英语教学论作业习题集

英语教学论作业习题集

Unit 1 Language and Language Learning

1. What are the three views on language?

1) Structural view on language:

The structural view sees language as a linguistic system made up of various subsystems:

from phonological, morphological, lexical, etc. to sentences. Each language has a finite number

of such structural items. To learn a language means to learn these structural items so as to be able

to understand and produce language. This view on language limits knowing a language to

knowing its structural rules and vocabulary.

2) Functional view on language:

The functional view sees language as a linguistic system but also as a means for doing

things. Learners learn a language in order to be able to do things with it. To perform functions,

learners need to know how to combine the grammatical rules and the vocabulary to express

notions that perform the functions. This view on language adds the need to know how to use the

rules and vocabulary to do whatever it is one wants to do.

3) Interactional view on language:

The interactional view considers language as a communicative tool, whose main use is to

build up and maintain social relations between people. Therefore, learners not only need to know

the grammar and vocabulary of the language but as importantly they need to know the rules for

using them in a whole range of communicative contexts. This view on language says that to know

how to do what one wants to do involve also knowing whether it is appropriate to do so, and

where, when and how it is appropriate to do it. In order to know this, the learner has to study the

patterns and rules of language above the sentence level to learn how language is used in different

speech contexts.

2. What are the views on language learning?

1) Behaviorist theory:

The behaviorist theory of language learning was initiated by behavioral psychologist

Skinner, who applied Watson and Raynor’s theory of conditioning to the way humans acquire

language (Harmer, 1983) The key point of the theory of conditioning is that “you can train an

animal to do anything if you follow a certain procedure which has three major stages, stimulus,

response, and reinforcement”(Harmer1983: 30) Based on the theory of conditioning, Skinner

suggested language is also a form of behavior. It can be learned the same way as an animal is

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