and • (3) the degree of abstraction of the statements they contain

16. Interim Conclusion? Methods? They come and go … Theory? Theory remains …