Second Language Acquisition Processes and Theories

Behaviorist Theory
1. B. F. Skinner
2. Theory that predicted all human behavior could be learned through a process of stimulus, response, and positive or negative reinforcement (SRR).
  1. Having a child perform a desired behavior or task over and over until it became habit.
Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
1. Noam Chomsky
2. Idea that children have an innate ability to rapidly learn and understand language at a remarkably early age.
  1. Young children picking up on words that they hear their parents use to one another.
Adaptive Control of Thought (ACT)
1. R. C. Anderson
2. In this theory, intelligence is the gathering together and fine-tuning of many small units of knowledge that in total produce complex thinking.
  1. When someone is able to make connections between different lessons that they have learned over time.
Comprehensible Input
1. Stephen Krashen
2. Idea that we acquire language when we understand what people tell us.
  1. Language being acquired through visuals and physical movements instead of listening to a word repeated again and again.
Common Underlying Proficiency
1. Jim Cummins
2. Theory that abilities in different language inhabit the same part of the brain, reinforcing each other at the base while differing at the surface.
  1. Collaborating on ideas with someone that has a different first language as you, but discovering that your ideas are similar despite the language difference.
Universal Grammer
1. The idea that all human language rests on building blocks of expression which can have their own unique features but they share basic things (verbs, nouns, etc.). It's just how a language utilizes them that changes.
  1. A sentence may look completely different in another language, but they still contain the same fundamental interactions between words.
2. Noam Chomsky

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Second Language Acquisition Processes and Theories

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	Created by Katie Thornbury over 9 years ago