Behaviorism
- 1. BEHAVIORISM Uriel Tellez Shu-chuan Chuang Marlene Chiquil Janet Uh Tonatiuh Miravete Harif Caro
- 2. Behavioral Approach in Language Behaviorists regard language as a ‘very simple type of behavior’, which is a ‘manipulative habit’. (Watson, 1924) They focus on the observable and measurable aspect of language. Children (learners) act as recipients in the course of learning. It is believed that a child’s language acquisition is modeled by their caretakers.
- 3. Method of Learning Stimulus-Response Action. Classical conditioning. Operant conditioning. Imitation.
- 4. Stimulus-Response Action When under a certain environment condition , human react in particular verbal behavior . Behaviorists refer to the environment condition as “ stimuli ”, and the verbal behavior as “ response ”. Behaviorists believe this bond of stimulus-response can be strength through reinforcement . Eventually, it forms habit.
- 5. Reinforcement Reinforcement plays an important role in forming habits. Positive (pleasant) reinforcement encourage certain behavior. Negative (unpleasant) reinforcement discourage the behavior.
- 6. Classical Conditioning Learning new words. At first, child gives random unconditioned response (UCR) to unconditioned stimuli (UCS). Later, as association between object and meaning is established, the child begins to react to the known word ( conditioned stimuli or CS) in a particular way ( conditioned response or CR). This suggest how children acquire language.
- 7. Operant Conditioning Developing speech. Imitation and repetition enable children to produce adult speech. Shaping is used to encourage adult speech and discourage meaningless or inappropriate speech. Caretakers are the most influential aspect of shaping a child’s speech.
- 8. Markov Models of Sentences Learning new word combinations which later led to form sentences. Word combination is a chain. The first word learnt will become a stimuli for next word, and so on.
- 9. Imitation Language development is determine by imitation training. It is a shortcut for acquiring complex language behavior. Grammatical frame is acquire through imitation. The child produce new sentence by substituting part of speech by the vocabulary they learnt. (Whitehurst and Vasta)
- 10. Supporting Evidence Association - Staats, Staats and Crawford (1962) conducting an experiment on adult learning a list of words, which demonstrate emotional association and create new association. Imitation - Whitehurst and Novak conducted an experiment on children. They learn faster through imitation. Children with mental or autistic disorders are able to learn through behaviorism methods. Overgeneralization occurs in both adults and children when learning new language figure.
- 11. Contrary Evidence Most experiments are not conducted in a natural environment. Subjects studied are usually adults not children. Association and imitation do not always work. Brain maturation does involve in learning. (McNeill, 1966) Language is a behavior that changes within time and development. The number of possible sentences in a language is infinitive. It is impossible to learn them by association. Caretakers respond more to semantic errors than syntax errors.
- 12. Conclusion We agree that some aspect of behaviorism can work in real life. Behaviorists believe, for example, “the course of language development is largely determine by the course of training, not maturation. This statement is partially true. Nurturing is important in language learning; however, maturation of the brain also plays an important factor. Language learning is divided into many stages according to development and maturation. Would you expect a two year old to produce a long sentence?