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Abstract：Starting with two main psychological theories, the characteristics of language learning are analyzed in the article. The author points out the differences between rote leaning and meaningful learning and their theoretical basis respectively. He discusses the requirements that meaningful language learning should meet and explores how to make meaningful language learning. Subjectively, a language learner should have a disposition to learn actively; objectively, language learning material should comply with the learner’s cognitive level. In addition, the writer explains that meaningful language learning is a more effective way in terms of retention.
Key words: Behavioral psychology；cognitive psychology；rote learning； meaningful language learning
Is learning a new language similar to learning to ride a bicycle or to swim? Many language learners may have this question in their mind naturally when they begin to learn a foreign language. Answering the question is not an easy job. Language learning, perhaps, is one of the most complicated things in the world which can be taken as a social activity, a mental process or simply a language event. In this article, however, we would like to study it only from psychological perspectives and resort to behavioral psychology as well as cognitive psychology for an explanation of learning mechanism in the mind.
Ⅰ.Behavioral Approach to Learning
In the 1940s and 1950s, behaviorism was a dominant approach in psychology, which was later used to account for language learning. According to it, a language is a set of habits. To acquire a language was to form a habit of verbal behavior and learning a second language was learning a new habit (Shu 1999:7). Language learning took the form of habit formation, a ‘habit’ consisting of an automatic response elicited by a given stimulus (Ellis 1999:299)
The main idea of behaviorism could be illustrated by the following experiment of conditioning: A rat is put in a box. When a signal light is put on as a stimulus, the rat may approach a bar in the box and press it as a response or may not. If it does press it, a tasty food pellet is rewarded as reinforcement. If it doesn’t, give the stimulus again until it does. In this way, the rat will be encouraged to press the bar when the light comes on. In other words, the rat is conditioned to make responses to a certain stimulus. In this example, the rat receives the reward which is termed positive reinforcement. If it receives a punishment, for example, an electric shock, then it is called negative reinforcement (Shu 1999: 93). In a book entitled verbal behavior, Skinner applied this theory of conditioning to the way humans acquire language (Skinner, 1957). Language, he suggested, is a form of behavior in much the same way as the rat pressing the bar exhibits a form of behavior. The same model of stimulus-response-reinforcement accounts for how a human being learns a language (Shu 1999: 93). In the language learning, linguistic input is seen as stimulus, learners’ correct repetitions and imitations as response, the instructor’s approval positive reinforcement, and disapproval negative reinforcement. Thus, language habits are gradually formed in the repeated and cycled stimulus-response-reinforcement process.
Behavioral approach is weak in explanatory power with regard to humans’ learning mechanism. The biggest problem of this approach, perhaps, lies in the perspective. Behaviorists started their research as an experiment maker and adhered to it. They observed, recorded and concluded during the experiment but never changed a stance and saw things from a learner’s side. That explains why the stimulus-response-reinforcement learning model, characterized by its rote, passiveness and oversimplification, was a surface work. Fortunately, a new theory, cognitive psychology was born and increasingly gained attention in recent decades.
Ⅱ.Cognitive Approach to Learning
Unlike behaviorist, cognitivists take a learner’s stand in their research and take language learning as an active mental process. In this process, language learners take an active part in learning and using language and accumulate experiences. These experiences, in turn, help internalize language rules and language using rules in learner’s mind, which is referred to as “internal representation”. To have a better understanding of cognitive theory, we’ll introduce as its theoretical basis cognitive psychology, with Piaget and Ausubel as its representatives.
In the early 1960s, the famous Swiss psychologist J. Piaget established his theory of cognitive development. He saw cognitive development as essentially a process of maturation within which genetics and experience interact. The developing mind is viewed as constantly seeking balance between what is known and what is currently being experienced. This is accomplished by the complimentary process of assimilation and accommodation. Put simply, assimilation is the process by which incoming information is changed or modified in our minds so that we can fit in with what we already know. Accommodation, on the other hand, is the process by which we modify what we already know to take into account new information. Working in conjunction, these two processes contribute to what Piaget terms the central process of cognitive adaptation (Shu 1999:124). Let’s look at an example: suppose a child had already and only known two types of colors, black and white. Then, he saw another color, red. What would happen in his mind? Would he take red as a kind of blackness? In this way, assimilation happened in his mind for he modified red conceptually to fit it into the already existing color system in his mind. If he thought of red as the third color different from what he had already known, he has gone through a process of accommodation. That is, he improved his former understanding of colors to take in this new member. The schema theory is an important element in Piaget’s theory. The expression was coined to describe “an active organization of past action”. It refers to the mental framework of past experiences, those things a person stores in his long-term memory (Shu 1999:125). Children acquire schemas by active interaction with their environment with the help of assimilation and accommodation.
David Ausubel has made further contributions to cognitive theories of learning. He contends that learning takes place in the human organism through an meaningful process of relating new events or items to already existing cognitive concepts or propositions－hanging new items on existing cognitive pegs (H. Douglas Brown 1993:79). Meaning is not an implicit response, but a “clearly articulated and precisely differentiated conscious experience that emerges when potentially meaningful signs, symbols, concepts, or propositions are related to and incorporated with a given individual’s cognitive structure on a non-arbitrary or substantive basis” (Anderson and Ausubel 1965:8).
The cognitive theory of learning as put forward by Ausubel is perhaps best understood by contrasting rote and meaningful learning. Compared with rote learning, the concept of meaningful learning takes on new significance. Ausubel described rote learning as the process of acquiring material as “discrete and relatively isolated entities that are relatable to cognitive structure only in an arbitrary and verbatim fashion, not permitting the establishment of relationships” (Ausubel 1968:108). That is, rote learning involves the mental storage of items having little or no association with existing cognitive structure (H. Douglas Brown 1993:79). Meaningful learning, on the other hand, may be described as a process of relating and anchoring new material to relevant established entities in cognitive structure. As new material enters the cognitive field, it interacts with, and is appropriately subsumed under, a more inclusive conceptual system. The very fact that material is subsumable, that is, relatable to stable elements in cognitive structure, accounts for its meaningfulness. If we think of cognitive structure as a system of building blocks, then rote learning is the process of acquiring isolated blocks with no particular function in the building of a structure, and therefore with no relationship to other blocks. Meaningful learning is the process whereby blocks become an integral part of already established categories or systematic clusters of blocks (H. Douglas Brown 1993:80). Ⅲ. Meaningful Language Learning
But how can meaningful learning take place when a learner is acquiring a language? Generally there are two requirements to meet: for one thing, the learner has a meaningful learning set－that is, a disposition to relate new learning task to what he already knows. For another, the learning task itself is potentially meaningful to the learner－that is, relatable to the learners’ structure of knowledge (H. Douglas Brown 1993:81). In language learning, the first requirement is a subjective matter. It can be best understood as the learning pattern the learner adopts. If the learner is only learning a language through passive imitation and repetition, he is not likely to have a meaningful learning set. If he focuses on the comprehension and production, he is active in constructing meaning. In other words, he is constantly relating new learning task to his existing knowledge or skill. As a result, meaningful practice rather than drill should be the main learning techniques. The second requirement is the level of learning task set. If it is set too high, the learner will not be able to function at this level. If it is set too low, the learner can not make any progress.
An important part in the setting of learning task is the choosing of language material. In material choosing, we should always take the learner’s factor into consideration. Different learners have different cognitive level. Generally speaking, material choosing should comply with learner’s cognitive level. Simple and concrete materials are usually designed for young children for they are capable of understanding concrete things while abstract notions are always beyond them. Adult learner can understand more complicated things. For them, materials could be more abstract and close to their personal experience. Different learners also have different interests and needs. Suitable materials can motivate learners and encourage them to be actively involved in learning.
Of course, we don’t mean the chosen material should be 100% comply with learner’s cognitive level. In practice, Krashen’s Input Hypothesis is a very useful suggestion. The Input Hypothesis claims that an important “condition for language acquisition to occur is that the acquirer understands (via hearing or reading) input language that contains structure ‘a bit beyond’ his or her current level of competence… If an acquirer is at stage or levelｉ,the input he or she understands should contain ｉ+1”. In other words, the language which learners are exposed to should be just far enough beyond their current competence that they can understand most of it but still be challenged to make progress. The corollary to this is that input should neither be so far beyond their reach that they are overwhelmed (this might be, say,ｉ+2), nor so close to their current stage that they are not challenged at all (ｉ+0) (H. Douglas Brown 1993:280). Here, the competence refers to a native speaker’s grammatical knowledge which is different from the notion of cognitive level. The notion of cognitive level is about one’s ability to understand things including linguistic and non-linguistic aspects. References are different; therefore, our material choosing principle is not contradictory to Krashen’s Input Hypothesis. The idea of meaningful learning also implies a key learning principle: starting our language learning from known to unknown, from easy to hard, and from concrete to abstract. Learning happens step by step in our minds. Leaps are always impossible. When we are learning, we constantly resort to our existing concepts for the purpose of comprehension and retention. Then through the process of assimilation and accommodation we expand our cognitive hierarchical organization.
Ⅳ. Conclusion
Language learning is not similar to learning how to ride a bicycle or how to swim because it needs theories for help in understanding and practice. Language learning is a social activity. It is so important that learners throughout the world spend years on it for the purpose of global communication. Language learning is more a mental process. It is so complex that researchers across various fields work together to study it in the hope that a plausible explanation is guaranteed.
Mechanism of human learning can be generally studied in two contrasting ways: behavioristic or cognitive. Behaviorists believe learning is habit formation through conditioning and behaviorism is the psychological basis for rote leaning, characterized by passive, mechanical and meaningless. Nevertheless, cognitive psychologists see learning from learners’ own viewpoint and hold that learning is an active mental process. Cognitive development is a process of establishing schema in learner’s mind in social activities by assimilation and accommodation. Meaningful learning is a means to the end that makes learning more efficient. Compared to behaviorism, cognitive theories are more reasonable, humanistic and advanced. Learners are no longer passive stimulus-receiver; instead, they participate actively in identifying the meaning of stimuli and in expecting the consequences of their responses.
It is significant to make a distinction between rote learning and meaningful learning when we consider the relative efficiency of the two kinds of learning in terms of retention, or long-term memory (H. Douglas Brown 1993:81). A meaningfully learned, subsumed item has far greater potential for retention than a mechanically learned one. For example, it’s easier to recall the street address you had lived than your previous phone numbers because the former is the result of a meaningful learning and the latter the result of a rote leaning. Since materials learned by rote do not interact with cognitive structure in a substantive fashion, they are learned in conformity with the laws of association, and their retention is influenced primarily by the interfering effects of similar rote materials learned immediately before or after the learning task. In the case of meaningfully learned material, retention is influenced primarily by the properties of “relevant and cumulatively established ideational systems in cognitive structure with which the learning task interacts” (Anderson and Ausubel 1968:108). Compared to this kind of extended interaction, concurrent interfering effects have relatively little influence on meaningful learning, and retention is highly efficient (H. Douglas Brown 1993:82). That explains why meaningful learning is a more efficient way to language learning.
References
[1] Ausubel, D. P. 1968. Educational Psychology: A Cognitive view. NewYork: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
[2] Anderson, R.C, Ausubel, D.P. 1965. Reading in the Psychology of Cognition . NewYork: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
[3] Brown, H. Douglas. 1994. Principles of Language Learning and Language Teaching. London: Pretice-Hall Regents.
[4] Nunan, David. 1991. Language teaching methodology: a textbook for teachers. Hertfordshire: Prentice Hall International (UK) Ltd.
[5] Ellis, Rod. 1999. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press
[6] Shu Baimei, ChengYouling. 1999. Foreign Language Teaching Methodology. Beijing：Press of Higher Education.
[7] Shu Baimei. 2005. Modern Foreign Language Teaching Methodology. Shanghai：Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
[8] Hu Zhuanglin, Jiang Wangqi. 2002. Linguistics: An Advanced Book. Beijing: Beijing University Press.
Key words: Behavioral psychology；cognitive psychology；rote learning； meaningful language learning
Is learning a new language similar to learning to ride a bicycle or to swim? Many language learners may have this question in their mind naturally when they begin to learn a foreign language. Answering the question is not an easy job. Language learning, perhaps, is one of the most complicated things in the world which can be taken as a social activity, a mental process or simply a language event. In this article, however, we would like to study it only from psychological perspectives and resort to behavioral psychology as well as cognitive psychology for an explanation of learning mechanism in the mind.
Ⅰ.Behavioral Approach to Learning
In the 1940s and 1950s, behaviorism was a dominant approach in psychology, which was later used to account for language learning. According to it, a language is a set of habits. To acquire a language was to form a habit of verbal behavior and learning a second language was learning a new habit (Shu 1999:7). Language learning took the form of habit formation, a ‘habit’ consisting of an automatic response elicited by a given stimulus (Ellis 1999:299)
The main idea of behaviorism could be illustrated by the following experiment of conditioning: A rat is put in a box. When a signal light is put on as a stimulus, the rat may approach a bar in the box and press it as a response or may not. If it does press it, a tasty food pellet is rewarded as reinforcement. If it doesn’t, give the stimulus again until it does. In this way, the rat will be encouraged to press the bar when the light comes on. In other words, the rat is conditioned to make responses to a certain stimulus. In this example, the rat receives the reward which is termed positive reinforcement. If it receives a punishment, for example, an electric shock, then it is called negative reinforcement (Shu 1999: 93). In a book entitled verbal behavior, Skinner applied this theory of conditioning to the way humans acquire language (Skinner, 1957). Language, he suggested, is a form of behavior in much the same way as the rat pressing the bar exhibits a form of behavior. The same model of stimulus-response-reinforcement accounts for how a human being learns a language (Shu 1999: 93). In the language learning, linguistic input is seen as stimulus, learners’ correct repetitions and imitations as response, the instructor’s approval positive reinforcement, and disapproval negative reinforcement. Thus, language habits are gradually formed in the repeated and cycled stimulus-response-reinforcement process.
Behavioral approach is weak in explanatory power with regard to humans’ learning mechanism. The biggest problem of this approach, perhaps, lies in the perspective. Behaviorists started their research as an experiment maker and adhered to it. They observed, recorded and concluded during the experiment but never changed a stance and saw things from a learner’s side. That explains why the stimulus-response-reinforcement learning model, characterized by its rote, passiveness and oversimplification, was a surface work. Fortunately, a new theory, cognitive psychology was born and increasingly gained attention in recent decades.
Ⅱ.Cognitive Approach to Learning
Unlike behaviorist, cognitivists take a learner’s stand in their research and take language learning as an active mental process. In this process, language learners take an active part in learning and using language and accumulate experiences. These experiences, in turn, help internalize language rules and language using rules in learner’s mind, which is referred to as “internal representation”. To have a better understanding of cognitive theory, we’ll introduce as its theoretical basis cognitive psychology, with Piaget and Ausubel as its representatives.
In the early 1960s, the famous Swiss psychologist J. Piaget established his theory of cognitive development. He saw cognitive development as essentially a process of maturation within which genetics and experience interact. The developing mind is viewed as constantly seeking balance between what is known and what is currently being experienced. This is accomplished by the complimentary process of assimilation and accommodation. Put simply, assimilation is the process by which incoming information is changed or modified in our minds so that we can fit in with what we already know. Accommodation, on the other hand, is the process by which we modify what we already know to take into account new information. Working in conjunction, these two processes contribute to what Piaget terms the central process of cognitive adaptation (Shu 1999:124). Let’s look at an example: suppose a child had already and only known two types of colors, black and white. Then, he saw another color, red. What would happen in his mind? Would he take red as a kind of blackness? In this way, assimilation happened in his mind for he modified red conceptually to fit it into the already existing color system in his mind. If he thought of red as the third color different from what he had already known, he has gone through a process of accommodation. That is, he improved his former understanding of colors to take in this new member. The schema theory is an important element in Piaget’s theory. The expression was coined to describe “an active organization of past action”. It refers to the mental framework of past experiences, those things a person stores in his long-term memory (Shu 1999:125). Children acquire schemas by active interaction with their environment with the help of assimilation and accommodation.
David Ausubel has made further contributions to cognitive theories of learning. He contends that learning takes place in the human organism through an meaningful process of relating new events or items to already existing cognitive concepts or propositions－hanging new items on existing cognitive pegs (H. Douglas Brown 1993:79). Meaning is not an implicit response, but a “clearly articulated and precisely differentiated conscious experience that emerges when potentially meaningful signs, symbols, concepts, or propositions are related to and incorporated with a given individual’s cognitive structure on a non-arbitrary or substantive basis” (Anderson and Ausubel 1965:8).
The cognitive theory of learning as put forward by Ausubel is perhaps best understood by contrasting rote and meaningful learning. Compared with rote learning, the concept of meaningful learning takes on new significance. Ausubel described rote learning as the process of acquiring material as “discrete and relatively isolated entities that are relatable to cognitive structure only in an arbitrary and verbatim fashion, not permitting the establishment of relationships” (Ausubel 1968:108). That is, rote learning involves the mental storage of items having little or no association with existing cognitive structure (H. Douglas Brown 1993:79). Meaningful learning, on the other hand, may be described as a process of relating and anchoring new material to relevant established entities in cognitive structure. As new material enters the cognitive field, it interacts with, and is appropriately subsumed under, a more inclusive conceptual system. The very fact that material is subsumable, that is, relatable to stable elements in cognitive structure, accounts for its meaningfulness. If we think of cognitive structure as a system of building blocks, then rote learning is the process of acquiring isolated blocks with no particular function in the building of a structure, and therefore with no relationship to other blocks. Meaningful learning is the process whereby blocks become an integral part of already established categories or systematic clusters of blocks (H. Douglas Brown 1993:80). Ⅲ. Meaningful Language Learning
But how can meaningful learning take place when a learner is acquiring a language? Generally there are two requirements to meet: for one thing, the learner has a meaningful learning set－that is, a disposition to relate new learning task to what he already knows. For another, the learning task itself is potentially meaningful to the learner－that is, relatable to the learners’ structure of knowledge (H. Douglas Brown 1993:81). In language learning, the first requirement is a subjective matter. It can be best understood as the learning pattern the learner adopts. If the learner is only learning a language through passive imitation and repetition, he is not likely to have a meaningful learning set. If he focuses on the comprehension and production, he is active in constructing meaning. In other words, he is constantly relating new learning task to his existing knowledge or skill. As a result, meaningful practice rather than drill should be the main learning techniques. The second requirement is the level of learning task set. If it is set too high, the learner will not be able to function at this level. If it is set too low, the learner can not make any progress.
An important part in the setting of learning task is the choosing of language material. In material choosing, we should always take the learner’s factor into consideration. Different learners have different cognitive level. Generally speaking, material choosing should comply with learner’s cognitive level. Simple and concrete materials are usually designed for young children for they are capable of understanding concrete things while abstract notions are always beyond them. Adult learner can understand more complicated things. For them, materials could be more abstract and close to their personal experience. Different learners also have different interests and needs. Suitable materials can motivate learners and encourage them to be actively involved in learning.
Of course, we don’t mean the chosen material should be 100% comply with learner’s cognitive level. In practice, Krashen’s Input Hypothesis is a very useful suggestion. The Input Hypothesis claims that an important “condition for language acquisition to occur is that the acquirer understands (via hearing or reading) input language that contains structure ‘a bit beyond’ his or her current level of competence… If an acquirer is at stage or levelｉ,the input he or she understands should contain ｉ+1”. In other words, the language which learners are exposed to should be just far enough beyond their current competence that they can understand most of it but still be challenged to make progress. The corollary to this is that input should neither be so far beyond their reach that they are overwhelmed (this might be, say,ｉ+2), nor so close to their current stage that they are not challenged at all (ｉ+0) (H. Douglas Brown 1993:280). Here, the competence refers to a native speaker’s grammatical knowledge which is different from the notion of cognitive level. The notion of cognitive level is about one’s ability to understand things including linguistic and non-linguistic aspects. References are different; therefore, our material choosing principle is not contradictory to Krashen’s Input Hypothesis. The idea of meaningful learning also implies a key learning principle: starting our language learning from known to unknown, from easy to hard, and from concrete to abstract. Learning happens step by step in our minds. Leaps are always impossible. When we are learning, we constantly resort to our existing concepts for the purpose of comprehension and retention. Then through the process of assimilation and accommodation we expand our cognitive hierarchical organization.
Ⅳ. Conclusion
Language learning is not similar to learning how to ride a bicycle or how to swim because it needs theories for help in understanding and practice. Language learning is a social activity. It is so important that learners throughout the world spend years on it for the purpose of global communication. Language learning is more a mental process. It is so complex that researchers across various fields work together to study it in the hope that a plausible explanation is guaranteed.
Mechanism of human learning can be generally studied in two contrasting ways: behavioristic or cognitive. Behaviorists believe learning is habit formation through conditioning and behaviorism is the psychological basis for rote leaning, characterized by passive, mechanical and meaningless. Nevertheless, cognitive psychologists see learning from learners’ own viewpoint and hold that learning is an active mental process. Cognitive development is a process of establishing schema in learner’s mind in social activities by assimilation and accommodation. Meaningful learning is a means to the end that makes learning more efficient. Compared to behaviorism, cognitive theories are more reasonable, humanistic and advanced. Learners are no longer passive stimulus-receiver; instead, they participate actively in identifying the meaning of stimuli and in expecting the consequences of their responses.
It is significant to make a distinction between rote learning and meaningful learning when we consider the relative efficiency of the two kinds of learning in terms of retention, or long-term memory (H. Douglas Brown 1993:81). A meaningfully learned, subsumed item has far greater potential for retention than a mechanically learned one. For example, it’s easier to recall the street address you had lived than your previous phone numbers because the former is the result of a meaningful learning and the latter the result of a rote leaning. Since materials learned by rote do not interact with cognitive structure in a substantive fashion, they are learned in conformity with the laws of association, and their retention is influenced primarily by the interfering effects of similar rote materials learned immediately before or after the learning task. In the case of meaningfully learned material, retention is influenced primarily by the properties of “relevant and cumulatively established ideational systems in cognitive structure with which the learning task interacts” (Anderson and Ausubel 1968:108). Compared to this kind of extended interaction, concurrent interfering effects have relatively little influence on meaningful learning, and retention is highly efficient (H. Douglas Brown 1993:82). That explains why meaningful learning is a more efficient way to language learning.
References
[1] Ausubel, D. P. 1968. Educational Psychology: A Cognitive view. NewYork: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
[2] Anderson, R.C, Ausubel, D.P. 1965. Reading in the Psychology of Cognition . NewYork: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
[3] Brown, H. Douglas. 1994. Principles of Language Learning and Language Teaching. London: Pretice-Hall Regents.
[4] Nunan, David. 1991. Language teaching methodology: a textbook for teachers. Hertfordshire: Prentice Hall International (UK) Ltd.
[5] Ellis, Rod. 1999. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press
[6] Shu Baimei, ChengYouling. 1999. Foreign Language Teaching Methodology. Beijing：Press of Higher Education.
[7] Shu Baimei. 2005. Modern Foreign Language Teaching Methodology. Shanghai：Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
[8] Hu Zhuanglin, Jiang Wangqi. 2002. Linguistics: An Advanced Book. Beijing: Beijing University Press.