Theories of learning

                 Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.

                Teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

The starting point for all language teaching should be an understanding of how people learn. But it is too often the case that “ learning “ factors are the last to be considered. ESP has been particularly guilty in this regard. As we saw in the previous chapter, the overwhelming weight of emphasis in ESP research and materials has been on language analysis. Language factors, if considered at all, are incorporated only after the language base has been analyzed and systematized (see Munby, 1978 p.127). We have in effect, been more concerned with arriving than with the journey.

Yet, language can only be properly understood as a reflection of human thought processes. Language learning is conditioned by the way in which the mind observes, organizes and stores information. In other words, the key to successful language learning and teaching lies not in the analysis of the nature in language but in understanding the structure and process of the mind. Unfortunately, we still know too little about how people learn. Nevertheless, if we wish to improve the techniques, methods and content of language teaching, we must try and base what we do in the classroom on sound principles of learning.

Developments in learning theory have followed a similar pattern to those in language descriptions, and each has had some effect on the other. But, if we are to see the important of each for language teaching, it is best to consider the theories relating to language and learning separately. As with language description, we shall describe the main developments in theories of how learners learn and relate each to the needs of the ESP learner and teacher.

Until the twentieth century there was no coherent theory of learning available to the language teacher. Certainly, there were empirical observations, such as Comenius studies made in the sixteenth century and the precept of the direct method at the end of the ninetieth century  (see e.g . stern,1983). But no coherent theory of learning emerged until psychology had been established as a respectable subject of scientific enquiry in the early twentieth century. We can identify five main stages of development since then, which are of relevance to the modern language teacher (see littlewood,1984,for an excellent survey of theories of learning).

1.       Behaviourism : learning as habit formation

the first coherent theory of learning was the behaviourist theory based mainly on the work of Pavlov in the Soviet Union and of skinner in the United States. This simple but powerful theory said that learning is a mechanical process of habit formation and process by means of the frequent reinforcement of a stimulus – response sequence.

The simplicity and directness of this theory had an enormous impact of learning psychology and on language teaching. It provided the theoretical underpinning of the widely used audiolingual method of the 1950s and 1960s. the method, which will be familiar to many language teachers, laid down a set of guiding methodological principles, based firstly on the behaviorist stimulus – response concept and secondly on an assumption that second language should reflect and imitate the perceived processes of mother tongue learning. Some of this percepts were :

Never translate.

New language should always be dealt with in the sequences : hear, speak, read, write.

Frequent repetition is essential to effective learning.

All errors must be immediately corrected.

The basic exercise technique of a behaviorist methodology is pattern practice, particularly in the form of language laboratory drills.

Modern ESP books have also looked for more interesting ways f handling pattern practice a number of useful variations on the basic idea have been developed. In particulars, authors have tried to provide a meaningful context for the drills, as this example from an American ESP course shows :

Pattern practice exercises still have a useful role to play in language teaching (see chapter 10), but only as one part of the whole learning process. Under the audio lingual they constituted almost the entire methodology. Subsequent development have, as we shall see, shown that learning is much more complex than just imitative habit formation. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that there is no place for pattern practice in a modern methodology (see e.g stevick,1982). The mistake is to see it as the only kind of activity required.

2.       Mentalism : thinking as rule-governed activity

There was considerable empirical evidence among language teachers that the Audio lingual Method and its behaviorist principles didn’t deliver the result promise. For apparently perverse reasons, language learners wouldn’t conform to the behaviorist stereotype : they insisted on translating things, asked for rules of grammar, found repeating things to a tape recorder boring, and somehow failed to learn something no matter how often they repeated it (see allwright,1984 a). such evidence for the classrooms, however, did little to diminish the influence of the theory- a sad example of human mistrust of intuition and experience in favor of theory.

The first successful assault on the behaviorist theory came from Chomsky (1964). He tackled behaviorism on the question of how the mind was able to transfer what was learnt in one stimulus – response sequence to other novel situations. There was a vague concept of “generalization” in behaviorist theory, but this was always skated over and never properly explained. Chomsky dismissed the generalization ideas as unworkable, because it simply couldn’t explain how from a infinite range of possible situations. His conclusion was that thinking must be rule – governed: a finite and fairly small, set of rules enables the mind to deal with the potentially infinite range of experiences it may encounter.

Having establishing thinking as rule-governed behavior, it is one short step to the conclusion that learning consists not of forming habits but of acquiring rules-a process in which individual experiences are used by the mind to a formulate a hypothesis. This hypothesis is then tested and modified by subsequent experience. The mind, in other words, doesn’t just respond to a stimulus, it uses the individual stimuli in order to find the underlying pattern or system. It can that use this knowledge of the system in a novel situation to predict what is likely to happen, what is an appropriate response or whatever.

The mentalist view of the mind as a rule-seeker led naturally to the next important stage-the cognitive theory of learning.

3.       Cognitive code : learners thinking beings

Whereas the behaviorist theory of learning portrayed the learner as a passive receiver of information, the cognitive view takes the learner to be an active processor of information. Learning and using a rule require learners to think, that is, to apply their mental powers in order to distil a workable generative rule from the mass of data presented, and then to analyze the situations where the application of the rule would be useful or appropriate. Learning, then, is a process in which the learner actively tries to make sense of data, and learning can be said to have taken place when the learner has manage to impose some sort of meaningful interpretation or pattern on the data. This may sound complex, but in simple terms what it means is that we learn by thinking about and trying to make sense of what it means is that we learn by thinking about and trying to make sense of what we see, feel and hear.

The basic teaching technique associated with a cognitive theory of language learning is the problem solving task. In ESP such exercises have often been modeled on activities associate with the learners subject specialism.

More recently, the cognitive view of learning, has had a significant impact on ESP through the development of courses to teach reading strategies. A number of ESP projects have concentrated on making student aware of their reading strategies so that they can consciously apply them to understanding text in a foreign language.

The cognitive code view of learning seems to answer many of the theoretical and practical problems raise by behaviorism. It treats the learners as thinking beings and puts them firmly at the centre of the learning process, by stressing that learning will only take place when the matter to be learnt is meaningful to the learners. But in itself a cognitive view isn’t sufficient. To complete the picture we need an effective view too.

4.        The affective factor ; learners as emotional beings

People think, but they also have feelings. It is one of paradoxes of human nature that, although we are all aware of our feeling and their effect on our action, we invariably seek answers to our problem in rational terms. It is as if we believed that human beings always act in a logical and sensible manner. This attitude affects the way we see learners – more like machines to be programmed (‘I’ve taught them the past tense. They must know it.’) than people with likes and dislike, fears, weaknesses and prejudies. But learners are people. Even ESP learners are people. They may be learning about machines and systems, but they still learnas human beings. Learning, particularly the learningof a language, is an emotional experience, and the feelings that the learning process evokes will have a crucial bearing on the success or failure of the learning (see e. g. Stevick, 1976).

                The importance of the emotional factor is easily seen if we consider the relationship between the cognitive theory tell us tha learners will learn when they actively think about what they are learning. But this cognitive factor presupposes the affective factor of motivation. Before learners can actively think about something, they must want to think about it. The emotional reaction to the learning experience is the essential foundation for the initiation of the cognitive process. How the learning is perceived by the learner will affect what learning, if any, will take place.

                We can represent the cognitive/affective interplay in the form of a learning cycle. This can either be a negative or a position cycle. A good and appropriate course will engender the kind of positive learning cycle represented here :

The relationship between the cognitive  and emotional aspect of learning is, therefore, one of vital importance to the success or otherwise of a language learning experience. This brings us to a matter which has been one of the most important elements in the development of ESP – motivation.The most influential study of motivation in language learning has been Gardner and Lambert’s (1972) study of bilingualism in French speaking Canada. They identified two terms of motivations instrumental and integrative.

a)                  Instrumental motivation is the reflection of an external need. The learners are not learning a language  because they want to (although this does not imply that they do not want to), but rather because they need to. The need may derive from varying sources, the need to sell things to speakers of the language; the need to pass an examination in the language; the need to read text in the language for work or study. The need may vary, but the important factor is that the motivation is an external one.

b)                  Integrative motivation, on the other hand, derives from a desire on the part of the learners to be members of the speech community that uses a particular language. It is an internally generated want rather than an externally imposed need.

Gardner and Lambert’s conclusion was that both forms of motivation are probably present in all learners but each exercises a varying influence, depending on age, experience and changing occupational or social needs.

                Motivation, it appears, is a complex and highly individual matter. There can be no simple answers to the question ; ‘what motivates my students?’ Unfortunately the ESP world, while recognizing the need to ask this question, has apparently assumed that there is a simple answer ; relevance to target needs. In practice this has been interpreted as meaning Medical texts for the student of Medicine, Engineering English for the Engineer and so on. But, as we shall see when we deal with needs analysis, there is more to motivation than simple relevance to perceived needs. For the present, suffice it to say that, if you students are not fired with burning enthusiasm by the obvious relevance of their ESP materials, remember that they are people not machines. The medicine of relevance may still need to be sweetened with the sugar of enjoyment, fun, creativity and a sense of achievement : ESP, as much as any good teaching, needs to be intrinsically motivating. It should satisfy their needs as learners as well as their needs as potential target users of the language. In other words, they should get satisfaction from the actual experience of learning, not just from the prospect of eventually using what they have learnt.

5.       Learning and acquisition

Much debate has recently centred  around the distinction made by Stephen  Krasben (1981) between learning and acquisition. Learning is seen  as a conscious process, while acquisition proceeds unconsciousty. We have not in this section paid much attention to this distinction, using the two terms interchangeably. This reflects our view that for the second language learners both processes are likely to play a useful part and that a good ESP course will try to exploit both (see chapter 10)

6.        a model for learning

In the light of the ideas we have discussed we will now present a model of the learning process, which will provide a practical source of reference for the ESP teacher and course designer.

                First, picture the mind as a network of connections, rather like a road map (see figure 14). The individual houses, towns and villages represent items or bundles of knowledge. These various settlements, however, are only useful if they are connected to the main network by roads. The mind of the learner is like a development agency. It wants to bring the settlement into the network and so develop their potential. To achieve this, communication links must be established. But as with any communication network, links can only established from existing links. In figure 14, for example, town X is unlikely to be connected into the network, unless towns Y and Z, are already connected. The towns and villages in K can’t be connected until some way is found of bridging the river. But, of course, once  the river is bridged, it will open up a whole new area. The same applies too the settlement beyond the mountains. There is no limit to the number of links possible. Indeed the more links a place already has the more it is likely to attract. (see figure 14)

                Why have we pictured the mind as operating like this?

a)                  Individual items of knowledge, like the towns, have little significance on their own. They only acquire meaning and use when they are connected into the network of existing knowledge.

b)             It is the existing network that makes it possible to construct new connections. So in the act of acquiring new knowledge it is the learner’s existing knowledge that makes it possible to learn new items.

c)                   Items of knowledge are not of equal significance. Some items are harder to acquire, but may open up wide possibilities for further learning. Like a bridge across a river or a tunnel through a mountain, learning a generative rule may take time, but once it is there, it greatly increases the potential for further learning . this is why so often learning appears to progress in leaps and bounds. For a long time it might appear that little progress is being made ; then suddenly the learner makes an enormous leap to a higher level of competence. Think of these leaps as the crossing of rivers, mountains and other major obstacles.

d)                  Roads and ranways are not built haphazardly. They require planning. The road builder has to recognize where problems he and work out strategies for solving those problems. In the same way the learner will make better progress by developing strategies for solving the learning problems that will arise.

e)                  A communication network is a system, if the road builder can see the whole system, the planning and construction of the roads will be a not easier. Language is a system, too. If the learner sees it as just a haphazard set of arbitrary and capricious obstacles, learning will be difficult, if not impossible.

f)                   Last, but by no means least, before anyone builds a road, crosses a river or climbs a mountain, they must have some kind of motivation to do so. If they could not care less what is beyond the mountains, dislike the people who come from there or are simply afraid of travelling, the chances of communication links being established are minimal. First of all, there must be a need to establish the links. In ESP, this need is usually taken for granted. But, as anyone who has set out on a long and possibly difficult journey will know, a need  is not enough. You can always find an excuse for not going. The traveler must also want to make the journey. And the traveler who can actually enjoy the challenges and the experience of the journey, is more likely to want to repeat the activity. So, with learning, a need to acquire knowledge  is a necessary factor, but of equal, if not greater importance, is the need to actually enjoy the process of acquisition.