How Languages are Learned

目录
1 Learning a first language
Milestones and patterns in development
Early childhood bilingualism
Developmental sequences
Summary
Theoretical approaches to explaining first language learning
Behaviourism:Say what I say
Activity:Analysing children's speech
Innatism:It's all in your mind
The interactionist position:A little help from my friends
Summary
2 Theoretical approaches to explaining second language learning
Activity:Learner profiles
Behaviourism
Innatism
Universal Grammar
Krashen's‘monitor model’
Recent psychological theories
Information processing
Connectionism
The interactionist position
Summary
3 Factors affecting second language learning
Activity:Characteristics of the‘good language learner'
Research on learner characteristics
Intelligence
Aptitude
Personality
Motivation and attitudes
Learner preferences
Learner beliefs
Age of acquisition
Activity:Comparing child,adolescent,and adult language learners
Summary
4 Learner language
The concept of learner language
Activity:The Great Toy Robbery
Developmental sequences
Grammatical morphemes
Negation
Questions
Activity:Learners'questions
Activity:More about questions
Relative clauses
Reference to past
Movement through developmental sequences
New ways of looking at first language influence
Summary
5 Observing second language teaching
Comparing instructional and natural settings for language learning
Activity:Natural and instructional settings
Activity:Classroom comparisons:teacher-student interactions
Classroom observation schcmes
Activity:Observing the kinds of questions you ask your students
Feedback in the classroom
Activity:Analysing classroom interaction
Summary of transcripts
Activity:Observing how you respond to students'errors
Summary
6 Second language learning in the classroom
Five proposals for classroom teaching
1 Get it right from the beginning
2 Say what you mean and mean what you say
3 Just listen...and read
4 Teach what is teachable
5 Get it right in the end
The implications of classroom research for teaching
Summary
7 Popular ideas about language learning:Facts and opinions
1 Languages are learned mainly through imitation
2 Parents usually correct young children when they make grammatical errors
3 People with high IQs are good language learners
4 The most important factor in second language acquisition success is motivation
5 The earlier a second language is introduced in school programs,the greater the likelihood of success
6 Most of the mistakes which second language learners make are due to interference from their first language
7 Teachers should present grammatical rules one at a time
8 Teachers should teach simple structures before complex ones
9 Learners' errors should be corrected as soon as they are made in order to prevent bad habits
10 Teachers should use materials that expose students only to language structures they have already been taught
11 When learners are allowed to interact freely they learn each others' mistakes
12 Students learn what they are taught
Conclusion
Glossary
Bibliography
Index