PTALT

• Language


  Process of exchanging messages and creating meaning
• Language Acquisition


  Natural way children pick up their first language
• Language Learning


  Conscious effort to learn a new language, like taking classes
• 7 Principles of Learning (Dumont et al., 2010)

  • Learners at the center
  • Social nature of learning
  • Emotions are central
  • Recognizing individual differences
  • Stretching all students
  • Assessment for learning
  • Building horizontal connections
• Learners at the center


  Students are actively involved and understand their own learning process
• Social nature of learning

  Collaboration and well-structured cooperative learning are encouraged
• Emotions are central


  Learning environments consider the role of emotions in motivation and achievement
• Recognizing individual differences


  Instruction caters to the varied prior knowledge and needs of each student
• Stretching all students


  Provides appropriate challenges to push all students to learn and grow
• Assessment for learning


  Assessment informs and guides instruction, focusing on progress over just grades
• Building horizontal connections


  Learning connects to other disciplines and real-world experiences
• First Language Acquisition


  How children naturally learn their native tongue
• Second Language Acquisition


  Process of learning another language after your first language has already been established
• Theories


  • Behavioral Learning Theory
  • Cognitive Theory
  • Social Learning Interaction Theory
  • Nativist Theory
  • Constructivist Theory
  • Universal Grammar Theory
• Behavioral Learning Theory


  School of thought in psychology that focuses on understanding how observable behaviors are learned through interactions with the environment
• Cognitive Theory


  Emphasizes the role of mental processes in how we learn and behave, focusing on understanding how people think, perceive, remember, and solve problems
• Social Learning Interaction Theory


  Highlights the role of social interaction in learning and development, we learn through interacting with others, observing their behaviors, and the consequences of those behaviors
• Nativist Theory


  Proposes that humans are born with an innate capacity for language learning, emphasizes the role of biology in language development
• Constructivist Theory


  Emphasizes the idea that learners actively construct their own knowledge as opposed to passively receiving information
• Universal Grammar Theory


  Proposes there's an innate biological basis for human language, argues that all human languages share some fundamental underlying principles, despite the vast differences in vocabulary and grammar on the surface
• Pavlovian Conditioning


  Also called classical conditioning, is a type of learning where an involuntary response gets linked to a new stimulus through repeated pairings
• Positive Reinforcement


  Stimulus is introduced which incentivizes a particular behavior
• Negative Reinforcement


  A desirable incentive is introduced to not behave in a particular way
• Positive Punishment


  Undesirable punishment (e.g. electric shock) is introduced when the subject behaves in a particular way, discouraging such behavior
• Negative Punishment


  Removing the desirable stimulus (e.g. food) to prevent a particular behavior
• Stages of Language Acquisition

  • Babbling
  • Holophrastic / One-word stage
  • Two-Word Stage
  • Telegraphic Stage
• Stages of Language Acquisition

  • Pre-linguistic Stage (Birth to 6 Months)
  • Babbling Stage (6 to 12 Months)
  • Holophrastic Stage (12 to 18 Months)
  • Two-Word Stage (18 to 24 Months)
  • Telegraphic Speech (2 to 3 Years)
  • Multiword Stage (3 Years and On)
• Pre-linguistic Stage (Birth to 6 Months)


  Babies are not yet producing language, but they are absorbing the sounds and rhythms of the language around them
• Babbling Stage (6 to 12 Months)


  Babies start to experiment with making different sounds, including consonant-vowel combinations like "ba-ba" or "da-da", may also start to imitate some of the sounds they hear adults make
• Holophrastic Stage (12 to 18 Months)


  Many children will start to use single words to express a variety of meanings, these single words, called holophrases, can function like entire sentences
• Two-Word Stage (18 to 24 Months)


  Children start to combine words into two-word phrases, like "go bye" or "more milk", a major milestone in language development, as it shows that children are beginning to understand the concept of grammar and syntax
• Telegraphic Speech (2 to 3 Years)

  Children start to produce longer sentences, but they may still leave out grammatical function words like articles ("the," "a") and prepositions ("in," "on"), speech may sound telegraphic, hence the name of this stage
• Multiword Stage (3 Years and On)

  Children's grammar and vocabulary continue to develop rapidly, they start to use more complex sentence structures and a wider range of vocabulary words, most children will be able to communicate effectively in their native language
• Nature


  Refers to our genetic inheritance, the biological makeup we inherit from our parents, genes influence things like physical characteristics, predispositions to certain diseases, and even some behavioral tendencies
• Nurture


  Encompasses all the environmental factors that shape us after conception, includes our upbringing, life experiences, social interactions, and cultural influences
• 4 Stages of Cognitive Development (Piaget, 1936)

  • Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 Years)
  • Preoperational Stage (2 to 7 Years)
  • Concrete Operational Stage (7 to 11 Years)
  • Formal Operational Stage (12 Years and Up)
• Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 Years)

  Infants learn about the world through their senses and motor actions, they focus on object permanence, understanding that objects continue to exist even when they can't be seen or touched, they learn through reflexes, imitation, and trial-and-error experimentation
• Preoperational Stage (2 to 7 Years)


  Toddlers develop the ability to use symbols and language to represent things mentally, their thinking is still egocentric, meaning they struggle to see things from other perspectives, they engage in pretend play and magical thinking
• Concrete Operational Stage (7 to 11 Years)


  Children develop the ability to think logically about concrete objects and events, they can understand conservation of mass, volume, and number, they become less egocentric in their thinking and can consider multiple viewpoints
• Formal Operational Stage (12 Years and Up)


  Marks the ability to think abstractly and hypothetically, teenagers and adults can develop complex ideas, solve problems using logic and deduction, and think about the future in a more nuanced way