Learning ……and Acquisition Again

(chapter 7)

Outline

Introduction Declarative and procedural knowledge Automization

- higher and lower level skills

- required attention minus one Restructuring Learning and acquisition : two pathways

- DECPRO : the learning pathway

- PRODEC : the acquisition pathway

Combining formal and informal instruction

Adding some acquisition to learning and some learning to acquisition

Declarative and procedural classrooms ,teaching methods

Conclusion

References

Introduction

Up-to-date theories

influenced by cognitive

psychology

More learning than acquisition

Focus on the learner’s environment

Learners in classrooms can master a FL as well as through the acquisition way.

Declarative / procedural knowledge

The knowledge of ‘what’ (declarative) information in the mind

The knowledge of ‘how’ (procedural) practice,actual performance

Knowledge of skills in general and language in particular

Two examples:

Skill of driving

The English professor and his 8-year little daughter

Is declarative knowledge of a language alone sufficient..!?

Automization A process of Making things happen automatically and unconsciously

It needs time and practice

It saves space in channel capacity (room in the mind for processing)

Through automization, we convert the conscious attention from lower-level skills into higher-level skills

cognitive Psychologists considered automization very critical to skill development

Lower-level skills Where to move the gear (driving example), what tense to use and how (language example)

(Repeated skills)

Higher-level skills Pay attention to objects in

the street, focusing on meaning and what to say

in language(New skills)

Channel capacity (conscious attention) (ten units.example)

occupied unit (by lower-level skills ) free unit(ready for the higher –level

skills

Before automization:

After automization:

Cannel capacity

Cannel capacity

After automization, no channel capacity occuied by lower-level skills at all

Automization

Automization

How does the learner move from the first stage of conscious attention toward the stage of effortless production….!!

John Anderson theory of skills learning

Converting the declarative knowledge into procedural

Two stages

-declarative stage : knowledge to memorize

- procedural stage : converting the knowledge about into knowledge of how to

Automization

How to make language learning skill automated….how to proceduralize it….!!??

Johnson (our book author) method or technique for automizing language skills (Required attention

minus one ra-1)

Example: a student learning the present tense Imagine he has ten units of channel capacity (all which the student will use for

the first time)

The teacher mission is to deprive the student from one unit by combining other exercises . Taking away from him one unit after another until the student needs no units at all to use the tense, it is then where automization takes place

Restructuring McLaughlin

learners change the view of how they learn – restructure it McLaughlin added restructuring to the cognitive skill learning process

along with automization

Restructuring happens suddenly (sudden flash)

It is very common when we suddenly understand complicated issues by viewing it in another way

Example

Multiplication problem in mathematics is seen in first stages as a set of addition operations .10*2 as 2+2=4 , 4+2 =6 so on.

Children get to realize that it was multiplication what they were doing

Student has come to see the issue differently

Learning and acquisition : two pathways

Is it possible to combine learning and acquisition in one framework….!!?

DECPRO: the learning pathway

PRODEC: the acquisition pathway

Declarative knowledge procedural knowledge procedural knowledge Declarative knowledge

The starting point is declarative knowledgeGrammar, no communication

A process of proceduralization

A process of declarativization

The starting point is procedural knowledgeChunks, no rulesMight cause fossilization

The maintenance of declarative and procedural knowledge

In acquisition we reach the procedural knowledge without going through the declarative one declarativization.

In learning we start with the declarative knowledge without being exposed to the procedural one proceduralization

Both are very important

It is common to lose the declarative knowledge once the procedural one is acquired

Students can begin their journey with either declarative or procedural knowledge and then move to the other

Declarative and procedural classrooms ,teaching methods

Declarative classroom : Grammar-translation method (example), formal, rules, grammar, translationProcedural classroom : Immersion method(example) informal, picking up language(acquisition) , real use of language

A combination of form-orientated(declarative) and meaning-orientated(procedural) language teaching

Adding some acquisition to

learning

Montgomery(1985) experiment: An EFL grammar based course

A group of 14 students were given extra program(OCC) which is message-focused The results showed that ‘the OCC+EFL’ students did better even in Grammar

Adding some learning to acquisition

Declarative and procedural classrooms ,teaching methods

The introduction of formal instruction (declarative) into an informal approach (procedural) to language teaching

Harley(1989) experiment: Immersion program for 11-year children.

An experimental group was given instruction in the use of tenses.

an improvement done by the group some months later, The advantage of the

experimental group disappeared.

the formal (declarative) knowledge is more likely to disappear (short-lived)

Conclusion

Automization and restructuring should be taken into consideration in learning language and teaching methods

Moving on from declarative knowledge to procedural one and vice versa is critical in language teaching and learning

Both acquisition and learning are pathways which lead to the same place. We should always add one to another

Combining formal and informal instruction would definitely attribute to the teaching process