Session 2: Learning & Learning Process

Preparation




   Every time I hear the word “learning”, the first things that cross my mind is my own memories regarding learning and strategies that I used to try to innovate by myself in order to learn. I remember those teachers in my elementary school who advised us not to memorize the materials but learn them. They never explained these two terms and just insist on learning. I remember, initially I thought that they are same but after this insistence I tried to interpret them to discover thatI was either learning or memorizing.


   During all my academic years in schools and then university, learning, and all its related issues were long-standing concepts that I thought about them every time I started studying. My mind was always on how children acquire their mother tongue successfully and it was so interesting when for the first time I found such kinds of discussion in the teaching methodology course in the last term of my undergraduate studies.


   So, what are learning and acquisition? How can we differentiate them? Acquisition could be described as a natural process where there is no conscious attention on linguistic forms and information is picked up unconsciously but learning is a conscious process. The former occurs mostly in natural environment and the latter is a product of instruction and mostly occurs in classrooms.


   Acquisition could be the acquisition of L1 or L2. When we are going to compare learning a L2 and acquisition of L1 another kind of comparison could be the difference between input providers; teachers versus caretakers. Caretaker communication is largely message-focused, not normally form-focused and the concentration tends to be on content and not means, the “what” and not “how”.


   About one month ago I paid attention to my 7-month-old niece, Ghazal, I made a hypothesis! I gave attention to her actions and reactions. Little baby looked at the apple I gave to her. When I said to her “Ghazal eat the apple” she looked at and listened to me then looked at the apple. I found that in acquisition of L1 everything is internalized conceptually. In other words, babies first understand the concepts’ meanings and then give a name to them, but in learning a L2 language, most of the time, the first thing that comes to the learners’ minds are the concepts’ names in their L1. It might be the reason why L2 or FL learners rarely are as fluent and accurate as L1 learners.


   One important point should be mentioned, we hardly can separate acquisition and learning into absolutely different groups. Because it is possible during a learning process learners acquire some information out of the dominance of formal instruction and from among the teachers’ general behavior and on the other hand it is also possible in a natural environment a formal teaching happens.


   One of the acquisition theories in the filed of language is Krashen’s Input Theory. It includes five hypotheses;
1. The acquisition-learning hypothesis
2. The natural order hypothesis
3. The monitor hypothesis
4. The input hypothesis
5. the affective filter hypothesis


   Just like all theories Krashon’s theory was faced with criticism. Against his Input hypothesis which claims “we acquire (not learn) language by understanding input that is a little beyond our current level of (acquired) competence- the comprehensible input- (i+1)” there is a hypothesis, the Output hypothesis which is based on the idea that understanding language and producing language are different skills, and that the second can only be developed by pushing the learner to produce output-actually to say and write things. And another hypothesis is Interaction hypothesis that claims it is in the interaction process that acquisition occurs; learners acquire through talking with others, this hypothesis some how pays attention to both input and output.


   Learning is among those controversial concepts that there are so many theories, hypotheses and discussions around it. Input H. , Output H. , Interaction H., Teachability H., Acculturation Theory, Ausubels’ Meaningful learning and Systematic forgetting ,Cognitive pruning and Subsumption, Subtractive bilingualism and language attrition, Inductive and Deductive reasoning, Banking and Liberationist theories, Defensive learning, DECPRO, Automatization and Restructuring, Contrastive analysis and error analysis, etc. are some of the discussions which were expressed by different people to investigate the learning issue and find new ways to help learning and teaching processes.


   Having all these theories in our mind, we should be aware that to have a successful class we should manage our classroom base on a theory, not base on a general theory of learning or a naturalistic language learning, but based on a research- based theory whether it is a “research-then-theory” , whose emphasis is on ethnography, describing and understanding classroom processes rather than on testing what has been learned, or a “theory-then-research” approach, whose emphasis is on true experiments designed to test hypotheses based on a well-grounded theory.






Assistance




   Learning is a process of perceiving, attending, storing and recalling information. And this process comes to a series through direction. So base on different directions we can have inductive learning, deductive learning, bottom-up processing, top-down processing, declarative learning, and procedural learning.


   Declarative knowledge is “knowledge about” and Procedural knowledge is “knowledge how to”. This can be applied in two forms:
DECPRO and PRODEC. Decpro is a proceduralization process. It means from declarative knowledge to procedural knowledge and so it is learning and PRODEC is reverse, adeclaretivization process, first it is procedural knowledge and then declarative, so it is acquisition.


   In Krashen’s Input theory, he is in favor of acquisition, PRODEC,he believes that learning does not lead to acquisition, but critics are against him, like Johnson who believes that learning and acquisition are two pathways, two different processes that both lead to the same place but following different routes.


   Another discussion regarding learning and acquisition is Krashen’s Monitor hypothesis. According to Monitor Hypothesis, monitor is involved in learning not in acquisition. It is “learning” knowledge that can be used to edit utterances generated by means of “acquired” knowledge either before or after they occurred in the output. There are three kinds of monitor, over-use monitor, under-use monitor, and optimal-use monitor. From among these three the optimal-use monitor is the preferred one and it says that the monitor should be used just when errors block communication.


   There are also differences between classroom learning and naturalistic learning which can be expressed through three points of views; Sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics and educationalists’ viewpoints.


   Sociolinguists believe the distinction is a matter of different domain; participants, location, topic and purpose. Participants are different in terms of their ages, their motivations, their aims. In classroom location everything is artificially designed. Regarding topic, in naturalistic learning, topics are varied but in classroom they are controlled. The controlling aspects are interest, culture, etc. and about purpose it should be mentioned that, in classroom the purpose is more focused but in natural condition there is a multidimensional life and so many purposes.


   Psycholinguists divide them into formal and informal learning. They study them in terms of the ways the learners process the information.
In formal learning everything should be taught bit by bit. Learners should be attentive, should be corrected, and should be conscious. Informal setting is a trial and error, testing hypotheses. Psychologically the types of process the learners are involved in are different.


   And educationalists distinguish them through the idea of formal training and apprenticeship, it means learning by doing. The learners see something and they do it themselves and nobody train them


   Now, a question that should be ask regarding classroom learning is “Do we need a theory for classroom learning?” or “are we allowed to use all the theories and techniques that were created, the cognitivism, the constructivisim, the behaviorisim,… in our classroom learning?” There are three responses; first group believe that there are several learning theories, cognitivism, constructivisim,… . we can use them. Second group suggest imitation from what first language acquirer does. And last group says that the teacher should experiment, should do a research, ethnographic type of research and experimental type of research. Ethnographic research means that for every classroom the teacher should make a hypothesis and test the hypothesis during instructional period; test retest & revise it.






Application




   Taking all the above mentioned discussions in my mind, I think just a practitioner and an insider can help learners and improve the learning condition, so teachers, especially new ones should focus on environment, on the effects of deficiencies that we have in facilities, not an outsider. As we see in Iran either outsiders those who never experienced a real learning- teaching condition or have no specialty in this field come and decide for learning- teaching policies or teachers just try to imitate the majority of the teachers no matter how they are working, whether they are interested in their job or they are working just for the sake of money, whether they are right or wrong in the ways they are taking.


   So in this condition, to be a good teacher and do all the responsibilities regarding learners and learning, teachers’ attentions should be on the facilities, participants, topics, purposes, etc. of every classes that they have to help themselves devise classroom theories and practices for each class and base on these theories manage the classroom and facilitate learners’ learning in the best way.


Readings: Naunan Chapter2 & 6, Jonnson pp.57-115, Brown PLLT Chapter 4, Ellis 1-62