Theories of SLA and approaches to L2 learning

book chapter

English

Second language acquisition is a broad and constantly expanding field of research. It aims to study and explain how learners acquire a second or additional language. This chapter presents a theoretical study focusing on four main theories of second language acquisition – behaviourism, nativism, cognitivism, and social interactionism – and their application in approaches to second language teaching. Firstly, behaviourism deals with animal and human behaviour and explains it without reference to internal mental processes. On the other hand, nativism emphasises the innate and preprogrammed linguistic competence allowing children to predict and develop the rules and patterns of any language to which they are exposed. Similarly, cognitivism emphasises the learner as an individual, but unlike nativist researchers, who form their hypotheses from the study of linguistic systems, cognitivist researchers build their hypotheses on findings from cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Lastly, social interactionism highlights social interaction between people as the basis of language acquisition. While some theories emphasise the innate ability to acquire a foreign language, others focus on the role of the environment. Each approach to foreign language teaching is based on a particular theory and it is impossible to objectively determine which is the most effective.

second/foreign language acquisition; behaviourism; nativism; cognitivism; social interactionism; universal grammar; zone of proximal development

JAŠKOVÁ, J.

6. 3. 2024

Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

New York

979-8-89113-576-5

The psychology behind second language acquisition

103

123

21