How humans learn in general

and how they learn a foreign

language.

Learning

We learn from the things that happen to us - our experiences. For example, we learned that lightning is followed by thunder, we learned not to tell lies because it can cause us to lose our credibility and to lose our friends, or that we learned how to dance by watching others demonstrate dance steps to us. We can say that we have learned these things because we have acquired appropriate responses for them - we cover our ears when lightning strikes, we try to avoid telling lies, and we dance.

Learning is acquiring relatively permanent change in behavior through experience. We experience things and learn to modify our behaviors based on what we know.

Learning applies not just to humans, but also to animals. For us humans, learning extends beyond the scope of proper education. Prior schooling, we learned how to tie our shoes, how to write, and maybe, even how to read. For animals, learning could mean knowing how to hunt for food, how to climb trees, and when to avoid predators. Learning about the environment is important for adaptation and survival.

There are two different types of learning - observational and associative learning.

Observational Learning is learning by watching others engage in different behaviors. Probably have learned to dance by watching your teacher demonstrate some dance steps to you. You also probably have learned how to write by watching your mother demonstrate hand strokes for various letters and numbers.

How humans learn in general.

Associative Learning is learning by establishing connections between events. Conditioning is the method for teaching associations, and there are two types of conditioning - classical and operant conditioning.

Classical conditioning is the method teaching associations between two different stimuli. We learned the connection between lightning and thunder because they almost always occur together. Because of this, whenever we see lightning, we cover our ears in anticipation of thunder. On the other hand, operant conditioning is the method of teaching associations between behaviors and consequences. Operant conditioning uses rewards and punishments to strengthen or weaken behaviors.

Factors that Affect Learning

Despite the popularity of the use of experiments in uncovering the principles of learning, most of the time, learning occurs in not-so ideal situations. Have you ever witnessed, for example, a dog speaking fluent English, even if it seemingly demonstrates basic understanding of the language? Have you ever had problem remembering names when you went through zero sleep last night? And lastly, do you know how to tell if a plant is poisonous or not? Probably no. This is because there are biological, cognitive and cultural factors in learning.

Classical Conditioning

Classical Conditioning is the method of teaching connections between two stimuli. It is the process of associating, and consequently, providing meaning to a neutral stimulus with another meaningful stimulus, in order to elicit similar response.

For example, we cover our ears when lightning strikes. This is because we have learned through classical conditioning that thunder occurs after the strike of lightning. We incorporate the meaning of thunder to lightning, such that we elicit the same behavior (covering of ears) we attribute to thunder.

Classical conditioning makes use of our reflexes to teach associations. Almost all of us exhibit the same reflexes upon birth, although some fade in time. Reflexes are automatic stimulus-response connections, such as when we salivate with food, we feel nauseated with spoiled food, we shiver in response to low temperature, we cough with clogged throat, our pupils constrict in response to bright light, and we withdraw from blows and burns. Because reflex responses are automatic, they are almost always involuntary. Using the example posed earlier, we have learned to cover our ears when lightning strikes because that is our automatic response to loud sounds. Through classical conditioning, we have learned to transfer this response from thunder to lightning as well.

Basic Processes of Classical Conditioning

Classical conditioning works like this: A neutral stimulus is paired with a meaningful stimulus (the reflex stimulus), until the neutral stimulus gains the meaning of the other stimulus. The neutral stimulus then becomes a conditioned stimulus, and the original automatic response (the reflex response) from the original meaningful stimulus is transferred to the neutral stimulus and becomes the conditioned response. From the example above, the meaningful stimulus is thunder, and the automatic response to that sitmulus is "covering of ears". Through continued pairing with thunder, lightning, which was originally a neutral stimulus, acquires the meaning of thunder and becomes a conditioned stimulus. Consequently, we elicit similar response to ligthning, so that "covering of ears" becomes a conditioned response. Thus, we no longer just cover our ears in response to loud sounds (like thunder), but also to lightning.

Acquisition. Acquisition is the initial learning of the stimulus-response link. Two important aspects of acquisition are contiguity and contingency. Continguity is the time interval between the occurrence of the meaningful stimulus and the neutral stimulus. The optimal time interval between the two stimuli is 0.25 second. Contingency, on the other hand, is the predictability between the two stimuli (Roscoria, 1966 & 1988). Ideally, the two stimuli should always be paired together until acquisition occurs. For example, if thunder doesn't always come after lightning, we would never learn to cover our ears when lightning strikes. Learning through classical conditioning doesn't take much time.

If we plot the number of times we exhibit the same response to the neutral stimulus as tha pairing goes, we would come up with a half-parabola. (A half-parabola looks like the left half of a hill.) This means that we learn quite easily with classical conditioning. To demonstrate how fast we learn with classical conditioning, imagine the first time you heard the kettle whistle. It probably took you less than 3 trials to know that the water started to boil.

Generalization and/or Discrimination. 

Generalization is the application of learning to other similar stimuli. Using the thunder -lightning example, if you are watching a movies, and lightning striked in the movie, you would probably expect to hear thunder to follow. Discrimination, on the other hand, is the process of knowing when not to elicit similar response. Using the example of the whistling kettle above, if a family member blows a whistle while you're heating kettle on the stove, you would probably know that the whistle is not coming from the kettle and water is not yet boiling, because the sound of the kettle whistle is not the same as the one your family member just blew.

The process of generalization and discrimination is important in learning. For example, herbivores should be able to distinguish edible plants from poisonous ones. Similarly, educators use this process to check if students understand the concepts taught in class. Multiple-choice questions are oftentimes used to evaluate how a student can discriminate one concept from another.

Extinction. Extinction is the process of unlearning the conditioned stimulus. The philosophy behind acquisition and extinction is this: "If it can be learned, it can also be unlearned." Extinction occurs with the absence of the unconditioned or originally meaningful stimulus. With extinction, the conditioned response weakens. If we plot the number of times we exhibit the conditioned response to the conditioned stimulus when the unconditioned stimulus is absent, we would come up with a half hyperbola. (A half-hyperbola looks like the right half of a volcano.)

Spontaneous Recovery. Unlike acquisition, unlearning a conditioned stimulus takes time. To demonstrate our difficulty to unlearn, spontaneous recovery is the recurrence of the conditioned response despite continued absence of the conditioned stimulus after a period of rest. If we continue to plot following extinction, spontaneous recovery is a smaller half-hyperbola after a period of no response. The good thing is that spontaneous recovery quickly dies out, and the negative hyperbola gets even smaller in time.

How humans learn a foreign language.

One of the biggest questions over human behavior is whether our actions are determined by our natures, or by our nurtures. In other words, do we act the way we do because of genetic programming – innate qualities that we have no power over – or is it the way we are brought up, treated, educated, and so forth. This will be discussed in more detail in human sciences, but the debate interests us in language in the question over how we learn to speak. Is it an innate human capacity, or is it purely a result of our environment, as we first imitate our parents and family members, and then apply the rules of grammar to perfect our powers of communication?

 

Learning language is something we’re born to do. it’s an instinct we have, which is proven, as one research paper says, just by observation:

To believe that special biological adaptations are a requirement, it is enough to notice that all the children but none of the dogs and cats in the house acquire language.

As children, we learn to think, learn to communicate and intuitively pick up an understanding of grammar rules in our mother tongue, or native language. From then on, we learn all new languages in relation to the one we first knew—the one that we used to understand the world around us for the first time ever.

Although language is something we learn, research has shown that the instinct to do so is present from birth. Not only are we inclined to process and adopt language, but it seems that the human brain has common linguistic constraints, regardless of the language we’ve learned. Certain syllables, which aren’t common in any language, are difficult for the brain to process, even in newborns who haven’t started learning any language yet.

Learning a foreign language

When it comes to learning a second language, adults are at a disadvantage. As we age, our brain’s plasticity (its ability to create new neurons and synapses) is reduced. Following brain damage that causes a loss of speech, for instance, researchers have observed that children are more likely to regain the power of speech, by creating new pathways in the brain to replace the damaged ones.

One theory of why learning a foreign language is so hard for adults focuses more on the process we go through to do so, rather than the loss of plasticity. Robert Bley-Vroman explains in Linguistic Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition that adults approach learning a new language with an adult problem-solving process, rather than in the same way a child develops language for the first time.

Although this means adults generally progress through the early stages of learning a language faster than children, people who are exposed to a foreign language first during childhood usually achieve a higher proficiency than those who start out as adults.

There’s still hope, though. A study of secondary language pronunciation found that some learners who started as adults scored as well as native speakers. It’s also been shown that motivation to learn can improve proficiency, so if you really want to learn a language, it’s not necessarily too late.

Almost all human beings acquire a language (and sometimes more than one), to the level of native competency, before age 5. How do children accomplish this remarkable feat in such a short amount of time? Which aspects of language acquisition are biologically programmed into the human brain and which are based on experience? Do adults learn language differently from children? Researchers have long debated the answers to these questions, but there is one thing they agree on: language acquisition is a complex process.

Most researchers agree that children acquire language through interplay of biology and environmental factors. A challenge for linguists is to figure out how nature and nurture come together to influence foreign language learning.