Topic: Human Learning, Humans learn in general and how they learn a foreign language

1. Tutor: Dolores Del Rocio Ortega
Student name: Jorge Chuva Guzmán
UNIVERSIDAD DE LAS
FUERZAS ARMADAS
ESPE
English Teaching
Practicum

2. HUMAN
LEARNING

3. LEARNING AND TRAINING
• Reflect the following questions:
• How do human beings learn?
• Are there basic principles that apply to all acts of learning?
• Is one theory of learning “better” than another? If so, how can we
evaluate the usefulness of theory?
• What is learning?
• Acquisition of knowledge. Retention of information.:
– Learning is the act of acquiring knowledge of a subject/skill by study, experience, or
instruction. It contains: A change in behavior. Reinforced practice.

4. Theories of
Learning

5. Pavlov’s Classical Behaviorism
(Behavioristic)
• Stimuli and reflexive responses.
• Refusal of mentalistic notion of innateness and instinct.
• Adoption of classical conditioning to explain all forms of learning.
• Behaviors are learned by construction up series of responses.
• Difficult observance to scientific method.
• Language teaching practice was influenced by behavioristic tradition.

6. Skinner’s Operant
Conditioning
An attempt to account for human learning and behavior.
Importance of ‘stimuli’ de-emphasized. Human behavior
is controlled more by ‘reinforcers’ that follow a response.
Reinforcers are stronger aspects of learning than mere
association of stimulus and response as in classical
conditioning.
Skinner’s Verbal Behavior described language as a
system of verbal operants.
Audiolingual Method was an example of Skinner’s
Verbal Behavior’s impact on American language
teaching practices during the period 1950s – 1970s.

7. Ausubel’s Meaningful Learning Theory
(Cognitive)
Meaningful learning is more powerful/effective.
Rote-learned materials do not interact with cognition in a substantive way. Rote learning results in fragile retention
and forgetting. Rote learning of a foreign language is effective on a short term basis only.
In meaningful learning students relate new knowledge to what they already know.
In rote learning students remember what they have learned by association.
‘Cognitive pruning’ is a form of systematic forgetting which clears the way for
more material to enter the cognitive field.

8. Carl Rogers’s Humanistic Psychology
- Focus is on the affective rather than cognitive side.
- Model given a nonthreatening environment, a person will form a picture of reality that is
congruent with reality and will grow and learn.
- Teachers are facilitators of learning.
- Teachers establish interpersonal relationship with learners.
- Teachers need to communicate openly with learners.
- Rejects “banking” concept of education.
- Empowerment of learners.
- Promotes communal learning.
- According the Constructivist view of learning, refers to the idea that learners construct
knowledge for themselves-each learner individually (& socially) constructs meaning-as he or she
learns. Constructing meaning is learning; there is no other kind.

9. Types of
Learning

10. Types of Learning

11. Types of Learning

12. TRANSFER, INTERFERENCE, AND
OVERGENERALIZATION

13. Transfer and Interference
The carryover of previous performance or knowledge
to subsequent learning.
Positive transfer occurs when prior knowledge benefits the learning task.
Negative transfer (or interference) occurs when previous performance
disrupts the performance of a second task.

14. Generalization / Overgeneralization

15. Inductive and Deductive Reasoning
Two polar aspects of
generalization.
Inductive is a type of reasoning which
involves moving from a set of specific
facts to a general conclusion.
Deductive reasoning is moving from a generalization to particular instances.
Untutored (natural) Language learning mostly involves an inductive process,
in which learners infer rules from all the data around them.

16. Aptitude and Intelligence
Aptitude
Do certain people have
aptitude for learning foreign
languages? Anecdotal proof
says yes. Language Aptitude
Tests were designed to find
that out. Tests were
independent of specific foreign
languages and predictive of
success in any language. Tests
were popular at first then
declined. - Tests simply
reflected general intelligence
and academic ability of an
individual. - Tests were difficult
to do and considered biased. -
Further efforts to construct
foreign language aptitude and
success have not yielded a
coherent theory of language
aptitude Today, focus is
headed in the direction of
‘learner characteristics’ to
search for factors that make up
foreign language aptitude.
Intelligence
has mainly been measured in
terms of linguistic and logical-
mathematical abilities of a
person. According to Ausubel’s
meaningful learning model,
intelligence is measured by the
ability to store items that would
be particularly useful in building
conceptual hierarchies and
systematically pruning those
which are not useful. Success in
second language learning may
seems to boil down to memory
rather than general intelligence,
but, it appears that “language
learning IQs” are much more
complicated than just that.

17. Howard Gardner’s (1983) Theory of
Intelligence
Gardner’s seven forms of intelligence:

18. END
By Jorge Chuva