The document reviews the book 'How Languages Are Learned' by Patsy M. Lightbown and Nina Spada, which covers transformative pedagogies in language education and explores key theories and findings in second language learning. It discusses various approaches to teaching and learning, the impact of individual learner differences, and how language acquisition is influenced by factors such as motivation and social interaction. The book serves as a comprehensive resource for educators, although it lacks specific recommendations for technology integration in language learning.

1. Kathmandu Univeristy School of Education

2. Meet the
Authors
Patsy M.
Lightbown Nina Spada

3. PhD. in Psycholinguistics from Colombia University
Distinguished Professor Emerita Concordia University, Montreal
Writer and editor; consultant to schools, colleges, universities,
publishers, and government agencies in areas related to second
and foreign language teaching and learning
PhD. in Curriculum from University of Toronto
Professor at Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto

4. Outline on the Review
• Introduction on the book
• Transformative Pedagogies
@ TERSD
• Key Features
• Chapters Review
• Conclusion

5. The Book
·Part of: Oxford Handbooks
for Language Teachers
·Part of: Into the Classroom
·ISBN: 978-0-19-454126-8
·Pages: 272
·Binding: Paperback
·Dimensions: 234x156 mm

6. Transformative Sustainability
Pedagogies
• Transformative pedagogy is an educational philosophy that combines social
constructivism and critical pedagogy (Tinning, 2017; Ukpokudu, 2019).
• It encourages learners to engage in dialogues to co-construct meaning from
classroom approaches.
• Classroom approaches reside in certain theories and the following
perspectives are discussed in the book.
• The Behaviorist
• The Innatist
• The Cognitive and The Social Cultural

7. Key Features
● Succinct and understandable language
● Clear description in every chapter
● Significant study findings.
● Has seven chapters:
• Language Learning in Early Childhood.
• Second Language Learning (SLL).
• Individual Differences in SLL.
• Explaining SLL.
• Observing Learning and Teaching in SL Classroom
• SLL in the Classroom
• Popular Ideas about Language Learning Revisited

8. 🡪 Crying
Cooing
Babbling
What is the first language the child uses at first to
communicate with you when he/she is born?

9. Chapter 1
Language Learning in Early Childhood
The First Three Years: Milestones and Developmental Sequences
• Baby crying
• Cooing sound
• Babbling
• 1-2 Years of Age
⚬ Show signs of comprehension
⚬ At the age of two, they produce 50 correct words

10. The Frist Three Years:
• Grammar
Morphemes
• Negation
• Questions

11. Grammar Morphemes
# Longitudinal Study (3 children of same age)
- Roger Brown (1960)
# Cross sectional Study (21 children of different age and
developmental stage)
- Jill and Peter de Viller (1973)
• Children acquire grammar morphemes in a sequential manner: auxiliary (be), 3rd person
singular, regular past, article the and a, possessive, regular past, plurals, present
progressives (ing)
• Children didn't acquire morphemes at the same age or rate:
⚬ Eve at 2.5
⚬ Sarah and Adam 3.5-4 were still working
#Their learning was influenced by the frequency of words parents used with children, the
level of difficulty, and difficulty of perceiving and pronouncing them which was experimented
by 'Wug' test by Berko Gleanson

12. Wug
Test
This test showed that Language is not just the list of memorized words.

13. Negation
Statge 1: No.
Stage 2: No cookie.
Stage 3: Daddy no comb
hair.
Stage 4: He don't want it.
Stage 5: She doesn't want it.
Questions
Whassat?
Where is mommy? Who is that?
Why?
How/When, when they reach two
Stage 1: Cookie? Mommy cookie?
Stage 2: You like this?
Stage 3: Are you happy?
Stage 4: Are you going to play
with me?
Stage 5: Why did you do that?
Stage 6: Are able to correctly form
all types of questions

14. • Ask questions, give commands, report
events, create stories (correct words order
and grammar)
• Mastered the basic structure of their
language.
• Metalinguistic awareness
⚬ Drink the cake.
⚬ Cake the eat.
THE
PRE
SCHOOL
YEARS

15. The
School
Years
They learn that:
• Words and sentences are different.
• Reading ability.
• Vocabulary development through reading.
• Language Registers
⚬ Written language is different from
spoken.
⚬ Speaking to different people has a
different language. For example:
speaking to their principal is different
than speaking to their friends in the

16. Explaining First Language Acquisition
• Behaviorist Theory
• Innatist Theory
• Interactional/developmental Theory

17. B.F.
Skinner
Behaviorism
• Conditioning (behavior is modified
by its consequences
• Imitation and practice/positive
reinforcement
• Environment is the source of
everything the child needs to learn.

18. Noam
Chomsky
Innatism
• All human languages are
fundamentally innate.
• They are born with UG.
• The same universal principles apply
to all languages.
• Critical Period Hypothesis: There is a
limited period during which
langguage acquisition can occur.

19. Critical Period Hypothesis:
Story of Victor & Genie
Animals including humans, are genetically
programmed to acquire certain kind of
knowledge and skills at specific times in life.
As teaching language to Victor (12) & Genie (13) was not much
successful, trying to teach language to the children after 12
won't be as successful as it can be at their early chilhood days.

20. Jean Piaget
Interactionists
• Language acquisition is an ability to learn from
experiences. (congnitive): more, bigger
• There is no need to claim that there is a specific
brain structure developed to acquire language.
• What children need to acquire is availabe in
the language which can be achieved through
the interaction with the people and objects.
(Social interaction ZOPD)
Lev Vygotsky

21. Other Studies
• Cross-cultural research: Shirley Brice Heath (1983) found lots of differences in
the ways parents from different socioeconomic and ethnic groups interact with
their children.
• Language disorder and delays: Some children by 12 months produce
recognizable first words, some may not speak before the age of 3 years. Delayed
language is as a problem or individual difference is based on responding to
language by children even if the child is not speaking.
• Bilingualism: ‘simultaneous bilinguals’ who learn more than one language
from earliest childhood and ‘sequential bilinguals’ who learn another language
later.

22. Chapter 2
Second Language Learning

23. • Learner characteristics and learning conditions
• Hypotheses of error
⚬ Contrastive analysis
⚬ Error analysis
⚬ Interlanguage
• Second language acquisition
⚬ Developmental sequences
⚬ Grammatical morphemes
⚬ Negation, question, possessive, determiners etc.

24. Learner characteristics and learning conditions:
• Young learners are silent unlike the adult
• Young learners get more time to language exposure, older get
less time.
• Both are exposed to modified input.
Hypothesis of Error:
• Contrastive analysis: Errors occur due to transfer from L1 to L2.
(Interlanguage,Larry Selinker,1972 )
Developmental sequence: Like L1 learners, L2 learners also pass

25. Individual Differences
in Second Language
Learning
Chapter 3

26. • Motivation and language proficiency affect individual
differences in L2 learning.
• Individual differences inherent in the learners determine the
success or failure in language learning.

27. Individual Differences: (Vary by learners)
• Intelligence
• Aptitude
• Learning styles
• Personality
• Attitudes and motivation
• Identity and ethnic group affiliation
• Learner belief
#All the above-mentioned differences vary in learners due to various

28. Do the students score the same in different tests?
Why do you think the students do not score the same,
though all were taught the same?

29. • Individual differences can lead to success.(research in class)
• Example: Extroverts acquire quickly.
• However it is easy to measure the height and weight but it's hard to directly
observe and measure variables like motivation, extroversion or even
intelligence.
• Another difficulty is that individual differences are affected by social and
educational settings, and success in L2 is a challenge.

30. chapter 4
Explaining Second
Language Learning

31. Language Learning
theories
Worksheet
Behaviorist
Discussion
Positiveness
Sociocultural
Innatist Cognitive

32. Behaviorism:
• Mimicry and Memorization
Innatism
• Monitor Model

33. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN :
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
AND
LANGUAGE LEARNING?

34. Stephen Kranshein's Model of Second Language
Acquisition

35. Cognitive Perspective:
• Information processing
• Use-base learning
• Competition model
• Language and brain.
• Interaction hypothesis
• Input processing
• Role of practice

36. Sociocultural perspective:
• Comprehensible output
hypothesis.
• Learning by talking.
• Collaborative dialogue.

38. • Natural Acquisition
• Structure-based
instruction
• Communicative
instructional
learning
Three Approaches
to
Learning L2

39. • Observation
Research
• Classroom
Ethnography
Emerging
Teaching
Methods

40. Chapter 6
Second Language
learning
in the Classroom

41. Have you ever depended on any theory to
teach in your class?

42. • How can we implement these theories in
our class?
• What is the best way to promote
language learning in classroom?

43. • Through various teaching methods and
materials, we can implement the theories in the
teaching and learning in our classrooms.
• The best way to promote language learning in
the classroom is through research that
specifically investigates the relationship
between teaching and learning.
• They can be qualitative or quantitative.
However, there are other types of research as
well which are not mentioned in the book.

44. Six Proposals for Classroom Teaching
• Get it right from the beginning.
• Just listen and read (comprehensible
input)
• Let's talk.
• Get two for one.
• Teach what is teachable.
• Get it right in the end.

45. CHAPTER 7

46. • Languages are learned mainly through intuition.
• Parents usually correct young children when they make grammar errors.
• Highly intelligent people are good language learners.
• The best predictor in second language acquisition is motivation.
• The earlier a second language is introduced in school programs, the
greater the likelihood of success of learning.
• Most of the mistakes the second language learners make are due to
interference from their first language.
• The best way to learn vocabulary is by reading.
• It is essential for learners to be able to pronounce all the individual sounds in the
second language.
• Once learners know 1000 words, and the basic structure of a second
language, they can easily participate in conversation with native speakers.

47. • Teachers should teach simple language structure before the complex ones.
• Learners errors should be corrected as soon as we make them in order to
prevent the formation of bad habits.
• Teachers should use materials that expose students only language structures they
have already been taught.
• When learners are allowed to interact freely, they copy each other's mistakes.
• Students learn what they are taught.
• Teachers should respond to students errors by correctly rephrasing wah they have
said rather than by explicitly pointing at an error.
• Students learn both: language and academic content simultaneously in classes
where the subject matter is taught in their L2.
• Classrooms are good places to learn about language, but not for learning how
to use the language.

48. • Despite the fact that technology has been used for many years in
second language learning and testing systems like IELTS, TOEFL,
GRE, SAT etc., the book doesn’t make any mention of use of
technology in language learning.
• The book is a good evidence based resource for the teachers of
second language, however, it fails to give a solid idea on which few
approaches can be the best to apply in classroom.
What is missing in the
book?

49. The Good News

50. Reference
Lightbown, P. M., & Spada, N. (2013). How
Languages Are Learned 4th Edition. Oxford
university press.

51. All the best teachers!
THANK
YOU