Second Language Acquisition Processes and Theories

Second Language Acquisition Processes and Theories

1. Behaviorist Theory

   • B. F. Skinner
   • Theory that predicted all human behavior could be learned through a process of stimulus, response, and positive or negative reinforcement (SRR).
     • Having a child perform a desired behavior or task over and over until it became habit.

2. Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

   • Noam Chomsky
   • Idea that children have an innate ability to rapidly learn and understand language at a remarkably early age.
     • Young children picking up on words that they hear their parents use to one another.

3. Adaptive Control of Thought (ACT)

   • R. C. Anderson
   • In this theory, intelligence is the gathering together and fine-tuning of many small units of knowledge that in total produce complex thinking.
     • When someone is able to make connections between different lessons that they have learned over time.

4. Comprehensible Input

   • Stephen Krashen
   • Idea that we acquire language when we understand what people tell us.
     • Language being acquired through visuals and physical movements instead of listening to a word repeated again and again.

5. Common Underlying Proficiency

   • Jim Cummins
   • Theory that abilities in different language inhabit the same part of the brain, reinforcing each other at the base while differing at the surface.
     • Collaborating on ideas with someone that has a different first language as you, but discovering that your ideas are similar despite the language difference.

6. Universal Grammer

   • 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.
     • A sentence may look completely different in another language, but they still contain the same fundamental interactions between words.
   • Noam Chomsky

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