COGNITIVE VARIATIONS IN LANGUANGE LEARNING
INTRODUCTION
The nature of theories of learning
is generalized. That is, they are try to explain globally:
1) How
people learn and 2) what common characteristic there are in learning.
Such theories of learning do not
deal with (1) differences of contexts of learning (2) different across
individuals in the way they learn materials, or (3) differences within any
individual.
Whereas all of us display human
aspects of learning, that is every individual (1) approaches a problem, or (2)
learns a set of fact or (3) organizes a combination of felling from a unique
perspective.
This chapter intentionally
discusses categories of variation in human learning, consisting of three item:
1. Variation
in types of learning intrinsic in cognitive tasks
2. Variation
in strategies individual uses
3. Variation
in personal cognitive styles of learning
According to Brown (1980) Second
Language (L2) learning involves cognitive processes that consist of many types
of learning and every individual make use of a variety of strategies and styles
in order to master the language.
You language or teacher candidates
are required to understand these processes so that you can teach effectively
and optimally.
DISCUSSION
A.
CATEGORIES
OF VARIATION IN HUMAN LEARNING
1. Types of learning
Gagne (1965:58-59) classified eight types of
learning :
a. Signal
learning. The individual learns to make a general response to a signal.
b. Stimulus-response learning. The leaner
acquires a precise response to a signal.
c. Chaining.
What is acquired is a chain of two or more stimulus – response connection.
d. Verbal
association. It is the learning of chains that are verbal.
e. Multiple
discrimination. The individual learn to make a number of different identifying
responses to many different stimuli, which may resemble each other in physical
appearance.
f.
Concept learning. The learner acquires the ability to make a
common response to a class of stimuli even thought the individual members of
that class may differ widely from each other.
g. Principle
learning. A principle is a chain of two
or more concepts.
h. Problem
solving. It is a kind of learning that
requires the internal events usually
referred to as “thinking”.
The process of second language (L2) learning can be categorized and sequenced
efficiently in cognitive terms by means
of the eight types of learning:
a. Signal
learning – generally happens in the total language process.
b. Stimulus-response
– learning is apparent in the acquisition of the sound system of a foreign
language.
c. Chaining
– is clearly observable in the acquisition of phonological sequences and
syntactic patters.
d. Verbal
and non-verbal chains distinction – is not a separate type of language
learning.
e. Multiple
discriminations – are necessary especially in the L2 learning where a word has
to take on several meanings.
f.
Concept learning –
includes the nation that language and cognition are interrelated.
g. Principle
learning – is the extent of concept learning to the formation of a linguistic
system.
h. Problem
solving – is evidence in L2 learning since the learner is continually
confronted with sets of events that are really problem to be solve.
2.
Strategies of learning
Two basic categories of strategies can be
distinguished in language learning : learning strategies and communication
strategies. According to Brown (1980:83), a learning strategy is a method of
perceiving and storing particular items for later recall. By contrast, a
communication strategy is a method of achieving communication, of encoding or
expressing meaning in a language. Although there is a strong relationship
between the two types of strategy above, they are clearly different in their
manifestation.
a. Learning
Strategy
John
Dewey (1910) described problem solving a process as consisting of five stages:
1) A
state of doubt, cognitive complexity frustration, or awareness of difficulty.
2) An
attempt to identify the problem, including a nonspecific designation of the
ends that are sought, the gap to be filled, or the goal to be reached, as
defined by the situation that sets the problem.
3) Relating
these problem propositions to cognitive structure, thereby activating relevant background ideas and previously
achieved problem salutations which, then, are reorganized (transformed) in the
form of problem solving propositions or hypotheses.
4) Successive
testing of the hypotheses and reformulation of the problem if necessary.
5) Incorporating
the successful solution into cognitive structure (understanding it) and
applying it both to the problem at hand and to other exemplars of the same
problem.
b. Language
Learning strategies
There are four terms which are commonly explained in the
literature on language learning strategies, namely: Transfer, Interference,
Simplification, and Overgeneralization. . The terms are
going to elaborated in set of pairs based on its association.
1)
Transfer and Interference
According
to Brown, 1980, Positive transfer happens
when the prior knowledge benefits the learning task, that is, when a previous
item is correctly utilized in the present subject matter.
The
positive transfer can be referred to as Transfer, which is a general term that describes teh carryover
of previous performance or knowledge to subsequent learning.
e.g:
L1:
Indonesian, L2: English
|
Transfer
|
|
|
|
I would like to order some waters, please
|
è
|
I would like to order some water, please
|
|
They study English lesson yesterday.
|
è
|
They studied English lesson yesterday
|
By
contrast, Negative Transfer happens when the previous performance hinders the
performance on a second task. The negative transfer can be referred to as interference.
e.g:
L1:
Indonesian, L2: English
|
Interference
|
|
|
|
“Excuse me, I want to go back”
|
|
“Excuse me, I want to wash my hand”
|
|
A: “Thank you”
B: “Same – same”
|
|
A: “Thank you”
B: “You’re welcome”
|
|
“Sorry, I didn’t go to campus, because my body is not
delicious”
|
|
“Sorry, I didn’t go to campus, because I’m not feeling
well.”
|
|
|
|
|
2)
Generalization and Simplification
To
generalize means “to infer or drive a law, rule, or conclusion, usually based
on observation of special instances.” Meaningful learning is really
generalization, in the sense that, items are subsumed (generalized) under
high-order categories for meaningful retention. Much of human learning is a
process of generalization.
The
learning of concepts in early childhood is a process of generalizing. (Brown,
1980:86). In the literature of on L2 acquisition, interference is almost as
frequent a term as overgeneralization.
Brown illustrates generalization and overgeneralization as follows:
A
child has been exposed to various kinds of animals gradually acquires a
generilized concept of “animal”. However, that same child at an early stage of
generalization, in his familiarity with dogs, might see a horse for the first
time and overgeneralize the concept of “dog” and call the horse a dog.
Likewise, a number of animals might be put into a category of “dog” until the
general attributes of larger category, “animals” have been acquired.
Two
polars aspects of the generalization process:
a)
Inductive reasoning
A
person stores a number of specific instances and induce the general law or rule
or conclusion which governs or subsumes the specific instances. It is used to
infer superordinate principles or rules from day-to-day linguistic input the
learner receives.
e.g:
L1:
Indonesian, L2: English
Students
practice using irregular verb in past
|
Regular Past Verb
|
Irregular Past Verb
|
|
wake – woke –
woken
take – took –
taken
write – wrote – written
|
Walk – walked – walked
Study – studied – studied
Stop – stopped - stopped
|
|
Dream – dreamt/dreamed – dreamt/dreamed
|
|
Yesterday
I woke up at 4.30 a.m.
Yesterday
I took bath at 5 a.m.
Yesterday
I wrote a letter to my friend.
Yesterday
I walked to school.
Etc.
b)
Deductive reasoning
The
reasoning movement from a generalization to specific instances, that is,
specific subsumed facts are inferred or deduced from a general principle.
e.g:
The
grammatical rule is presented and the student is required to supply instances
of that rule through drills and exercises.
L1:
Indonesian, L2: English
Students
practice using irregular verb in past
I wake up at 5 a.m yesterday
I waked up at 5 a.m yesterday
I woked up at 5 a.m yesterday
I woke up at 5 a.m yesterday
Brown
differentiates two learning situations:
1) Second language in the field (natural, untutored language
learning)
The
acquirer must infer from all the data around him certain rules and meanings.
2) Classroom learning, usually involves a mixture of both
types of reasoning, inductive and deductive.
3)
Simplification
It
is a term used in references on second language acquisition. All human learning
is basically simplification. i.e, the process of uncomplicating, “of educing
events to a common denominator, to as few parts as possible. Meaningful learning
is simplification, that is, a process of storing items so that a few higher
order features lead to more and more lower-order features, (Brown, 1980). The
author further states that simplification has similar meaning to
generalization, buit simplification can be contrasted with complexification, that is, the act of discovering many varied parts
of the whole. Sometimes complexification is needed in order to counteract a
tendency to oversimplify, to overgeneralize to the point of omitting essential
parts of the whole.
e.g:
·
He lives in a
house, which he has been living for two years, with his family.
·
Mathematics, which
I dislike, is one of the subject to be tested in
National
Exam.
·
I just sent e-mail
to my boss, who always desires to see my upcoming project, concerning
the meeting agenda.
4)
Overgeneralization
Overgeneralization
has been used to refer to a strategy in second language acquisition in which
the L2 learner acts within the target language. He generalizes a special rule
or item in the L2 beyond legitimate bounds. At a particular phase of learning
english as a native language, children have been observed to all overgeneralize
regular past-tense endings (walked,
opened) as applicable to all past-tense forms (goed, flied) until they
recognize a subset of verbs that belong to a irregular category. Like L1 learners, L2 learners will
overgeneralize within the target language.
Brown
(1980) illustrates typical examples in learning English as an L2 including:
1)
Past-tense
regularization
2)
Negativization
Negativization
requires insertion of auxilary before the verb)
e.g:
John doesn’t can study
3)
Indirect sentences
e.g:
He told me when should I get off the train.
(Indirect
discourse requires normal word order, not question word order, after wh word).
Those rules have
special constraints, learners are unaware due to these, there fore, they over
generalize them.
However,
interference of the L1 in L2 is only a form of generalizing that takes L1
experiences and applies incorrectly. By contrast, overgeneralization is the
incorrect application (negative transfer) of previously learned L2 item to a
present L2 context. Brown states that all transfer involves generalizing and
all generalizing involves transfer.
c.
Communication Strategy
Communication is the output
modality and learning is the input
modality of language acquisition.
Brown (1980):
Communication startegies are systematic attempts to
express meaning in the target language (TL) in which the speaker must attend
not only to the form (the surface structure) of language but also to the
function (the intended purpose of the utterances) of language.
To communicate in the TL, the speaker (learner) must:
a)
Evaluate the total
context communication
b)
Perceive the
cognitive, affective, and linguistic set of hearer
c)
Personally
organizes his intended menaing
d)
Draw upon whatever
existing structures he possess to effect that communication
In proficient speaker: communication strategies will
bring about correct and unambiguous output in the TL. The communication
strategy will enable the learner to fill in the gaps where he is uncertain of
the correct linguistic form
In productive communication in L2: we use the same
fundamental strategies that is used in learning an L2.
For example where in a situation a learner discriminates
either correctly or incorrectly
transfer. The transfer will be in
utterance.
-
Generalization
within the TL is a common production strategy coming out of generalization in
learning or receptive phase.
-
Strategy of
avoidance: cognitive and semantic manifestations , linguistic manifestations of
syntactic avoidance
B.
STYLE
OF LEARNING
The way we learn thing in general
and the particular solution we make to a problem seems to relate to the link
between personality and cognition. This link called cognitive style. Several
cognitive style constructs have been identified through research. Before
starting to discuss the five types of cognitive style, we will define it
according to some researcher. Based on Ausbeul (1968: 170) defines cognitive
style as self consistent and enduring individual differences in cognitive
organization and functioning. Brown
(1980) stated that cognitive style mediate between emotion and cognition.
There are five cognitive styles
that are relevant to L2 learning.
- Field independence and Field dependence
Field independence (FI) style is the
ability to perceive a particular item or factor in a ‘field’ of distracting
items. On the other hands, Field dependent (FD) style is the tendency to de
‘dependent’ in the total field.
In psychological terms, the ‘field’ may
comprise the different things, it may be perceptual; it maybe more abstract;
such as ideas, thoughts, or feelings. On
the other hand, dependence style parts emended within the field are not easily
perceive although then total field is perceived more apparently as a unified
whole.
Both field independent and field
dependent styles have advantages and disadvantages. Some of advantages of FI
are:
- It is enable to differentiate parts from a whole;
- To concentrate on something ( like reading a book is noisy in bus) ; and
- To analyze separate variable without the contamination of neighboring variables.
On the other hand, the disadvantages of
FI are among others: too much field
independence can cause cognitive “tunnel vision which makes you see only the
parts and fail to see their relationship to a whole. In example: you cannot see the forest for the
trees.
Whereas the advantages of field
dependent follow; you can perceive the whole picture, the larger view about
something. It is a general configuration of a problem, or idea, or event.
As the result of FID style On FID, the
person tend to be dominant in one mode of field independence – dependence or
other; FID is a relatively stable aspect; That FI increase as a child matures
to adulthood. But In the Western culture males tend to be more FI. FI
associated to one of the three major factors used to define intelligence, i.e.,
analytical factors, verbal comprehension, and attention concentration.
Affectively, people who are more FI tend
to be generally more independent and self confident. Whereas, FD people tend to
be more socialized, tend to be derive their self- identity from people around
them, and are usually more emphatic and perceptive of the others’ feelings and
thoughts. Guiora (1972) and Brown (1977) supported that The two styles are
important, because they deal with two different kinds of language learning. The
first kind of learning involves natural, face-to-face communication. The second
kind of learning includes familiar classroom activities, such as drills,
exercises, tests, and so on.
On short, the natural language
acquisition in the ‘field’ may also
prove to prove to be meaningful way to differentiate child and adult language
acquisition. Krashen (1977) suggested
that adults use more monitoring (learning) strategies (conscious attention to
the form) for language acquisition whereas the children make use of acquisition
strategies (subconscious attention to the function) .
- Reflectivity and Impulsivity
The second type of cognitive style is Reflectivitiv and
Impulsivity. Our personalites sometimes show certain tendencies toward
reflectivity and at other times impulsivity. Psychological studies have been
carried out to determine the extent to which a person’s cognitive domain, in
one hand , tends to make either a quick, or gambling ( impulsive ) guess at an
answer to a problem, or , on, the other hand, tends to be slower, more
calculated (eflective ) decision.
David Ewing ( 1977 ) puts forward two styles which are closely related to the
reflectivity impulsivity dimension, i,e, systematic and intuitive styles an
intuitive style refers to an approach where a person makesa number of different
gambles on the basis of “ strong intuitive feeling “ with several successive
gambles before a solution is achieved. By contrast, systematic thinkers tend to
weigh all the considerations in problem, work out all the ambiguites, then after extensive reflection, carefully
determine a solution.
There are many implications of Reflectivity and
Impulsivityon L 2 acquisition. (1) it
has been found that children who are reflective tend to make fewer errors in
reading than impulsive children ( kagan 1965 ) ; however, ( 2 ) impulsive people are usually faster
readers , an ( 3 ) master the “ psycholinguistic guessing games “ ( Goodman
1970) of reading. ( 4 ) Therefore, such impulsive style of reading may not
hinder comprehension. In another investigation, ( 5 ) inductive reasoning was
found to be more effective with reflective
people (Kagan, Pearson, and Welch 1966 ). Their study suggests that in
general ( 6 ) reflective people could
benefit more from inductive learning situations . In L2 Her study showed that ( 7 ) reflective students were slower but
more accurate than impulsive students in reading.
For classroom L2 learning and teaching, reflectivity –
impulsivity has some important considerations. For example, ( 1 ) teachers tend
to consider mistakes too harshly, especially in the case of a learner with an
impulsive style whomay be more willing to gamble at a correct answer than a
reflective person. On the other hand, (2) a reflective person may need patience
from the teacher, who must allow more time for the students to struggle with
responses. It is also understandable that (3) those with impulsive styles may
go through a number of rapid transitions of semigrammatical stages of
interlangaunge, whereas those people with reflective styles tending to remain
longer at a particular stage with “larger” leap from stage to stage.
- Tolerance and Intolerance of Ambiguity
The third cognitive style deals with tolerance and
intolerance of ambiguity. Tolerence of ambiguity refers to the extent to which
you are cognitively willing to tolerate ideas and propositions that contradict
with your own belief system or structure of knowledge. For example, (1) some students
are relatively “ open minded” in accepting ideologies, events and facts that
condradict their own views ; (2) they are more willing to entertain than othes
and (3) even internalize contradictory propositions. On the other hand,other
people who belong to a group of intolerance of ambiguity (a) are more “ closed – minded, “(b) more
dogmatic, (c) tend to reject items that are contradictory with their existing
system ; they (d) expect that Every proposition fits into an acceptable place in their cognitive
organization, and if it does not fit, it is refused.
There are advantages and
disadvantages in both tolerance and intolerance cognitive style. Advsntsges of
tolerant persons the people who are tolerant of ambiguity are ( a) free to
entertain a number of innovative and ofeative possibities and (b) not be
cognitively or affectively distrubed by ambiguity and uncertainty. In L 2
learning a great amount of contradictory information is encountered. For
example,word that are different fromn the L 1, rules “ exceptions”, and
sometimes a whole cultural system that is far from that the L1 culture. ( c ) successful languange learning requires
tolerance of such ambiguity may result In a dama ging effect. Among other are:
( a) a students can become “ wishy – washy “, accepting every propositon before
him, (b) not efficiently subsuming necessary facts into his cognitive
organizational structure, (c) having the effect of preventing meaningful encompass of ideas. For example, linguistic
rules might not be effectively intergrated into a whole system instead they may
be swallowed hurriedly in rotely learned, meaningless chunks.
Like
tolerance of ambiguity, intolerance of
ambiguity also has advantages and disadvantages. Advantages of intolerant
persons: A certain intolerance at an
optimal level enable you: (a) to protect against wishy – washiness described
above, (b) to close off avenues of
hopeless possobilities. (c) to reject entirely contradictory material,
and(d) to deal with the reality of the system that someone has built.
Disadvantages of intolerant persons: (a) intolerance can close the mind too
soon, particulary if ambiguity is perceived as a threat, (b) the results is a
rigid, dogmaticm brittle mind that is too narrow To be creative, and (c)
intolerance maybe especially harmful in L2 learning.
Research
findings are hardly available on this style in L2 learning. However, an
important finding was reported by Naiman, et al. (1975). They found that
tolerance of ambiguity was one of two significant factors in predicting tge
success of their high schoool learners of French in Toronto.
- Broad and Narrow Category Width
The
sentence above means that people have to categorize items either broadly or
narrowly. Narrow categorize learners are more willing to take the risk of being
wrong in problem-solving situations by using to ‘smaller’ subordinate concepts
while broad categorize learners may choose a larger slice of the pie in an
attempt to encompass more possibilities.
- Skeletonization and Embroidery
This
cognitive style is referred for some individuals to skelitenize and others to
embroider in the recall of cognitive material, related to the distinction
between simplification and complexification
strategies. The need to simplify the representation and storage in cognitive
structure is perhaps universal. The
research of Holzman and Gardner 1960, Uhlman and Saltz 1965 supports the idea
that simplification strategies have interindividual variations. For example, in
the recall of narrative materials skelitenizing covers “pruning” out some
particulars by keeping a substantive core of general facts which encompass the
details. On the other hand, embroidering includes “importing” , or adding some
material in order to keep original details might be forgotten.
According
to Brown (1980), embroidery is a natural offshoot of human intellectual
tendency toward closure, one sometimes perceives something that is not present
in the data only because he extrapolates beyond the apparent stimuli. A study by Carmichael, Hogan and Walter
(1932) showed how embroidery can be verbally stimulated.
Skeletonization-embroidery has been known that “yarn-spinners” who express
countless exaggerated additions in telling or retelling the story. Besides, it
is also common to get people who provide only the bare facts of an event.
The
choice of skelitenization-embroidery play an important role in the evaluation
of comprehension and production in L2 learning. Writing skill might be a
suitable area to investigate how the tendency to embroider or skeletonize
associates with style, efficiency, and teachability of writing. It is
appropriate to consider embroidery as more desirable in some situations and
skeletonizing as more appropriate in others. In the future, it is suggested to
conduct a careful study of this feature of cognitive style which might assist
to indicate how such preferences may influence actual language acquisition.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter we have discussed
cognitive variables in the learning a foreign language. An Awarness of these
cognitive factors will help you to teacher understand wide ranging individual
differences. Not All acquirers are alike.
This chapter has covered Categories
of Variaton and human learning, types of learning, strategies of learning in
general, language learning strategies in particular, which include a discussion
of transfer and interference, generalization and simplication, simplication,
over generalization. Beside we have also discussed communication strategy which
is then followed by a discussion of style learning. All of you, teachers or
teacher candidates, are necessary to recognize and understand a multiplicity of
cognitive variables, and to make appropriate evaluations about each individual
and providing him with optimal learning opportunities by understanding their
styles.
REFERENCE
Suparman, M.A., Ph.D, Ujang. PSYCHOLINGUISTIC. The
Theory of Language Acquisition.
ARFINO
RAYA. Bandung. 2010.
COGNITIVE VARIATIONS
IN LANGUANGE LEARNING
Psycholinguistics
Group IV
M.
Nasir T
Yeti
Wijayanti
Ellia
Setyowati
Sofiah
Khaerani
Sui
Ling
Ernawati
Magister Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris
UNIVERSITAS
INDRAPRASTA PGRI
JAKARTA
2012
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