Cognitive theory

Cognitive approaches to second
language learning
Yaseen Taha

 Schools of thought
 cognitive approaches
 Behaviourism
 Learning strategies
 Processing approaches

What are the Schools of thought?

Schools of thought
Structural
linguistics and
behavioral
psychology
1900s, 1940s,
1950s
Generative
linguistics and
cognitive
psychology
1970s, 1980s
Constructivism
1980s, 1990s,
2000s

What does cognitive theory mean?
 A theory of learning processes that focuses on how people
think, understand, and know. It does not specifies
precisely what is learned, what content will be easiest (or
most difficult) to learn, or what learners will select to
learn at different stages of development or levels of
mastery of a complex skill. It came about as a reaction to
behaviorism.
 A cognitive theory of learning sees second language
acquisition as a conscious and reasoned thinking process,
involving the deliberate use of learning strategies.

Important cognitive theorists
 Allan Paivio, Robert Gagne, Howard Gardener, Benjamin Bloom.

Behaviourism
 a highly influential academic school of psychology. It assumes
that a learner is essentially passive, responding to environment
stimuli. Believes that a learner starts out with a clean slate, and
behavior is shaped by positive and negative reinforcement.
Reinforcement, positive or negative increases the possibility of an
event happening again. Punishment, both positive and negative,
decreases the possibility of an event happening again.
 It implies that the learner responds to environmental stimuli
without his/her mental state being factor in the learners' behavior.
Individual learns to behave through conditioning.

Comparison between BEHAVIORIST theory and COGNITIVIST
theory
 Behaviorism is a learning theory
 As a formation of habit,
conditioning
 Practice is necessary, constant
repetition
 Learner is passive
 Behaviorists: teach, plan, present
language item, make Students
repeat
 Errors are forbidden
 Ignored thought and emotions
 Cognitivism is a learning theory, based
on how people think not a theory that
specifies precisely what is learned what
content will be easiest to learn, or what
learners will select to
learn at different stages of development
 Learning results from internal activity
(mental processes)
 Practice is necessary, but rote learning
and meaningless repetition is out.
 Learners process, store, and retrieve
information
 Cognitivists: creates opportunities for
learning to occur
 Errors can be. Through them one can
learn

 Universal Grammar theorists were interested in competence of second
language grammars, and in its construction. They are not centrally concerned
with how learners access this linguistic knowledge in real time, or in the
strategies they might employ when their incomplete linguistic system lets
them down, or why some individuals are substantially better than others at
learning other languages. For cognitive theorists, on the other hand, these
are central issues.


Dichotomy between linguistics
language
A separate innate
module in the mind
Another form of
information
processed by
general mechanisms

Researchers
 believe that there is a language-specific module for first language
acquisition, but that the learning of second languages is different
and relies on general cognitive mechanisms.
 Even for first language acquisition, some researchers believe that
some aspects of language acquisition are innate and other aspects
not.



Cognitive theorists
 Pienemann, or Towell and Hawkins belong to Processing approaches.
These approaches investigate how second language learners process
linguistic information, and how their ability to process the second
language develops over time. They are focused primarily on the
computational dimension of language learning, and might or might not
believe that language is a separate innate module. (information-
processing approaches)
 N.C. Ellis, MacWhinney, or Tomasello belong to emergentism,
constructionist approaches ( the acquisition of language from the
constructionist or emergentist point of view).

Processing approaches
they are interested in the way in which the brain's processing mechanisms deal
with the second language.
 The first approach, information processing, investigates how different
memory stores (short-term memory (STM); long-term memory (LTM) -
declarative and procedural) deal with new second language information, and
how this information is automatized and restructured through repeated
activation.
 The second approach, processability theory, looks more specifically at the
processing demands made by various formal aspects of the second language,
and the implications for learnability and teachability of second language
structure.


The multi-store model of memory

Information-processing models of second
language learning
 McLaughlin's (1987, 1990) information-processing model
 Anderson's Active Control of Thought (ACT*) model (1983 , 1985)

 Second language learning is viewed as the acquisition of
a complex cognitive skill. To learn a second language is
to learn a skill, because various aspects of the task must
be practised and integrated into fluent performance.
These two notions - automatization and restructuring
- are central to cognitive theory. (McLaughlin, 1987, pp.
133-4)


Automatization
 the way in which we process information may be either controlled or
automatic, and that learning involves a shift from controlled towards
automatic processing.
 Learners first resort to controlled processing in the second language.
This controlled processing involves the temporary activation of a selection
of information nodes in the memory. Such processing requires a lot of
attentional control on the part of the subject, and is constrained by the
limitations of the short-term memory.
For example, a beginner learner wanting to greet someone in the second
language might activate the following words: Good Morning How Are You?
Initially, these words have to be put together in a piecemeal fashion, one at a
time (assuming they have not been memorized as an unanalysed chunk).


 Through repeated activation, sequences first produced by
controlled processing become automatic. Automatized sequences
are stored as units in the long-term memory, which means that
they can be made available very rapidly whenever the situation
requires it. So, in the above example, once a learner has activated
the sequence Good Morning How Are You? a large number of
times, it becomes automatic, that is, it does not require attentional
control. However, once acquired, such automatized skills are
difficult to delete or modify.


 Learning in this view is seen as the movement from controlled to
automatic processing via practice (repeated activation). When this shift
occurs, controlled processes are freed to deal with higher levels of
processing (i.e. the integration of more complex skill clusters), thus
explaining the incremental (step by step) nature of learning. It is
necessary for simple sub-skills and routines to become automatic before
more complex ones can be tackled. Once our learner has automatized
Good Morning How Are You?, he or she is free to deal with the
learning of more complex language, as the short-term memory is not
taken up by the production of this particular string.


This continuing movement from controlled to automatic processing
results in a constant restructuring of the linguistic system of the
second language learner. Second language learners often start by
memorizing unanalysed chunks of language, which will later be
analysed and give rise to productive rules . For example, a learner
might first memorize a question as an unanalyzed chunk, for
example Have you got a pet?, without having a productive rule for
interrogatives, involving inversion. When this learner starts
generating interrogatives that are not rote-learned chunks, he or she
might produce an alternative, uninverted form, such Has you have
pet?

Anderson's Active Control of Thought (ACT*) model (1983 ,
1985)
 Another processing model from cognitive psychology, which has also been
applied to aspects of SLL.
It enables declarative knowledge (i.e. knowledge that something is the case) to
become procedural knowledge (i.e. knowledge how to do something).
One of the major differences is that Anderson posits three kinds of memory: a
working memory, similar to McLaughlin's short-term memory and therefore
tightly capacity-limited, and two kinds of long-term memory - a declarative long-
term memory and a procedural long-term memory. Anderson believes that
declarative and procedural knowledge are different kinds of knowledge that are
stored differently.


 Declarative Knowledge (i.e. knowledge that something is the case)
 Procedural Knowledge (i.e. knowledge how to do something).
For example: If you are learning to drive, you will be told that if the engine is
revving too much, you need to change to a higher gear; you will also be told how
to change gear. In the early stages of learning to drive, however, knowing that
(declarative knowledge) you have to do this does not necessarily mean that you
know how (procedural knowledge) to do it quickly and successfully. In other
words, you go through a declarative stage before acquiring the procedural
knowledge linked with this situation. With practice, however, the mere noise of
the engine getting louder will trigger your gear changing, without you even
having to think about it. This is how learning takes place in this view: by
declarative knowledge becoming procedural and automatized.

Let us illustrate with an example how the notions of declarative and
procedural knowledge could apply to SLL. If we take the example of the
third person singular -s marker on present tense verbs in English, the
classroom learner might initially know, in the sense that she has
consciously learnt the rule, that s/he + Verb requires the addition of an -s to
the stem of the verb. However, that same learner might not necessarily be
able to consistently produce the -s in a conversation in real time. This is
because this particular learner has declarative knowledge of that rule, but it
has not yet been proceduralized. After much practice, this knowledge will
hopefully become fully proceduralized, and the third person -s will be
supplied when the context requires it.


According to Anderson, the move from declarative to
procedural knowledge takes place in three stages
1. The cognitive stage: a description of the procedure is learnt.
2. The associative stage: a method for performing the skill is
worked out.
3.The autonomous stage: The skill becomes more and more rapid
and automatic.

 In the examples outlined above, in the cognitive stage, the learner would learn
that the clutch pedal has to be pushed down and the gear lever moved to the
correct position, or, in the case of the language example, that an -s must be
added to the verb after a third person subject.
 In the associative stage, the learner would work out how to do it, that is, how
to press the pedal down and how to get the gear lever in the correct position, or
how to add an -s when the context requires it. In other words, the learner learns
to associate an action (or a set of actions) with the corresponding declarative
knowledge.
 In the autonomous stage, our learner's actions (changing gear or adding an -S)
become increasingly automatic, to the point that the corresponding declarative
knowledge may even be lost; in other words, our learner might not be able to
explain or even be conscious of what they are doing.


 When tasks become proceduralized, they are accessed automatically, without
having to resort to the working memory, which is limited in its processing
capacity.
 Here, we see the basic suggestions that the learner's speech becomes more
fluent as more knowledge becomes proceduralized, and is therefore
accessed more quickly and efficiently. We can also see how, as knowledge
becomes proceduralized, the working memory is freed to work on higher
level knowledge.
 What do Learning strategies mean?


 procedures undertaken by the learner, in order to make their own
language learning as effective as possible. Learning strategies are
special ways of processing information that enhance
comprehension, learning or retention of information. They may
include:
 Learning strategies must not be confused with communication
strategies, although there is some overlap; their focus is on
facilitating learning.
 communication strategies are used in order to overcome a specific
communicative problem.


Learning Strategies:
 Metacognitive strategies
 Cognitive Strategies
 Social or Affective Strategies

Metacognitive Strategies
 It is important but overlooked
 Thinking about thinking in another words knowing what we know and
what we do not know
 They are techniques that help people become more successful learners
 When you read something you have strategies so in thinking also
 Before: developing a plan (you can ask yourself why am I doing this,
what should I do first, how much time do I need to do this,,
 During: monitoring the plan: how am I doing, am I on the right track,
am I getting close to my goals, do I need to do if I do not get it
 After: Evaluating the plan: how did I do,, did I do better or worse than I
thought

 Before beginning while working After completing
a task on a task the task
 Set goals: plan the check on the task Assess how well you have
Content sequence task accomplish the task
 Choose strategies check the how well you have used
comprehension the learning strategies
check the production Identify changes to be
made next time
Planning/ Organizing Monitoring
Evaluating

Cognitive strategies
 Rehearsal (repeating)
 Organization (grouping, classifying)
 Inferencing (Using information in text to guess meanings or
new linguistic items, predict outcomes or complete missing
parts)
 Summarizing (restate most important points, condense key
words, remove repetition,
 Deducing (applying rules to the understanding of language)
 Imagery (using visual images)

 Transfer (using known linguistic information to
facilitate a new learning task)
ex. Learning to drive a car helps a person to later drive
truck),
ex. mathematics; physics…
 Elaboration (linking ideas contained in new information,
or integrating new ideas with known information)

Social or Affective strategies
 Cooperation : working with peers to solve a problem, pool information,
check notes or get feedback on a learning activity
 Questioning for clarification: eliciting from a teacher or peer additional
explanation, rephrasing or examples.
 Self-talk: Using mental redirection of thinking to assure oneself that a
learning activity will be successful or to reduce anxiety about
a task.


Theories of second language processing
 Processability theory
 Perceptual Saliency approach
 Processability theory Processability theory is part of the cognitive
approach to second language acquisition that attempts to increase
understanding of the ways L2 learners restructure their interlanguage
knowledge systems.
LikeTowell and Hawkins, the Processability theory outlined by Pienemann
(1998, 2003) also claims we need to use both a theory of grammar and a
processing component in order to understand second language acquisition. The
theory of grammar, titled Lexical Functional Grammar, also differs from the
Chomskyan theory. Suffice it to say that Lexical Functional Grammar,

 unlike Universal Grammar, is a theory of grammar that
attempts to represent both linguistic knowledge and
language processing within the same framework. Unlike
Universal Grammar, which is exclusively a theory of
linguistic knowledge, Lexical Functional Grammar aims
to be psychologically plausible, that is, to be in line with
the cognitive features of language processing

 Processability theory aims to clarify how learners acquire the
computational mechanisms that operate on the linguistic
knowledge they construct. Pienemann believes that language
acquisition itself is the gradual acquisition of these computational
mechanisms
 The basic logic behind Processability theory is that learners
cannot access hypotheses about the second language that they
cannot process. They are claimed to have a Hypothesis Space,
which develops over time according to the following hierarchy of
processing resources


 Level 1: lemma access; words; no sequence of constituents.
 Level 2: category procedure; lexical morphemes; no exchange of
information - canonical word order.
 Level 3 : phrasal procedure; phrasal morphemes.
 Level 4: simplified S-procedure; exchange of information from
internal to salient constituent.
 Level 5: S-procedure; inter-phrasal morphemes; exchange of
information between internal constituents.
 Level 6: Subordinate clause procedure.

Teachability
 Pienemann developed his Processability theory in order to explain the
well documented observation that second language learners follow a
fairly rigid route in their acquisition of certain grammatical structures.
This notion of route implies that structures only become learnable when
the previous steps on this acquisitional path have been acquired.
 The predictions of the Teachability hypothesis are as follows:
• Stages of acquisition cannot be skipped through formal instruction.
• Instruction will be most beneficial if it focuses on structures from 'the
next stage


Operating principles and first language acquisition
Slobin's (1973 , 1979, 1985) operating principles are based on the claim that 'certain
linguistic forms are more "accessible" or more "salient" to the child than others
 Operating Principle A: pay attention to the ends of words.
 Operating Principle B: there are linguistic elements that encode relations between
words.
 Operating Principle C: avoid exceptions.
 Operating Principle D: underlying semantic relations should be marked overtly
and clearly.
 Operating Principle E: the use of grammatical markers should make semantic
sense.


Operating principles in second language acquisition
The one-to-one principle
 an interlanguage system should be constructed in such a way that an
intended underlying meaning is expressed with one clear invariant
surface form (or construction). Example: Learners of German initially
maintain an SVO word order in all contexts, in spite of the fact that
German word order is not so consistent (Clahsen, 1984).

the one-to-one principle means that learners of English will often start
with just one form for negation (e.g. no the dog; he no go), but once
this form has been incorporated into their interlanguage, they are able to
notice other forms and differentiate the environment in which they
occur.


The relexification principle
 when you cannot perceive the structural pattern used by the
language you are trying to acquire, use your native language
structure with lexical items from the second language. Example:
Japanese learners of English sometimes use Japanese SOV word
order in English in the early stages, with English lexical items.


Cognitive theory

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