ESLEFL Learning Environments

LEARNING AND ACQUISITION ENVIRONMENTS

It seems that man in "advanced" civilizations possesses a strong urge to fragment, to divide into structurally perceived elements, what is naturally entitative and whole. The more formally educated, the more cognitively active, the greater the propensity. The reason for this acquired behavior is probably because the increasingly discerned complexity of the whole constitutes a handicap and a challenge to human holistic apprehension. The scientist analyzes; the artist synthesizes. The left brain hemisphere dominates the analytical mind; the right, the holistic one. The problem with analysis--particularly as the sole mode of study--is that it abstracts and separates elements that may exist in physical reality, but may just as well not so exist, being, rather, artificially superimposed upon a physical reality that is intrinsically and functionally whole. This philosophical preamble is necessary if one is to understand such theoretical concepts of ESL/EFL as "learning" vs "acquiring", "spontaneous acquisition" vs "guided acquisition", "conscious learning" or "deliberate learning" vs "unconscious learning" or "tacit learning", "formal acquisition" vs "informal acquisition", "linguistic learning" vs "contextual acquisition". In reality, there may not be much difference--and oftentimes none--among these processes, but it may be that pedagogically it is useful to formulate them. We try and do so in this introductory paper, stating some

uisition Approaches Some people question the value of instruction in language acquisition. Current research suggests that instruction helps only when it is the main source of comprehensible input. It further hazards that the goal of instruction is principally to bring students to the point where they can begin to take advantage of the natural input available to them outside the formal institutional environment. Most studies stress that exposure and use of second or foreign language are the only ways to ensure attainment of fluency. Age too is an intervening variable: older students learn faster than young ones during the early stages; young ones outdo the older ones in ultimate attainment (Krashen, Long, and Scarcella, 1979). If we accept as a workable operational scheme Krashen's learning/acquisition concept, closely parallelling Klein's spontaneous/guided acquisition/learning concept, then we can develop pedagogical methodologies which at least have solid theoretical and practical foundations... however debatable. Teaching or facilitating learning Looking at definitions and theories of learning from the learning/acquisition perspective, one is struck by the fact that, essentially, they consider the process as behavioral in

Category: Psychology - E