Learning Theories (Learn A Second Language)

Personal Experience of Learning in relation with Learning Theories:

The Reading.

“There is a controversy among learning theorists over the question whether the subject learns responses or cognitive structures… Four our purposes it is possible to look on habit formation and understanding as complementary, neither complete in itself as an explanation of learning but each helping to explainsome of the teachers f learning that the other neglects or explains with greater difficulty” (Marx, 1970).

Behaviorism is described as a developmental theory that measures observable behaviors produced by a learner’s response to stimuli. Responses to stimuli can be reinforced with positive or negative feedback to condition desired behaviors. Punishment is sometimes used in eliminating orreducing incorrect actions, followed by clarifying desired actions. Educational effects of behaviorism are key in developing basic skills.

Behaviourism is based upon the simple notion of a relationship between a stimulus and a response, which is why behaviourist theories are often referred to as ‘stimulus-response’ (SR) theories. Behaviourism is a theory of learning focusing on observable behavioursand discounting any mental activity. Learning is defined simply as the acquisition of new behaviour. Behaviourists call this method of learning ‘conditioning’.
Two different types of conditioning are described and demonstrated as viable explanations of the way in which animals and humans alike can be ‘taught’ to do certain things (Bower, 1948).

First there is `classical conditioning´:Classical Conditioning is the type of learning made famous by Paylov´s experiments with dogs. The gist of the experiment is this: Pavlov presented dogs with food, and measured their salivary response. Then he began ringing a bell just before presenting the food. After a while, the dogs began to salivate when the sound of the bell was presented. They learned to associate the sound of the bell with thepresentation of the food. As far as their immediate physiological responses were concerned, the sound of the bell became equivalent to the presentation of the food.

Pavlov identified four stages in the process of his classical conditioning (between stimulus and response):

-Acquisition: The acquisition phase is the initial learning of the conditioned response.

-Extinction: This phase is usedto describe the disappearance of the conditioned response.

-Generalisation: After conditioning, subjects that show the conditional response not just to the original conditional stimulus but also to new stimuli that resemble that stimulus are displaying.

-Discrimination: Discrimination is the opposite of generalization.



The second type is `Operant Conditioning´:

Operant conditioningwas coined by behaviorist B.F. Skinner who believed that internal thoughts and motivations could not be used to explain behavior. Instead, he suggested, we should look only at the external, observable causes of human behavior. This conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behaviorand a consequence for that behavior. Skinner used the term operant to refer to any "active behavior that operates upon the environment to generate consequences".
The key aspects of operant conditioning are as follows:


-Reinforcement is any event that strengthens or increases the behavior it follows. There are two kinds of reinforces: Positive and Negative reinforcement, where thebehavior increases.


-Punishment, on the other hand, is the presentation of an adverse event or outcome that causes a decrease in the behavior it follows. We can found two kinds: Positive and Negative punishment, where the behavior decreases (Pritchard, 2009).


Therefore, I have seen that, in regard to my personal experience with the learning of reading, the behaviorism theory has been reflected in...