Principles of Language Learning and Teaching – Flashcards
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operant conditioning
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conditioning in which an organism (in case of language acquisition, a human being) emits a response (an utterance , for example), or operant, without necessarily observable stimuli; that operant is maintained (learned) by reinforcement.
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operant
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a response, (e.g., an utterance of some kind) emitted without prior elicitation or stimulation.
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nativist
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a school of thought that rests on the assertion that language acquisition is innately (genetically) determined, and that human beings are therefore predisposed to a systematic perception of language.
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language acquisition device (LAD)
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an innate, metaphorical "mechanism" in young children's brains that predisposes them to acquire language.
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systematicity
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consistency and predictability in learner language.
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grammars
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descriptions of linguistic systems; rules that account for linguistic performance.
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series method
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language teaching method created by Gouin, in which learners practised a number of connected "series" of sentences, which together formed a meaningful story or sequence of events.
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parallel distributed processing (PDP)
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the receiving, storing, or recalling of information at several levels of attention simultaneously.
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connectionism
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the belief that neurons in the brain are said to form multiple connections.
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emergentism
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a perspective that questions nativism and holds that the complexity of language, like any other human ability, emerges from relatively simple developmental processes being exposed to a massive and complex environment.
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forms
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(of language) the "bits and pieces" of language, such as morphemes, words, grammar rules, discourse rules, and other organisational elements of language.
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functions
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(of language) the meaningful, interactive purposes within a social (pragmatic) context, that we accomplish with forms of language.
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discourse
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a language (either spoken or written) beyond the sentence level; relationships and rules that govern the connection and inter-relationship of sentences within communicative contexts.
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discourse analysis
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the examination of the relationship between forms and functions of language beyond the sentence level.
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discourse competence
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the ability to connect sentences in stretches of discourse and to form a meaningful whole out of a series of utterances.
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competence
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one's underlying knowledge of a system, event or fact; the unobservable ability to perform language, but not to be confused with performance.
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performance
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one's actual "doing" of language in the form of speaking and writing (production) and listening and reading (comprehension), as opposed to competence,
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heterogeneous competence
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multiple abilities, often unsystematic, that are in the process of being formed.
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comprehension
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the process of receiving language; listening or reading; input.
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parameters
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characteristics of human language (in Universal Grammar) that vary across languages; built-in options, settings, or values that allow for cross - linguistic variation.
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variation
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instability in learners' linguistic systems
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frequency
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(of input) number of occurrences of a form, in either input or output, in a given amount of time.
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initiation
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(in conversation) beginning an oral exchange; topic nomination.
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response
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in behavioural learning theory, any elicited or emitted behaviour by an organism.
