THANDOKUHLE NXIWENI

13160339

ENGLISH 322:

ASSIGNMENT 2: PART 1

15 SEPTEMBER 2015

In Second Language Acquisition there are different explanations provided by behaviourist and cognitivist theorist for how second language is learned, the origins of errors and how errors should be dealt with. For each theory, behaviourist theory and cognitivist theory, there are different features for their explanations of how language is learnt and each theory views the origins of errors and how they should be dealt with, differently. There are various techniques and teaching methods that are used in these theories.

The behaviourist theory takes concepts from behaviourists such as Skinner, from behaviorism in psychology. The theorist refers to a process called habit formation and that all learning is habit formation. When children are learning their first language, they do it by imitation. The child will imitate the sounds and patterns that they hear around them. The adult will hear that the child is attempting to make sounds and they will encourage them through reinforcements such as a reward for the sound. The child will keep on repeating and practicing the sound in order to gain more rewards and by doing this it conditions the child’s verbal behaviour until the habit agrees with the adults habits. Therefore the reinforcements lead to habit formation.

Second language acquisition has a lot in common with the way that first language is acquired. Second language is learnt in a similar way to first language learning. The behviourist believe that since the first language habits are from the mother tongue, the first language habits are transferred during the learning of the second language and complicated the new habit formation. There are two kinds of transfer, positive and negative transfer. Positive transfer refers to where the two languages have similar pattern and