2. Humanistic "theories"
• learning tend to be highly value-driven and hence more like prescriptions
(about what ought to happen) rather than descriptions (of what does
happen).
• They emphasize the "natural desire" of everyone to learn. Whether this
natural desire is to learn whatever it is you are teaching, however, is not
clear.
• they maintain, that learners need to be empowered and to have control
over the learning process.
• So the teacher relinquishes a great deal of authority and becomes
a facilitator.
•
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3. John Dewey[1859-1952]
• “John Dewey is considered by many to be the most influential
education theorist in the twentieth century” (Finnan, 2006, p. 83).
• known in the education field for his ideas on experience and
reflection, democracy and education, motivation of students, the
nature of freedom in learning, and pragmatism. He believed
education should be active and practical; students should learn in
order to help them at home, in their communities, or in their work
life.
• Dewey’s influential works in the field of education philosophy
include: Democracy and Education (1944), Experience and Nature
(1929), Art and Education (1927), Art and Experience (1934) and
Experience and Education (1938). But perhaps Dewey’s theory on
progressive education and the importance of experience is his most
influential contribution to the field of education. “Above all, Dewey
believed in the power of actual experience” (Deblois, 2002).
4. Maslow, Abraham H. (1908-1970)
• theory is based on the notion that experience is the primary phenomenon in the study
of human learning and behavior. He placed emphasis on choice, creativity, values, self-
realization, all distinctively human qualities, and believed that meaningfulness and
subjectivity were more important than objectivity. For Maslow, development of human
potential, dignity and worth are ultimate concerns.
• came to refer to their movement as “third force psychology,” the first two being
psychoanalysis and behaviorism. The third force is based on philosophies of existentialism
and humanism.
• famous for proposing that human motivation is based on a hierarchy of needs. The lowest
level of needs are physiological and survival needs such as hunger and thirst. Further levels
include belonging and love, self-esteem, and self-actualization.
• the drive to learn is intrinsic. The purpose of learning is to bring about self-actualization, and
the goals of educators should include this process.
• Maslow proposed other goals of learning, including discovery of one's vocation or destiny;
knowledge of values; realization of life as precious, acquisition of peak experiences, sense of
accomplishment, satisfaction of psychological needs, awareness of beauty and wonder in life,
impulse control, developing choice, and grappling with the critical existential problems of
life.
• Maslow's theory of learning highlighted the differences between experiential knowledge and
spectator knowledge. He regarded spectator, or scientific, knowledge to be inferior to
experiential.
5. Experiential Learning
• Ritchie (2011:180) deliberates on the intellectual origins in the work
of Dewey, Levin and Piaget and explains how the experience plays
an emphatic role in the learning cycle. In the same light he views
that experiential learning theory is a ‘holistic integrative perspective
on learning that combines experience, perception, cognition and
behavior’. Similarly, Kolb (1984: 38) believes ‘learning is the process
whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of
experience’. The theory presents a cyclical model of learning,
consisting of four stages. One may begin at any stage, but must
follow each other in the sequence:
• concrete experience (or “DO”)
• reflective observation (or “OBSERVE”)
• abstract conceptualization (or “THINK”)
• active experimentation (or “PLAN”)
6. Second Language Acquisition
• Research in second-language acquisition is
closely related to several disciplines including
linguistics, sociolinguistics, psychology, neuroscie
nce, and education, and consequently most
theories of second-language acquisition can be
identified as having roots in one of them. Each of
these theories can be thought of as shedding
light on one part of the language learning
process; however, no one overarching theory of
second-language acquisition has yet been widely
accepted by researchers.
7. History SLA
• As an interdisciplinary field, it is hard to pin down a precise starting
date. However, there are two publications in particular that are seen as
instrumental to the development of the modern study of SLA: Pit Corder's
1967 essay The Significance of Learners' Errors, and Larry Selinker's 1972
article Interlanguage. Corder's essay rejected a behaviorist account of SLA
and suggested that learners made use of intrinsic internal linguistic
processes; Selinker's article argued that second-language learners possess
their own individual linguistic systems that are independent from both the
first and second languages.
• In the 1970s the general trend in SLA was for research exploring the ideas
of Corder and Selinker, and refuting behaviorist theories of language
acquisition. Examples include research into error analysis, studies
in transitional stages of second-language ability, and the "morpheme
studies" investigating the order in which learners acquired linguistic
features. The 70s were dominated by naturalistic studies of people
learning English as a second language.
•
8. History SLA cont……
• By the 1980s, the theories of Stephen Krashen had become
the prominent paradigm in SLA. In his theories, often
collectively known as the Input Hypothesis, Krashen
suggested that language acquisition is driven solely
by comprehensible input, language input that learners can
understand. Krashen's model was influential in the field of
SLA and also had a large influence on language teaching,
but it left some important processes in SLA unexplained.
Research in the 1980s was characterized by the attempt to
fill in these gaps. Some approaches included Lydia White's
descriptions of learner competence, and Manfred
Pienemann's use of speech processing models and lexical
functional grammar to explain learner output. This period
also saw the beginning of approaches based in other
disciplines, such as the psychological approach
of connectionism.
9. History SLA cont……
• The 1990s saw a host of new theories introduced to the field, such
as Michael Long's interaction hypothesis, Merrill Swain's output
hypothesis, and Richard Schmidt's noticing hypothesis. However,
the two main areas of research interest were linguistic theories of
SLA based upon Noam Chomsky's universal grammar, and
psychological approaches such as skill acquisition
theory and connectionism.
• The 1990s also saw the introduction of sociocultural theory, an
approach to explain second-language acquisition in terms of the
social environment of the learner.
• In the 2000s research was focused on much the same areas as in
the 1990s, with research split into two main camps of linguistic and
psychological approaches. VanPatten and Benati, do not see this
state of affairs as changing in the near future, pointing to the
support both areas of research have in the wider fields
of linguistics and psychology, respectively.
