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 current theoretical hypotheses which undergird most contemporary didactic methodologies, and looking at some of the ways in which teachers try and make head or tail out of arcane hypotheses while they bravely face the daily challenge of teaching.
The International Dictionary of Education (Page and Thomas, 1977:203) defines learning thus:
Used in educational psychology to refer to a relatively permanent change in behavior that is the result of past experience, either...