Theoretical Perspective Reflection Assignment

In Chapter 3, you were introduced to four theories of language acquisition, namely the behaviorist theory, the theory of active construction of a grammar, the connectionist theory, and the social interaction theory. In this discussion, your task is to choose one of these theories and describe its key elements using a visual graphic organizer.

The recommended website, Holt Interactive Graphic Organizers, offers digital graphic organizers to help you with the creation of your graphic organizer, or you can use the graphs/charts feature in Microsoft Word.  You will then compare and contrast your chosen theory with the other theories listed above, highlighting the major similarities and differences.

The graphic organizer you create for the theory you choose should include:

• The main theorist associated with the theory
• A summary of what the theory states
• Evidence supporting the theory
• Evidence against the theory

In your compare/contrast analysis of the theory, include the following: Theoretical Perspective Reflection Assignment

• Similarities to other theories
• Differences from other theories

Review Chapter 3 of the book, as well as any other material and your own observations. Always include an APA reference in your graphic organizer, even if it’s from the textbook. Your theory selection should also serve as the title of your discussion post. Your comparison and contrast analysis should make up the bulk of your post.

3.3 Theories and Models On one side of the debate are the theorists who believe that language is a learned behavior and that learning a language is no different from learning any other skill. On the other end of the spectrum are those who believe language is innate and hence can be learned with little effort. To explain how a preschooler can have a tacit understanding of the grammar of his language that would take a linguist hundreds of pages to describe, there are a number of competing ideas that fall somewhere in the between of these two extremes. Theoretical Perspective Reflection Assignment

We can’t cover every theory that’s been proposed or every argument that’s been made for it, but we can look at four broad categories of linguistic theory that have had significant impacts. These include the behaviorist, active constructionist, neurological connectionist, and interactionist schools of thought. Theoretical Perspective Reflection Assignment

The Behavioral Perspectives Despite its early 20th century popularity, the behaviorist theory of language learning is not taken seriously nowadays. The fundamental tenet of behaviorist theories is that kids pick up skills by watching and imitating others. They take in the words they hear, try to mimic them, and then learn to discard their shaky imitations through a system of reinforcement (i.e., being praised or rewarded for accurate utterances and having errors ignored or corrected).

It’s obvious that there will be issues when trying to apply this theory to actual youngsters learning a language. First, kids say things they’ve never heard before, and second, adults rarely react to the way kids are saying things. This and similar expressions cannot be explained by any theory of imitation. For additional information on this subject, read Chomsky’s The Case Against Behaviorism.

Theoretical Perspective Reflection Assignment