THE MONITOR MODEL AND THE LEVERTOV MACHINE
IN SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING AND ACQUISITION
Stephen D. Krashen's Monitor Model embodies the researcher's theories on second language acquisition and learning. Fundamental to the Monitor Model are five hypotheses, viz. the Acquisition/Learning Hypothesis, the Natural Order Hypothesis, the Input Hypothesis, the Affective Filter Hypothesis, and the Monitor Hypothesis.
The Acquisition/Learning Hypothesis
This construct dichotomizes distinctly between acquisition and learning, where acquisition is the subconscious process of apprehending language in both its form and meaning, and learning the conscious or explicit apprehending of knowledge about language, i.e. essentially about its form. Acquisition is thus the picking up of communicative language, whereas learning is the encrypting of grammar or rules which formally govern the structure of language. Acquisition is unaware of and unconcerned with syntactical and other errors as long as communication is perceived as appropriate: it does not self-correct. Learning, on the other hand, is aware of and essentially concerned with errors: it self-corrects. Acquisition focuses on substance (meaning), where learning focuses on form (structure). Both processes are usually carried out in the development and attainment of linguistic production performance. However, to Krashen, acquisition is the more important process because it and only it can lead to fluency--whether at the cost of accuracy or not.
Krashen shares this concept with a number of linguists and psycholinguists, while he explicates it in terms of the Acquisition/Learning Hypothesis. It proposes that syntactical structuring is acquired (not learned) in a predictable order which can be influenced by one's first language, yet not by instruction. Second language order, though not identical to first language order, is likely to evidence some similarities with it (Krashen, 1981a). Secon...