4.1.3. Cognitivism

The term ‘Cognitivism’ (sometimes referred to as ‘Mentalism’) refers to a group of psychological theories which draw heavily on the work in linguistics of Noam Chomsky.

In 1959 Chomsky published a strong attack on Skinner’s ‘Verbal Behaviour’ which became justifiably famous. In his ‘Review on Verbal Behaviour’ Chomsky explained his rejection of the behaviourist view of language acquisition (of how a baby learns a language) on the basis of his model of competence and performance.

We can appreciate the rejection of the behaviourist view by the asking of questions:

• If all language is learnt behaviour, how is it that young children can say things that they have never said before?

• How is it possible that adults all through their lives say things they have never said before?

• How is it possible that a new sentence in the mouth of a four-year-old is the result of the conditioning?

Language is not a form of behaviour, Chomsky maintained. On the contrary, it is an intricate rule-based system and a large part of language acquisition is the learning of the system. There is a finite number of grammatical rules in the system and with a knowledge of these an infinite number of sentences can be performed in the language. It is competence that a child gradually acquires, and it is this language competence (or knowledge of the grammar rules) that allows children to be creative as language users (e.g., experimenting and saying things that have not been said before: a tractor – tractors, but a man – men, not mens).

Language teaching has never adopted a methodology based on Chomsky’s work or strictly upon cognitivist theories in general. Chomsky’s theorising was never directed at adult language learning and he has repeatedly made it clear. But the idea that language is not a set of habits has informed many teaching techniques and methodologies. Thus, students are often encouraged to use rules to create sentences on their own. We could summarise this as: show them the underlying structure and then let them have a go on their own. Creating new sentences is the objective.

4.1.3.1. Structural approach

Clearly, the structural syllabus is still most widely in use all over the world. The structural syllabus breaks language down into small grammatical components and presents these in strictly controlled sequence aimed to build language competence through knowledge and interiorisation of the linguistic rules. Grammar makes up the core of the syllabus, vocabulary is limited. Grammatical patterns and insistence on the accuracy are clearly more important than vocabulary or the meaning expressed by the language samples provided.

Many of the learning principles implicit in the structural approach are sound:

• Simple structures precede the more complex structures.

• Those structures with fewer exceptions to the rule are introduced before patterns with more deviations.

• Patterns follow a sequence of relative frequency in language use.

• Patterns are arranged to proceed from the familiar to the unfamiliar according to the contrastive analysis between the mother tongue and the target language.

The structural syllabus also offers the advantage that teachers do not necessarily need to be fluent in the language they teach, since grammatical explanations and drills do not necessitate high fluency in the language. Teaching and testing are relatively simple with the grammatical syllabus, since we deal with discrete-point knowledge and skills.

This discrete-point approach to language teaching also presents the major weakness of the grammatical syllabus. J. Oller calls the structural approach a ‘notorious failure’, because of the scarcity of persons who have actually learned a foreign language on the basis of the discrete-point methods of teaching. As well as in audio-lingual method meaning remains out of mind of the learner. The next method, in reaction, places its emphasis on the establishing meaning.