This document discusses several concepts related to information processing and cognitive perspectives on language learning. It begins by listing different metaphors used to describe how the brain works (like a sponge, muscle, computer, etc.). It then discusses theories that the brain is like a computer and processes information. The document outlines several memory systems involved in language learning, including declarative, procedural, and episodic memory. It also briefly discusses Chomsky's competence vs performance distinction and the concepts of communicative competence. The document then explores the ideas of complexity, fluency, accuracy in language learning and output hypothesis, which proposes that language production allows learners to test hypotheses.

1. Cognitive Perspective
Information-processing
Complexity, Fluency and Accuracy
Output hypothesis
Initial task:
What role do you think conscious attention to lexis and grammar
plays in your teaching and learning context?

2. Information-processing
brain works like a sponge
the brain works like a muscle
the brain works like a hologram
brain works like a digital computer
the brain works like a Swiss Army knife
the brain works like a nontrivial machine
your brain works like a telephone switchboard
the brain works like a social network or the internet
the brain works like a club bouncer to control what information gets in
my own brain works - like a stream-of-consciousness that I can’t turn off
Human Cognition is Information Processing
or
The Brain is a Computer

3. The Brain
is a
Computer

4. The Brain as a Computer
Journal of Evolution and Technology. 1998. Vol. 1
When will computer hardware match the human brain?
By: Hans Moravec
ABSTRACT
This paper describes how the performance of AI machines tends to improve
at the same pace that AI researchers get access to faster hardware. The
processing power and memory capacity necessary to match general
intellectual performance of the human brain are estimated. Based on
extrapolation of past trends and on examination of technologies under
development, it is predicted that the required hardware will be available in
cheap machines in the 2020s.

5. Information-processing
Scientific theories of the day always follow the main practice of the day.
When the main practice of the day was about fluids and their flow,
scientists of the day tried to explain the brain function in terms of fluids
and their flow inside the brain chambers. Today, the practice of the day
is all about computers and computation, and so many scientists are
trying to explain the human brain by saying that it works like a
computer. In the next century, once society moves beyond computers,
future generations will laugh at this and think that it was stupid to think
that the brain works like a computer!
http://kids.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/frym.2013.00013
(accessed October 2nd, 2015)

6. General information-processing model
STM = short term memory (working memory)
LTM = long term memory
The magical number 7
Limited or unlimited?

7. Memory System
Declarative memory system / language knowledge
Procedural memory system / language use
Episodic memory system / Experience of events
Visual, Affective, Other ...

8. An Aside ...
(not to be confused with information-processing theory)
■Competence: Chomsky’s UG (interlanguage)
■Performance: Actual language use
■Communicative Competence 1: Grammatical, lexical,
sociolinguistic, pragmatic, etc competence (search
Canale and Swain 1980)
■Communicative Competence 2: Sociolinguistics (Search
Dell Hymes)

9. Complexity, Fluency and Accuracy
Magical
Number 7
Fluency
Accuracy
Complexity

10. Describe a language learning situation in your
context where there is a trade-off between
complexity, fluency and accuracy.

11. Output Hypothesis
Learners can fake comprehension, but not production. This
means that,
“the processes involved in producing language can be
quite different than those involved in comprehending
language” (Swain, 1995, p. 127).
In particular,
“in speaking or writing, learners can ‘stretch’ their
interlanguage to meet communicative goals” (Swain,
1995, p. 127).

12. Output Hypothesis
Swain’s Output hypothesis
The noticing/triggering function (consciousness-raising
role);
The hypothesis-testing function;
The metalinguistic function (reflective role).

13. For Next Week
Nassaji, H. and Swain, M. (2000). A Vygotskian
perspective on corrective feedback in L2: the effect of
random versus negotiated help on the learning of
English articles. Language Awareness, 9/1: 34-51.