Current TESL issues (Teaching English as a Second Language) in an interactive fashion enriched with distinctive keywords and tags and comment forms to discuss the issues
Interlanguage Interlanguage Selinker (1969, 1972) coined this term to refer to the special mental grammars that learners construct during the course of their development. This theory credited learners with playing an active role in constructing mental grammars. Second language learners tend to go through a systematic or quasi-systematic developmental process as they progress to full…
Keywords in APA Style Keywords in APA Style You need to include several keywords in your manuscript, immediately after the abstract of your paper. Italicize and capitalize the word “Keywords” followed by a colon. Then after a space, start writing your keywords and separate them with commas. For instance: Keywords: computer-assisted language learning, interactivity, social…
Competition Model Competition Model is based on inductive approach to learning (empiricism). MacWhinney (2007) outlined a development of the Competition Model, which he called the Unified Model because it sought to provide an account of both L1 and L2 learning. According to this model, forms are stored in associative maps for syllables, lexical items, constructions,…
Classroom Ethnography Classroom ethnography involves the kind of detailed descriptive work advocated by Johnson (1995). They emphasise the importance of obtaining multiple perspectives through triangulation. Watson-Gegeo (1997) distinguished four approaches to classroom ethnography: Ethnography of communication Micro-ethnography Discourse analysis Critical ethnography The ethnography of communication has its origins in anthropology and, in particular, in the…
Bruner Bruner was an important advocate of Piaget’s ideas. Bruner was a professor of psychology and founder of the Centre for Cognitive Studies at Harvard University. To Bruner, the development of conceptual understanding and of cognitive skills and strategies is a central aim of education, rather than the acquisition of factual information. Bruner worked on…
Child Language Acquisition Child Language Acquisition Cromer concludes that experience stimulates language organisational processes and that these affect other linguistic structures that are internally related. The children appeared to be building their own grammars in their own way, without direct positive or negative evidence as to what was right or wrong. Children are creative, selective…
Skinner Skinner (1953) attempted to extend a classical behaviorist model of learning to language in his famous ‘Verbal Behavior’. His goal was to provide a way to predict and control verbal behavior by observing and manipulating the physical environment of the speaker. In his review of this work, Chomsky (1959) showed that the Skinnerian concepts…
Language-centered Method Language-centered Method Language-centered methods are those that are principally concerned with linguistic forms. These methods such as ‘Audiolingual Method, seek to provide opportunities for learners to practice pre-selected, pre-sequenced linguistic structures through form-focused exercises in class, assuming that a preoccupation with form will ultimately lead to the mastery of the target language and…
Functionalism Functionalism proposes that Universal Grammar can ultimately be explained without recourse to a special language organ that takes up where cognition leaves off (Bates & MacWhinney, 1989, p. 7). It attempts to rectify a lack of emphasis on learning in the rationalist perspective. The source of knowledge is proposed to lie in the input,…
Language Making Capacity Language Making Capacity Slobin proposes a ‘language making capacity’ (LMC) (1973, 1985). Like Chomsky’s Language Faculty, the LMC contains universal principles. Unlike the principles of Chomsky’s Language Faculty, these are ‘Operating Principles’ (OP), i.e., principles specifically for working inductively on the physical acoustic stimulus for a specific language to which children are…