Implications of Recent Psycholinguistic Developments for the Teaching of a Second Language

Traditional psychological theories about language acquisition emphasize the role of reinforcement provided by environmental agencies and view language as a set of vocal habits that are conditioned to stimuli in the environment. Imitation and practice of new forms are the processes by which language behavior develops and generalization of learned forms is supposed to account for the novel uses of language. Recent developments in linguistics have influenced our conception of the structure of language, hence the nature of the knowledge that the child has to acquire. A radically new psycholinguistic theory of language acquisition has been proposed which emphasizes the developmental nature of the language acquisition process and attributes to the child specific innate competencies which guide his discovery of the rules of the natural language to which he is exposed. Imitation, practice, reinforcement, and generalization are no longer considered theoretically productive conceptions in language acquisition. The implications of these new ideas for the teaching of a second language lie in the need for controlled exposure of the student to linguistic materials in a manner that will facilitate his discovery of the significant features of the language. “Shaping” of phonological skills, discrimination training on sound “units” and pattern drills are rejected in favor of “transformation exercises” at the phonological, syntactic and semantic levels.