Radical Behaviorism and Learned Helplessness
According to the basic parameters of language learning
theories based on this week’s article titled “Radical Behaviorism” by Driscoll
(2005), the paradigm of “black box” referring to understanding behavior and
learning, from the lenses of B. F. Skinner in 1950s, vividly depicts that
nothing can be known about what goes on inside. As Skinner distinguished
respondent; involuntary reaction to a stimulus and operant behavior that
inherently emitted by an organism, behavior reoccurs if it has been rewarded or
reinforced depending on usefulness and effect on the behavior. It is crucial to
re-emphasize the contingencies of reinforcement for instance; giving a class
dojo point to a student who does an extra work and do book reports motivates
other students to read and do extra work to get more dojo point in order to
change the avatar of their dojo monsters so that this behavior enhances the
probability of functions however it might also serves as counterintuitive when
a student gets minus dojo point from his or her misbehave or not completed
task. This happens because the student perceives the reinforcement as a reward
with its positive connotations based on relativity of reinforcers. However,
this principle does not refer to the behavioral principal of punishment. As
exemplified above, giving minus dojo for each misbehave or missing homework may
result in more misbehave or aggression in behavior relating to psychological
constraints.
On the other hand, the role of Input in Second
Language Acquisition appears as a significant component for motivation, desire
for improvement in an interactive way within the frame of digital learning
environment. Concerning everyday life and time alteration, both learners’ needs
and teachers’ way of teaching have changed a lot through the renewed or
upcoming technologies in classrooms. It has been imprinted on my mind that “Input
should be comprehensible” from my college professors’ reflections referring to
an Emeritus Professor Stephen Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis. Those
years, its definition was a blank state or learned helplessness as an inservice
teacher who had no class experience. As the time progressed, I internalized its
definition that is message conveyed to increase learner’s language
comprehension. In order to do this, the message should be presented in different
scaffolding which builds learner’s prior knowledge as well.
In terms of Interaction Hypothesis in SLA, this week’s
articles by Alison Mackey “Input, Interaction and Second Language Development”
and Xu Fang “The role of Input and Interaction in Second Language Acquisition”
enlighten our knowledge based on conversional and negotiated interaction as
well as evaluating outcomes of interaction in second language development
precisely. The focus on variation in language input for L2 development is
necessary for English Language teachers.
According to Long (1983), “input is defined as the
linguistic forms (morphemes, words, utterances)-the streams of speech in the
air-directed at the non-native speaker” (cited in Fang, 2010, p.11). A
meaningful interaction facilitates second language learning by providing
comprehensible input in order to internalize features of target language. For
instance, reframing what it has been taught and rephrasing the input given
affect learner’s performance as well as language interaction. As an English
language teacher, I implement negotiated interaction in my classes in order to
rephrase and extend some target vocabulary in units.
A stance from year 4 English class: T: before the
volcano experiment, we need to wear an apron. Ss: Apron!?! T: Well, remember,
for example, we use it in the kitchen, to keep clean our clothes while we are
cooking, eliciting and using dramatization. S: oh, önlük.. Another S: No,
apron! As it is seen in the example, the data from each class could exemplify
how negotiated interaction is fruitful however the importance of active
participation ought not to be neglected. In my point of view, it is a crucial
issue that how teachers convey input to intake and how they could make sure
whether students connect the target form with its meaning by making input
comprehensible in other words.
In addition, teachers need to make an effort to engage
class to the activities through interaction and to set rapport meaningfully.
Namely, sitting on the teacher’s desk and lecturing in front of the classroom
do not facilitate learners to receive the input given. Could you image yourself
teaching “action verbs” by only sitting on your desk to young learners? No
skipping rope, no jumping, no running… etc. This global and digital world prepares
us to make our lessons beyond old fashioned teaching methodologies. We have
different colors in class and each color represent our students’ learning
styles; they are global or analytic as well as their individual specialties
such as kinesthetic, audial, spatial learners. There are some controversial
theories based on input as it is mentioned in Fang’s article (2010), input
hypothesis has been criticized on other grounds. In this framework, White
argues how interlanguage effects on
permitting L2 structure by stressing the importance of comprehensible output as
well (as cited in Fang, 2010, p.12).
As an unconscious process of learning, presenting a
model dialogue or scripts of role play activities operate comprehension and
eliminate errors to some extent. However, these kinds of modified input do not
lead learners to use the target language interactively and they might not take
an advantage of learning from mistakes and not helpful for SLA (Mackey, 1999) On
the other hand, negotiated interaction provides learners to practice language
at the level of their competency. Comprehensible output is as important as
comprehensible input for language learners through communicative activities
such as role plays and practicing social dialogues. By giving feedback and
guiding students to notice how language forms in presented structure, learners
could also develop skills in integrated areas by means of communication
interactively.
On the basis of one of interesting study put forward
by Gass and Varonis (1994), it has been concluded that negotiated and modified
input have positive effect on production (as cited in Mackey, 1999, p.562). It
is the fact that the results of the study were contradictory and it needs for
longitudinal study to have concrete generalization about them. As an
observation from my own classes, I could claim that negotiated input is more
effective for the permanent outcome, for example, a social dialogue: at the
airport from the students’ book, first I highlighted the features of the form
and taught the target vocabulary through visuals, after modeling the dialogue,
I wanted students to write a dialogue takes place in an airport, students’
performances in role plays were efficient and there were no grammatical and
lexical errors in the dialogue presented. Once I have the same class in the
next day, I asked some key words from the dialogue; check in, passport control,
luggage, etc, they remembered the key words but not the whole dialogue because
of it is obtained by scripted interaction.
Hence, it is controversial that to have a general
assumption how modified input yields language acquisition; nevertheless it
contributes to SLA by the help of negotiation. Accordingly, it perplexes me to
disagree with Pica and her colleagues (1994) on their statement “Negotiation is
generally not necessary when input is premodified” (as cited in Mackey, 1999,
p.560). It is not the fruitful way of teaching, for example, the past simple by
presenting only in role plays, it needs more practice by scaffolded exercises
and interactionally modified input in order to have retention as well.
Furthermore, to have a clear cut evidence of language
development, language learners need to be observed in a long term studies
because of some limitations in classes. These limitations could be students’
interlanguage, age, attitudes and classroom dynamic which is significant to
provide interactive participation. The last but not least, the way of giving
negative feedback might be a drawback in SLA because it could easily noticed
and affect student’s motivation. In terms of recasts, it is possible to correct
students’ ill formed utterances and it leads learner to reconstructing. From
another point of view, I believe that perceiving recast as a way to negative
feedback is controversial because it might be problematic for the some learners
who ignore any type of mistakes if they convey the message thoroughly. It needs
further study to name recasts as negative feedback directly related with age
differences and applications in real language classrooms.
On the other hand, Swain (1995) has argued the
importance of comprehensible output in SLA process (as cited in Mackey, 1999,
p.559). I esteem that her hypothesis is not solely responsible for language
acquisition but it is beneficial and supportive for enhancing input via
language production activities. For instance, in a social chat with my students
in the lunch time, I observed that two 9 year old favorite students, who are
twins, wanted to share with me about their baby parrot, I found them troubling
in some expressions, and then they mixed the language reminding me the term
“creole” from sociolinguistics. In this case, I did not force them to use
English language in order to avoid raising their effective filter. These girls
might acquire language only when they need to communicate but not once after
teaching a form as a result of production. I do not rely on that if I force
them to speak only English language with me or threaten them to produce
language and if they do speak Turkish, I would give warning card. Instead, I
could teach them a language function by personalizing the topic and telling
them; “oh, you have a baby parrot, how lovely! I have too, it has got…”
Finally, I concluded that I had some degree of success in having them retain
that description about parrots.
Above mentioned hypothesis based on SLA, it could be
concluded that interaction, input and second language development are highly
interrelated. Interaction provides learners to facilitate language structure
and draws a frame for potential learning but not a cause of acquisition
process. Whereas, output hypothesis controls and internalize the students’
linguistic knowledge and it created conditions for language learning as well.
Overall, the individual differences such as age, motivation, aptitude and
attitudes might take into consideration behind the rationale in SLA.
REFERENCES
Driscoll, M. P., (2005). Introduction to theories of
learning and instruction (pp.1-28).
Fang, X. (2010). The role of input and
interaction in second language acquisition.
Cross Cultural
Communication,
Vol.6(1), pp. 11-17, Retrieved from
1923670020100601.002/780
Mackey, A.(1999 ). Input, interaction, and
second language development (An
empirical study of question formation in ESL). Studies in Second
Language
Acquisition, 21 (4). pp. 557-587
Thu, T.H. (2009). The interaction hypothesis:
A literature review. Retrieved
fromhttp://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED507194.pdf
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