Aula 2 - ENSINO E APRENDIZAGEM DE INGLÊS COM LÍNGUA ESTRANGEIRA

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ENSINO E APRENDIZAGEM DE INGLÊS COM LÍNGUA ESTRANGEIRA
Aula 2 – Some approaches about the teaching of a secong language
Introduction
In this lesson we are not going to provide an exhaustive description of early approaches to understand current developments in second language learning research, but we will rather explore the theoretical foundations of today’s thinking. 
We will limit ourselves to the post-war period, which has seen the development of theorizing about second language learning from an adjunct to language pedagogy, to an autonomous field of research. The period since the 1950s can itself be divided into three main phases.
We will start with the 1950’s and 1960’s and a short description of how second languages were believed to be learnt at the time.
We will then describe the impact of the “Chomskyan revolution” in linguistics on the field of language acquisition, initially on the study of first language acquisition, and subsequently that of second language acquisition.
We will briefly consider the period from 1980’s onwards. On this period ideas coming from a range of other fields have also become increasingly significant.
Learning a second language
Let’s talk about the nature of language and language learning.
If we are going to teach other people to understand and to speak a second or third language, we should start by asking ourselves what language really is. 
We have all been speaking our native language since we were between the ages of one or two, but we have done so with little or no conscious thought on our part. Many of us would find it difficult or even impossible to explain what we do when we speak our language.
Fortunately, the last several decades have witnessed a tremendous upsurge of activity by scholars in this field. Definitions of language and language descriptions abound.
Every few years one finds new and often contradictory theories of ways of describing language. There have been numerous books and articles about the advantages of describing language in traditional terms , in structural terms, in tagmemic terms, in generative-transformational terms to name only a few.
What happened in the 1950’s and 1960’s?
In the 1950’s and early 1960’s, theorizing about second language learning was still very much an adjunct to the practical business of language teaching.
However, the idea that language teaching methods had to be justified in terms of an underlying learning theory was well established, since the pedagogic reform movements of the late nineteenth century at least.
The writings of language teaching experts in the 1950’s and 1960’s include serious considerations of learning theory, as preliminaries to their practical recommendations. As far as linguistic content was concerned, ‘progressive’ 1950’s language pedagogy drew on a version of structuralism developed by the British linguist Palmer in the 1920’s, and subsequently by Fries and his Michigan colleagues in the 1940’s.
Howatt sums up this approach as follows:
1- The conviction that language systems consisted of a finite set of ‘patterns’ or ‘structures’ which acted as models for the production of an infinite number of similarly constructed sentences;
2- The belief that repetition and practice resulted in the formation of accurate and fluent foreign language habits;
3- A methodology which set out to teach ‘the basics’ before encouraging learners to communicate their own thoughts and ideas.
Howatt’s summary makes it clear that the learning theory to which language teaching experts and reformers were appealing at this time was the general learning theory then dominant in mainstream psychology, behaviourism, which will be explained next.
What is behaviourism?
Behaviouristic view of language acquisition simply claims that language development is the result of a set of habits. This view has normally been influenced by the general theory of learning described by the psychologist John B. Watson in 1923, and termed behaviourism.
Behaviourism denies nativist accounts of innate knowledge as they are viewed as inherently irrational and thus unscientific. Knowledge is the product of interaction with the environment through stimulus-response conditioning. Broadly speaking, stimulus (ST) – response (RE) learning works as follows.
An event in the environment (the unconditioned stimulus, or UST) brings out an unconditioned response (URE) from an organism capable of learning.
That response is then followed by another event appealing to the organism. That is, the organism’s response is positively reinforced (PRE). If the sequence UST --> URE --> PRE recurs a sufficient number of times, the organism will learn how to associate its response to the stimulus with the reinforcement (CST).
What is behaviourism?
Reflexão
a. That language is acquired relatively rapidly;
b. That very little actual language teaching/ training actually goes on during the acquisition period;
c. That children are relatively unresponsive to attempts at overt teaching, particularly through negative reinforcement.
Another point is illustrated by the following dialogue:
A caregiver is attempting to correct a child's use of the prescriptively negatively-valued double negative construction, with frustrating results on both sides:
“Nobody don’t like me”. “No, say, “Nobody likes me”. 
Behaviourism under attack
Starting the 1950’s and continuing in the 1960’s, both the fields of linguistics and psychology witnessed major developments. Linguistics saw a shift from structural linguistics, which was based on the description of the surface structure of a large corpus of language, to generative linguistics which emphasized the rule-governed and creative nature of human language.
This shift had been initiated by the publication in 1957 of Syntactic Structures, the first of many influential books by Noam Chomsky. In the field of psychology, the pre-eminent role for the environment which was argued by Skinner in shaping the child’s learning and behavior was losing ground in favor of more developmentalist views of learning, such as Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory, in which inner forces drive the child, in interaction with the environment.
The clash of views about the way in which we learn language came to a head at the end of 1950’s with two publications. These were Skinner’s Verbal Behavior in 1957, which outlined in detail his behaviourist view of learning as applied to language, and Chomsky’s view of Skinner’s book, published in 1959, which was a fierce critique of Skinner’s views. 
Chomsky’s criticisms centered on a number of issues:
The creativity of language 
Children do not learn and reproduce a large set of sentences, but they routinely create new sentences that they have never learnt before. This is only possible because they internalize rules rather than strings of words: extremely common examples of utterances such as “it breaked” or “mummy goed” show clearly that children are not copying the language around them but applying rules. 
Chomsky was incensed by the idea that you could compare the behaviour of rats in a laboratory, learning to perform simple tasks, to the behavior of children learning language without direct teaching, a fundamentally different task because of its sheer complexity and abstractness.
Given the complexity and abstractness of linguistic rules
For example, the rules underlying the formation of questions in many languages, or the rules underlying the use of reflexive pronouns in English. It is amazing that children are able to master them so quickly and efficiently, especially given the limited input they receive. This has been named “Plato’s problem”, and refers specifically to the fact that some of the structural properties of language, given their complexity, could not possibly be expected to be learned on the basis of the samples of language around them. 
Furthermore, children have been shown not to be usually corrected on the form of their utterances but ratheron their truth values. When correction does take place, it seems to have very little effect on the development of language structure. For the explained reasons, Chomsky claimed that children have an innate faculty which guides them in their learning of language. Given a body of speech, children are programmed to discover its rules, and are guided in doing that by an innate knowledge of what the rules should look like.
What happened in the 1970’s?
Researchers such as Klima and Bellugi (1966), Dan Slobin (1970) or Roger Brown (1973) found striking similarities in the language learning behavior of young children, whatever the language they were learning.
It seems that children all over the world go through similar stages, use similar constructions in order to express similar meanings, and make the same kind of errors. The stages can be summarized as follows:
Characteristics which emerged from this brief account of 1970’s account
Second language learning: the birth of Error Analysis?
Teachers found out in the classroom that constructions that were different in pairs of languages were not necessarily difficult, and that constructions that were similar in two languages were not necessarily easy either.
Moreover, difficulty sometimes occurred in one direction but not the other. For example, the placement of unstressed object pronouns in English and French differs: whereas English says I like them, French says Je les aime (“I them like”).
Contrastive analysis would therefore predict that object pronoun placement would be difficult for both English learners of French and French learners of English.
This is not the case, however; whereas English learners of French do have problems with this construction and produce errors such as “J’aime les” in initial stages, French learners of English do not produce error of the type I them like, as would be predicted by CA.
The task of comparing pairs of languages in order to design efficient language teaching programmes now seemed disproportionately huge in relation to its predictive powers: if it could not adequately predict areas of difficulty, then the whole enterprise seemed to be pointless.
These two factors combined - developments in first language acquisition and disillusionment with CA – meant that researchers and teachers became increasingly interested in the language produced by learners, rather than the target language or the mother tongue.
This was the origin of Error Analysis, the systematic investigation of second language learner’s errors. The language produced by learners began to be seen as a linguistic system in its own right, worthy of description.
In a review of studies looking at the proportion of error that can be traced back to the first language, Error Analysis showed clearly that the majority of the errors made by second language learners do not come from their first language.
If so, where do such errors come from? They are not target-like, and they are not L-1 like; they must be learner-internal in origin.
Researchers started trying to classify these errors in order to understand them, and to compare them with errors made by children learning their mother tongue.
This was happening at the same time as the developments in first language acquisition which we mentioned above, whereby child language was now seen as an object of study of its own right, rather than an approximation of adult language.
In second language learning research, coupled with the interest in understanding learner-internal errors, interest in the overall character of the L2 system was also growing.
The term interlanguage was coined in 1972 by Selinker to refer to the language produced by learners, both as a system which can be described at any one point as resulting from systematic rules, and as the series of interlocking systems that characterize learner progression.
Interlanguage studies moves one step beyond Error Analysis, by focusing on the learner system as a whole, rather than only on what can go wrong with it.
Conceitos iniciais
Now we are going to discuss about Krashen’s Monitor Model. Krashen’s theory evolved in the late 1970s as a result of the findings outlined above. The author thereafter refined and expanded his ideas in the early 1980s in a series of books. He based his general theory on a set of five basic hypotheses:
1. The Acquisition-Learning distinction is the most fundamental of all the hypotheses in Krashen’s theory and the most widely known among linguists and language practitioners.
2. According to Krashen, there are two independent systems of second language performance: “the acquired system” and “the learned system”.
3. The “acquired system” or “acquisition” is the product of a subconscious process very similar to the process children undergo when they acquire their first language.
4. It requires meaningful interaction in the target language - natural communication - in which speakers are concentrated not in the form of their utterances, but in the communicative act.
5. The “learned system” or “learning” is the product of formal instruction and it comprises a conscious process which results in conscious knowledge “about” the language, for example knowledge of grammar rules.
REFLEXÃO
According to Krashen, “learning” is less important than “acquisition”. What is problematic about Krashen’s claim that learning cannot turn into acquisition, i.e. that language knowledge acquired/ learned by these different routes cannot eventually become integrated into a unified whole.
Other researchers disagree and the debate about whether different kinds of knowledge interact or remain separate, is still alive today, even though the terms used might differ.
How does the monitor hypothesis work?
The monitor hypothesis explains the relationship between acquisition and learning and defines the influence of the latter on the former. 
The monitoring function is the practical result of the learned grammar. According to Krashen, the acquisition system is the utterance initiator, while the learning system performs the role of the “monitor” or the “editor”.
The “monitor” acts in a planning, editing and correcting function when three specific conditions are met: that is, the second language learner has sufficient time at his/her disposal, he/she focuses on form or thinks about correctness, and he/she knows the rule.
REFLEXÃO
An evaluation of the person’s psychological profile can help to determine to what group they belong. Usually extroverts are under-users, while introverts and perfectionists are over-users. Lack of self-confidence is frequently related to the over-use of the “monitor”.
Vygotsky’s contribution to second language learning
Other theorists (Piaget, 1952; Vygotsky, 1962) viewed the development of language as a complex interaction between the child and the environment, which is influenced by both social and cognitive development.
Both Piaget and Vygotsky believed that as children develop language, they actively build a symbol system, which helps them to understand the world. They differed in the way in which they viewed how language and thought interact with one another. 
Piaget believed that cognitive development led to the growth of language whereas Vygotsky viewed language as developing thought. 
A child’s external speech is the first step in the development of thinking. Vygotsky’s theory stresses the importance of communication with others as a major factor in the development of a child’s language, which stimulates the development of thought.
Vygotsky’s theory views the important effect that an adult has on the development of language. His theory describes the importance of the zone of proximal development, which is present in interactions children have with adults.
This zone is described as the "distance between the child’s actual developmental level determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem”.
This adultguidance is referred to as scaffolding. In order for the scaffolding to be effective, it must match the child's developmental level so the child is comfortable enough to use the guidance, which may present enough of a challenge to reach the next level in a particular area.
For example, an adult whose goal is to provide an appropriate amount of scaffolding may engage in a conversation with a young child using various strategies.
If the child asks a question about a particular topic, the adult may first ask a child, “Well, what do you think about that?”. 
Once the adult knows what the child thinks, he can decide which ideas to confirm and which ones to extend and determine just how much information the child can assimilate during one conversation solving under adult guidance”.
Adults who do not typically provide scaffolding will not ask the child's thoughts on the matter, but will answer the question directly. In doing this, they have not figured out exactly what the child is asking, nor do they know what the child already knows about the particular topic.
Even though the child in this situation may be satisfied with the answer, he has not had the opportunity to actively discuss and manipulate ideas in order to construct knowledge. 
Sometimes adults can ask young children open-ended questions. The children's responses are often filled with information, which adults in the scaffolding role can extend.
Consider the various answers these 3- and 4-year-old children gave to a teacher's question,
“What do you know about leaves?”:
“The leaves fall from the trees and they always roll away”;
“They do their jobs. They grow”;
“They fall on the ground”;
“The wind comes and blows them very fast and they roll across the grass. I can catch one of the leaves”;
“Sometimes the leaves get into beautiful colors like a rainbow. They fall to the ground and I catch them, and when they stay up in the tree and they do their jobs and keep growing and growing and growing”.
Clearly, these children already have a vast knowledge about leaves. The teacher can then take this information, which is meaningful to the children, and weave it into discussions about seasons, the life cycle of plants, weather, and an appreciation of the beauty of nature.
A teacher can say, “You were talking about how the leaves get into beautiful colors like a rainbow. Let's find a book about leaves and find out how they do this”.
	1a Questão
	
	
	
	Mark the strategy which would grarantee a better teaching of second languages at public schools
		
	
	agree with students that say that they do not know "how to speak Portuguese" let alone foreign languages
	
	believe that learning foreign languages woud be harmful to the mantainance of national values
	 
	improvee teacher´s academic formation at universities
	
	convince students that they do not need to learn foreign languages because they will never travel abroad
	
	recognize that foreign languagesare not as important as subjects like Maths and Portuguese
	Ref.: 201602980439
		
	
	 2a Questão
	
	
	
	
	In the field of psychology, the pre-eminent role for the environment which was argued by Skinner in shaping the child´s learning and behavior was losing ground in favor of more
		
	
	d- cooperative views of learning
	 
	developmentalist views of learning
	
	e- mental views of learning
	
	b- communicative views of learning
	
	c- gradual views of learning
	Ref.: 201602980441
		
	
	 3a Questão
	
	
	
	
	Vygotsky´s theory
		
	
	c- claims that children have an innate faculty which guides them in their learning of language.
	
	b- claims that language development is the result of a set of habits.
	
	e- refers to the language produced by learners, both as a system which can be described at any one point as resulting from systematic rules
	
	a- clearly states objectives that allow the learner to focus on one goal.
	 
	d- views the development of language as a complex interaction between the child and the environment
	Ref.: 201602981415
		
	
	 4a Questão
	
	
	
	
	In order for the scaffolding to be effective, if a child asks a question about a particular topic, the adult may first ask the child, "Well, what do you, think about that?" Once the adult knows what the child thinks, he can
		
	
	can prevent comprehensible input
	
	decide how to convince the child to accept other ideas
	
	can reject grammatical sequecing
	 
	decide which ideas to confirm and which ones to extend
	
	abandon the child´s ideas
	Ref.: 201603353138
		
	
	 5a Questão
	
	
	
	
	A teacher in a very traditional school used to practice verbs showing the students cards with personal pronouns such as I, You ,She,etc.. She had two other cards: a red and a green one which she chose to show the students if they were right or wrong. We can say this teacher bases her lessons on a/an ------------------approach.
	
	
	a-      unscientific approach
	
	a-      interactional approach
	
	a-      pedagogical approach
	
	a-      structuralist approach
	 
	a-      behaviorist approach
	Ref.: 201603796639
		
	
	 6a Questão
	
	
	
	
	Read the text below:
"In her reflection, Professor Marguerite mentions how her students are apprehensive to produce spoken language.  She states that they are anxious about using the TL.  Language teachers and learners alike know that producing oral language can be a challenge but that it is a necessary part of learning a language.  Like Marguerite's students, many language students may feel worried about the level of their language. This often prevents them from speaking or taking in the language at all.  In addition, many learners tend to monitor their use of the language too much, focusing more on accuracy than fluency which in turn prevents them from using the language in a communicative manner".  Source: https://sites.educ.ualberta.ca/staff/olenka.bilash/Best%20of%20Bilash/krashen.html
Based on the text above, chose the right option to complete the extract below:
"What Professor Marguerite realized is that in a class not all learners can be at the same level of linguistic competence at the same time. So when designing a syllabus, it is advisable that she remember to consider what Stephen Krashen calls:"
		
	
	the superficial input
	
	the valid output
	 
	the natural communicative input
	
	the guided output
	
	the guided input
	Explicação:
"The best methods are therefore those that supply 'comprehensible input' in low anxiety situations, containing messages that students really want to hear. These methods do not force early production in the second language, but allow students to produce when they are 'ready', recognizing that improvement comes from supplying communicative and comprehensible input, and not from forcing and correcting production." Stephen Krashen
	Ref.: 201603300604
		
	
	 7a Questão
	
	
	
	
	Mark the strategy which would guarantee a better teaching of second languages:
		
	
	convince students that they do not need to learn a foreign language because they will never travel abroad
	
	recognize that foreign languages are not as important as subjects such as Maths and Portuguese
	 
	improve teachers´ academic formation at universities
	
	agree with students that say they do not know how to speak Portuguese correctly let alone English.
	
	believe that learning foreign languages will be harmful to the mantainance of national values
	Ref.: 201603480334
		
	
	 8a Questão
	
	
	
	
	According to Krashen,  the ------------ acts in a planning, editing and correcting function when three specific conditions are met: that is, the second language learner has sufficienttime at his/her disposal, he/she focuses on form or thinks about correctness, and he/she knows the rule.
		
	
	writer
	 
	researcher
	
	local teacher
	 
	Monitor 
	
	student