This document provides an overview of several theories of human learning and their implications for teaching methods. It discusses behaviorism, meaningful learning theory, and humanistic psychology. Behaviorism, according to Pavlov and Skinner, views learning as the acquisition of behaviors based on environmental conditioning. Meaningful learning theory, from Ausubel, emphasizes relating new concepts to existing knowledge structures. Humanistic psychology, from Rogers, focuses on empowering learners and facilitating self-directed discovery. The document also covers types of learning, reasoning processes, and factors like intelligence and aptitude that influence learning. Finally, it analyzes several teaching methods and their strengths and weaknesses in applying learning theories.

1. HUMAN
LEARNING
ANNISA RATNA PURWANTI
DEWI NORMA

2. OUTLINE
LEARNING THEORIES
TYPES OF LEARNING
TRANSFER, INTERFERENCE, AND OVERGENERALIZATION
INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE REASONING
APTITUDE AND INTELLIGENCE
TEACHING METHODS

3. Points to Discuss
 How do human beings learn?
 Can you mention some theories of learning?
 Is one theory of learning “better” than
another?

4. DEFINITION
 Learning theories are an organized set of
principles explaining how individuals acquire,
retain, and recall knowledge.
 The principles of the theories can be used as
guidelines to help select instructional tools,
techniques and strategies that promote
learning.

5. LEARNING THEORIES
BEHAVIORISM (PAVLOV AND
SKINNER)
MEANINGFUL LEARNING THEORY
(AUSUBEL)
HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY
(ROGER)

6. WHAT IS BEHAVIORISM?
 Behaviors can be measured, trained, and
changed.
 Behaviorists believe a person’s environment
determines their behavior, that our responses to
environmental stimuli shape our behaviors.
 Learning as nothing more than the acquisition of
new behavior based on environmental conditions.
 Two kinds of conditioning; classical and operant

9. Pavlov ‘s Classical Conditioning
 It occurs when a natural reflex responds to a
stimulus.
 Learning process : association between
stimuli and reflex without punishment and
reward
 Experiments: A dog salivates to the sound of
a bell (Reflex – unconditioned response –
conditioned response)

10. Skinner ‘s Operant Conditioning
 It occurs when a response to a stimulus is reinforced (
simple feedback system)
 Learning process : If a reward or reinforcement
follows the response to a stimulus, then the response
becomes more probable in the future.
 Consequences that reinforce the desired behavior are
arranged to follow the desired behavior.
 The new behavioral pattern can be repeated so it
becomes automatic.

12. BEHAVIORISM IN THE
CLASSROOM
 Drilling
 Repetitive practice
 Bonus points (providing an incentive to do more)
 Participation points (providing an incentive to participate)
 Verbal Reinforcement (saying “good job”)
 Giving weekly quizzes/tests
 Using positive/negative reinforcement to encourage and
reward students for good behavior and to punish bad
behavior.

13. Criticism towards Behaviorism
 Behaviorism does not prepare the learner for
problem solving or creative thinking.
 Learners do what they are told and do not take the
initiative to change or improve things.
 The learner is only prepared for recalling of basic
facts, automatic responses or performing tasks.

14. WHAT IS AUSUBEL’S
MEANINGFUL LEARNING
THEORY?
 It is based on aptitude and capacity to learn, learning
styles, and it is also the basis of constructivism.
 To learn meaningfully, individuals must relate new
knowledge to relevant concepts they already know.
 New knowledge must interact with the learner’s
knowledge structure.
 Understanding concepts, principles, and ideas are
achieved through deductive reasoning.
 Emphasizing on meaningful learning than rote learning

15.  A concerned with
how students learn
large amounts of
meaningful
material from
verbal/textual
presentations in
learning activities
 Meaningful learning
results when new
information is
acquired by linking
the new information
in the learner’s own
cognitive structure
MEANINGFUL
LEARNING
THEORY
 A primary
process in
learning is
subsumption in
which new
material is
related to
relevant ideas
in the existing
cognitive
structure (prev
knowlegde)

16. Deductive Teaching Model
The pupils study
specific examples
The teacher presents
examples
The teacher explains
important terms
The teacher presents
general statement or
abstraction of lesson

17. Rote vs Meaningful Learning
ROTE LEARNING
 Little or no relevant knowledge
 No emotional commitment to relate new with existing
relevant knowledge
 Poorly organized subject matter
MEANINGFUL LEARNING
 Relevant knowdlegde structures
 Emotional commitment to integrate new with existing
knowledge
 Conceptual clear subject matter

18. Cognitivism in the classroom
 Planning curriculum based on what students have
already known and what they should learn
 Giving problem-solving scenarios and real-life
contexts for learning
 Creating interesting and motivating lesson that
engage students
 Integrating visual, audio, and giving examples in
lessons ((Examples: PowerPoint, songs, videos,
realias, websites)

19. Systematic Forgetting
 Proactive and retroactive inhibition
 Cognitive pruning procedures (children’s concept
of hotness)
 Subsumption theory: the rejection of conditioning
models
 Systematic forgetting: EFL teachers may urge
students to “forget” mechanical items as they
make progress in a language, and to focus more
on the communicative use of language

20. THE DIFFERENCES

21. ROGERS’S HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY
- CONSTRUCTIVIST -
 Roger’s humanistic psychology has affective focus
more than cognitive one, thus it is a perspective of a
constructivist learning.
 Social and interactive nature of learning
 The focus of constructivism is away from teaching
and toward learning. The goal of education is the
facilitation of change and learning.
 Rogers is not as concerned about the actual
cognitive process of learning because, for him, if the
context for learning is properly created, then human
beings will learn everything they need to.

22. To do list for teachers
 Be real and genuine, discarding masks of
superiority and omniscience
 Have a genuine trust, acceptance and prizing
of student as a valuable individual
 Communicate openly and empathetically

23. Important Clues to Constructivist
 Fully functioning person; live at peace with all of their feelings
and reactions; they able to reach their full potential
 Learning how to learn is more important than being taught
something from the superior vantage point of a teacher who
unilaterally decides what shall be taught.
 Community of learners: if the context for learning is properly
created, then human beings will learn everything they need to
 Empowerment of students in the classrooms: Students should
be allowed to negotiate learning outcomes, to cooperate with
teachers and other learners in a process of discovery, to engage
critical thinking and to relate everything they do in school to their
reality outside the classroom

24. DEVELOPMENT OF
ROGERSIAN TRADITION
 Paolo Freire (1970)
 Inspiring many teachers to consider the empowerment
of students in classroom
 Students should be allowed to negotiate learning
outcomes, to cooperate with teachers and other
learners in a process of discovery, to engage critical
thinking and to relate everything they do in school to
their reality outside the classroom
 Clarke (1990)
Such liberationist views of educations should be
approached with some caution, learners may nevertheless
be empowered to achieve solutions to real problems in the
real world

25. WEAKNESS OF
CONSTRUCTIVIST
 Loosing too much time in the process of
allowing students to discover facts and
principles for themselves
 A nonthreatening environment might become
so non-threatening that the facilitative tension
needed for learning is absent

26. THEORIES OF LEARNINGBEHAVIORISTIC COGNITIVE CONSTRUCTIVIST
Classical Operant
(Pavlov)
• Respondent
conditioning
• Elicited
response
• S  R
(Skinner)
• Governed by
consequences
• Emitted response
• R  S (reward)
• No punishment
• Programmed
instruction
(Ausubel)
• meaningful =
powerful
• Rote = weak
• Subsumption
• Association
• Systematic
forgetting
• Cogntitive
‘pruning’
(Rogers)
• Fully functioning
person
• Learn how to learn
• Community of
learners
• empowerment
Note:
S : stimulus
R: response, reward

27. Types of learning
 Gagne (1965) identified 8 types of learning:
• Signal learning
• Stimulus-response learning
• Chaining
• Verbal association
• Multiple discrimination
Behaviorism Views
• Concept learning
• Principle learning
• Problem solving
Cognitive and Constructivist

28. Second Language Learning in Gagne’s Types
of Learning
• Occurs in total language process; human beings make
a general response of some kind to lang.
Signal Learning
• Acquisition of the sound system of a foreign languageStimulus-Response
Learning
• Acquisition of phonological sequences and syntactic
patterns
Chaining
• Internal links may be selected from the individual’s
previously learned repertoire of language
Verbal Association
• Learning words that have several meaningMultiple
Discrimination
• Rules of syntax, rules of conversationConcept Learning
• Formation of linguistic systemPrinciple Learning
• Facing with sets of events that are truly problems to be
solved
Problem Solving

29. TRANSFER, INTERFERENCE AND
OVERGENERALIZATION
Transfer
Positive (+) Negative (-)
Overgeneralization Interference
(L1  L1)
(L2  L2)
(L1  L2)
(L2  L1)

30.  Transfer: the carryover of previous
performance or knowledge to subsequent
learning
positive transfer: the prior knowledge benefits
the learning task
negative transfer: previous performance
disrupts the performance of a second task
(Interference)
 Overgeneralization: meaningful learning,
items are subsumed (generalized) under
higher-order categories for meaningful
retention.

31. INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE
REASONING• one stores a number of
specific instances and
induces a general
law/rule/conclusion that
governs or subsumes
the specific instances
• Specific example 
general
INDUCTIVE
• Specific subsumed facts
are inferred or deduced
from a general principle
• General 
examples/activities
DEDUCTIVE

32. APTITUDE AND
INTELLIGENCE
APTITUDE
 Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT)
 Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery (PLAB)
 Weakness:
- Learners can be successful for a multitude of reasons, many
of them are related to motivation and determination than
native abilities
- The test clearly biases both teachers and students, test-result
dependency that will affect their self confidence
 Today, the search for verifiable factors that make up aptitude is
headed to a broader spectrum of learner characteristics  bring
a question of intelligence and foreign language learning.
Steadily waned
due to their
weaknesses

33. INTELLIGENCE
• Linguistic
• Logical-mathematical
• Spatial
• Musical
Gardner (1983)
• Componential ability for analytical thinking
• Experiential ability to engage in creative
thinking
• Contextual ability to manipulate their
environment
Sternberg (1985)
• emotion at the highest level hierarchy of
human abilities.Goleman (1995)
• Bodily-kinesthetic
• Interpersonal
• intrapersonal

34. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INTELLIGENCE
AND SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING
 Traditional Definition: intelligence may have little
to do with one’s success as a second language
learner; people with a high IQs have proven to be
more successful in acquiring second language.
 Gardner attaches other important notion of
intelligence:
 musical intelligence  intonation patterns of
language
 bodily-kinesthetic modes  phonology
 spatial intelligence  comfortable in second
language’s cultural environment

35. TEACHING METHODS
 Designer methods (David Nunan, 1989)
 recognized the importance of both cognitive and affective factors in
second language learning
 attempted to capitalize on the perceived importance of psychological
factors in language learner’s success
 Community Language Learning (LaForge, 1971)
 students and teacher join together to facilitate learning as a translator
 weakness: counselor teachers can become too nondirective and the
success of CLL depends on the translation expertise of the counselor
 Suggestopedia (Lozanov, 1979)
 music was the central to this method and the students were placed in a
comfortable rooms to make them suggestible
 weakness: music and comfortable seats

36.  The Silent Way (Calleb Gattegno)
1. Learning is facilitated if the learner discovers or creates
2. Learning is facilitated by accompanying physical objects
3. Learning is facilitated by problem solving involving the material to
be learned
Weakness: the teacher is too distant to encourage a communicative
atmosphere
 Total Physical Response (James Asher, 1977)
 students do listening and acting.
 TPR classes use imperative mood
 Weakness: only effective for beginner; lost its distinctiveness as
learners advanced their competence
 The Natural Approach (Krashen and Terrel, 1983)
 aimed at the goal of basic interpersonal communication skills, that is
everyday language situation.
 teachers provide comprehensible input or just a little beyond the
learner’s level.
 Weakness: raising students’ anxiety and lessening the possibility of
further risk-taking as the learners try to progress.

37. Thank you