Group 4

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Suban Zuhri
M. Iqwan Sanjani
Siti Nafakhati R.
Astrida Kusuma W.
Ayu Novita A.
Ari Susanti

Class : E

Theories of Learning

1. Behaviourism:
learning as habit formation
Learning is mechanical process of
habit formation and proceeds by
means of the frequent reinforcement
of a stimulus-response sequence.
This simplicity and directness of this
theory had an enermous impact on
learning psychology and on language
teaching.

Examples:
drill 2
The liquid was heated. When the
temperature reached 100C. the heating
was stopped. The liquid was heated until
the temperature reached 100C.
The material was stretched. When it was
50 cm long. The stretching was stopped.
The material was stretched until it was
50 cm long.

Whos Dr Walker?
Shes a consultant,
isnt she?
Who does Manuel
Silva work for?
He works for the
NDA, doesnt he?

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Consultant
the NDA
EAU
power stations
German
silicon
guaranteed
market
8. one watt

2. Mentalism:
thinking as rule-governed activity
The first successful assault on the
behaviourist theory came from
Chomsky (1964). He tackled
behaviourism on the question of how
the mind was able to transfer what
was learnt in one stimulus-response
sequence to other novel situations.

 There was a vague concept of

generalisation in behaviourist theory, but
this was always skated over and never
properly explained. Chomsky dismissed the
generalisation idea as unworkable, because
it simply could not explained how from a
finite range of experience, the human mind
was able to cope with an infinite range of
possible situation.
His conclusion was that thinking must be
rule-governed: a finite, and fairly small, set
of rules enables the mind to deal with the
potentially infinite range of experiences it
may encounter.

3. Cognitive code:
learners as thinking beings
Whereas the behaviourist theory of learning
portrayed the learner as a passive receiver of
information the cognitive view takes the
learner to be an active processor of
information. Learning and using a rule
required learners to think, that is, to apply
their mental powers in order distil a workable
generative rule from the mass of data
presented, and then to analyze the situations
where the application of the rule would be
useful or appropriate.

 The basic teaching technique

associated with a cognitive theory of
language learning is the problemsolving task.
More recently, the cognitive view of
learning has had a significant impact
on ESP through the development of
courses to teach reading strategies.
The cognitive code view of learning
seems to answer many of the
theoretical and practical problem
raised by behaviourism.

4. The affective factor:

learners as emotional beings
It is as if we believed that human beings
always act in a logical and sensible manner.
This attitude affects the way we see learnersmore like machines to be programmed (Ive
taught them the past tense. They must know
it) than people with likes and dislikes, fears,
weaknesses, and prejudices. But learners are
people. Even ESP learners are people. They
maybe learning about machines and systems,
but they still learn as human beings.

 Learning, particularly the learning of

a language, is an emotional
experiences and the feelings that the
learner processes evokes will have a
crucial bearing on the success or
failure of the learning.
The importance of the emotional
factor is easily seen if we consider
the relationship between the
cognitive and affective aspect of the
learner.

5. Learning and acquisition