Cognitivism: Selection of Websites
Jordie Struck
June 7, 2021
Cummins: Interdependence of Language
In this article, Cummins (2009) argues that TESOL should clearly articulate their stance on bilingual education in second language education. The author explains how TESOL have aligned themselves with bilingual and multilingual second language groups but have yet to publicly endorse any method but that of monolingual education. Monolingual language education promotes the use of only the target language in the classroom. Traditionally, in the monolingual classroom, the use of the learners’ L1 was strongly discouraged and prohibited. In the contemporary classroom, the L1 is not so strongly controlled but instead is casually pushed aside or ignored instead of being used as a resource. Cummins outlines many ways in which the interdependence of language and incorporating the L1 into L2 learning can be beneficial. These benefits include making stronger associations, building grammatical/structural understanding of the L2 in L1 terms, translation, engaging more actively with the target language, and the comparing and contrasting similarities between languages (which he provides English and Spanish as an example). The author’s final point is that because TESOL is not articulating their position, bilingual instructional strategies are not being actively adopted in the L2 classroom to the detriment of the students.
In this article, Cummins (2012) tackles three big issues at once, which he justifies by pointing out that in the second language classroom these three phenomena are regularly viewed together, without separation, and that to look at them individually would undermine their connections. The three issues related to reading comprehension that he develops are 1) print access and literacy engagement, 2) the development of bilingual students’ proficiency in both languages, and 3) societal power relations which play a direct casual role in academic achievement. His first point is that regardless of socio-economic or cultural background, students with greater access to print and literature, along with greater motivation (including in their L1), achieve greater academic success in reading and writing skills. For those without access and who are taught that reading is a laborious task, the results are less positive. By strictly adhering to a monolingual teaching agenda, educators demotivate students to engage with literature. His second point is that students who develop reading skills in their L1 usually have better skills in their L2 as well as vice versa. Because of the cognitive interdependence of language, Cummins advocates promoting reading in both languages along with a bilingual/multilingual teaching strategy. In practice, this can mean promoting reading in multiple languages in the classroom and activities such as translating texts. His final point, which brings in another layer of depth to the article, is looking at the effects of societal power relations in respect to immigrants’ languages and cultures and how they affect school success/failure. Cummins refers to multiple ethnographies and anthropological studies which assert that students are negatively affected by their family culture being devalued. Prohibiting L1 use in class and discouraging L1 use in the home actually lead to academic failure. Instead, Cummins proposes that teachers and educational stakeholders should encourage and promote 1st and 2ndgeneration immigrants’ culture and language at school and in the home. The theory of language interdependence is supported by students developing cognitive abilities in all language as beneficial to their overall success. Also, students having a positive view of their culture and language directly affects their self-esteem and personal image, which translates to greater chances for academic success.
In this article, Ramirez (1987) presents the findings of his three years study of 75 third grade Hispanic students at three elementary schools in Newark, New Jersey. Ramirez is specifically interested in understanding the Hispanic experience and reports on similar studies conducted by Walters, 1979; Sancho, 1980; Hadis, 1984; and Guerra, 1984). Applying Cummins’ linguistic-interdependence theory, Ramirez hopes to find a correlation between these students’ proficiency in Spanish and their academic success in English. His subjects are predominantly Puerto Rican (88%) and from low socio-economic families (only 37% with a household income of over $5000/year). He employed two language proficiency tests (Spanish CTBS and the English MAC) over a span of three years to test the correlation. His findings confirmed that there was a strong correlation between proficiency in Spanish language skills and proficiency in learning English, confirming the interdependence of language skills. The students involved in monolingual education also saw a decrease in language proficiency in English, which Ramirez hypothesized was due to their native language not being used in instruction which led to less engagement in class. He attributed some greater degree of success in overcoming these difficulties on the presence of a father in the household, though the correlation was tenuous. Overall, Ramirez believes greater incorporation of bilingual educational practices could lead to greater success for the Hispanic students in his study in English language education and generally. This article was very interesting because it saw Cummins’ linguistic-interdependence theory tested, it was topical at the time of publishing, and the research was conducted shortly after Cummins’ theory was published.
Website #4
In this video, Jim Cummins is speaking directly to leaders and teachers working in schools with high levels of bilingual or immigrant students. He outlines some of the difficulties that students may face in studying in a second language, showing that the language of schools and academia is not as easily picked up as conversational language because of the variety (and differences) in grammatical forms and vocabulary employed by native-speaking teachers. He believes teachers need to be provided more tools and professional development to tackle these issues in class. Continuing on this point, Cummins describes the deleterious effects of schools interfering with the language used at home. By pushing for students and families to use the target language at home, educational stakeholders may create a negative learning environment where parents are put in uncomfortable positions and relationships are strained. Instead, he promotes encouraging students’ multilingual talents and fostering home language and culture. Cummins continually reinforces the idea that teachers and leaders need to stay on top of recent research.
Website #5
In this TEDx Talk, Shane Leaning, an ESL teacher discusses the importance of developing the mother tongue in second language learning. Leaning uses the example of one of his Korean students Joe who was having difficulty in learning English as a second language. Ostensibly, it appeared as though there was no reason to explain Joe’s lack of improvement. In a meeting with the parents, Leaning asked how proficient Joe was in his mother tongue, to which the parents replied that it was not a priority. Leaning sent the parents home with instructions to talk with Joe more frequently about his experiences in school in Korean and within a month Joe was improving in all aspects of his education. Leaning emphasizes Cummins analogy of the iceberg of languages that share a common learning process beneath the surface. Leaning advocates that teachers create better connections with students’ home language through incorporating activities in the classroom. He also encourages parents to follow three simple steps (review, read, and relax) to help their children better learn and acquire their native and second languages.
Krashen: Language Acquisition & Learning
In this article, Krashen (2008) discusses the past, present, and future of language education as it relates to his Comprehension Hypothesis (or Input Hypothesis). In the past, the Skill-Building Hypothesis was championed as being most effective in language education. In this system, students would learn formal grammar rules and memorize vocabulary and would then apply what they had learned to completing skill-based tasks. “The ‘real’ use of language is delayed until the rules are ‘mastered’” (Krashen, 2008, p. 179). Instead, Krashen advocates the Comprehension Hypothesis as the basis for instruction in which students learn unconsciously or subconsciously through engaging with the material. According to Krashen, there is evidence that the Comprehension Hypothesis consistently wins in testing scores. The author also states that there is little evidence to support error correction. Looking to the future, Krashen hopes for a distinction to be made between the Comprehension Hypothesis and the Communicative Approach, and he hopes for greater advantage being taken of the Comprehension Hypothesis. He believes that the Communicative approach is different in that it focuses more on output that input. Krashen believes that educators can make better use of the Comprehension Hypothesis by encouraging students to read more. This involves providing more reading material and time to students (along with the freedom) to read books that interest them. Krashen also advocates for the use of “free surfing” on the internet. A practice in which students are given the freedom to just surf the internet based on their interests. Krashen believes these activities will inspire greater participation in students and lead to improved language learning through input. In the conclusion, the author states that these are simple dreams for the future which he already sees in development but that one small advancement in research could change everything overnight.
In this article, Abukhttala (2013) clearly outlines Krashen’s five proposals on language learning and provides a short description of his experience of them in language learning. Krashen’s five hypotheses are the learning/acquisition distinction, the monitor hypothesis, the natural order hypothesis, the input hypothesis, and the affective filter hypothesis. The author recognizes the critiques that have been directed towards Krashen’s hypotheses but nonetheless champions its merits in second language education. In Table 1 (p. 129), the author lists the differences between learning and acquisition, which is a very instructive and clear representation for reference. Krashen believes that teachers should not try to organize their language use as there is no natural order in which language is acquired and instead suggest that language be organized according to topics, functions, and situations. In the monitor hypothesis, there are theorized to be three kinds of monitor user: the over-monitor, the under-monitor, and the optimal monitor user. The three forms relate to how students monitor, manage, and self-correct their second language use. In the input hypothesis, Krashen believes that output ability evolves from input. Finally, Krashen believes that there is an affective filter which affects how input is received by the learners and therefore, teachers should be conscious of creating an open and pleasant learning environment in which students feel encouraged to participate. Abukhttala offers anecdotal evidence about his own experience learning English in Libya. Some of his findings are that acquired competence has become learned competence, in that he has gained conscious knowledge of rules after he had unconsciously learned the language components. He also explains how the use of non-verbal language can also be beneficial in the learning process and should be encouraged in class.
In this article, Zobl (1995) argues Krashen’s Acquisition-Learning Distinction model has been unfairly criticized in academia and that further evidence shows that there are distinctions between systematically learned referential/encyclopedic information and implicit/intuitive knowledge in L2 leaning. The author argues for a more sympathetic assessment of Krashen’s theories in academia due to their potential. Krashen’s hypothesis that acquisition and learning created distinctly organized systems of knowledge is too strong for academics who prefer to see both processes as taking place simultaneously with resulting overlapping knowledge forms. Zobl points out that if Krashen’s claim was truly inaccurate, it would have already faded in the 20 years since publishing and that instead the theory has been supported by evidence by Ellis (1993) and studies in computational processing. The paper presents three major points for examination; morpheme order carried out by functional categories theory; the effects of code-focused instruction; and, the difference between acquired and learned forms/rules. The author presents that the cognitive coding system for acquired linguistic knowledge and explicitly learned linguistic knowledge represent two distinct codes. Zobl points to Chomsky on the remoteness of the subtlety of implicit linguistic knowledge. Another interesting point he brings up is the cognitive process of forgetting. In forgetting, the linguistic knowledge that is implicitly acquired is less susceptible to forgetting, again pointing to the differential process through which it is internalized and stored. Ultimately, the author’s main point is that many of the criticisms aimed at Krashen’s theory are discomfirmable and that there now exists more evidence for the acquired-learned distinction.
Website #9
In this video, Stephen Krashen is delivering a lecture in which he describes how language acquisition is facilitated through input only. The input has to be discernable for acquisition and build on the student’s level +1. His point is that language output will not improve language proficiency. He provides examples of how he tried to teach Japanese child residing with him through soliciting output to no success. After many months, the child finally learns not from his coaxing for output but from the input she receives from the neighbourhood children and the family members. He describes the process of acquisition as an ideal for the student in the classroom, stating that all the student has to do is listening and if the input is not appropriate it is the teacher’s fault, not the students. He proclaims that the results are much better than other methods. He outlines the factors involved in language acquisition as motivation, self-esteem, and anxiety (which has a negative impact). He goes on to say that anxiety is an effective driver in other teaching contexts, but that for language acquisition it creates a block (an affective filter). The video is slightly dated and perhaps misses some of the theoretical nuance, but it is very clear and provides a view of the language debate of the time.
Website #10
This video is a TEDx Talk in which Dr. Naja Ferjan Ramirez discuss her research on language acquisition specifically in bilingual children between the ages of 0-3. Her research is driven by her fascination for discovering how the human brain of a child can acquire native level language(s) without learning, which neither an adult human nor computers can achieve. She conducts her work at the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences (iLab), where she uses Magnetoencephalography (MEG) to study infants’ brains specifically looking at the differences in language development in monolingual and bilingual babies. What she discovered was that monolingual babies could only distinguish sounds in their native language (English), and the brains of bilinguals could process both languages (Spanish and English). Furthermore, bilingual babies had stronger brain activity in the frontal lobe section of the brain derived from increased processing power due to their bilingualism. Ramirez goes on to list the positives for raising children bilingually, dispelling some common misconceptions.
References:
Abukhttala, Ibrahim. “Krashen’s Five Proposals on Language Learning: Are They Valid in Libyan EFL Classes.” English Language Teaching (Toronto), vol. 6, no. 1, 2013, doi:10.5539/elt.v6n1p128.
Cummins, J. (2009). “Multilingualism in the English-Language Classroom: Pedagogical Considerations.” TESOL Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 2, Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL), pp. 317–21. doi:10.1002/j.1545-7249.2009.tb00171.x.
Cummins, J. (2012) “The Intersection of Cognitive and Sociocultural Factors in the Development of Reading Comprehension Among Immigrant Students.” Reading & Writing, vol. 25, no. 8, Springer Netherlands, 2012, pp. 1973–90. doi:10.1007/s11145-010-9290-7.
Krashen, Stephen. “Language Education: Past, Present and Future.” RELC Journal, vol. 39, no. 2, SAGE Publications, 2008, pp. 178–87, doi:10.1177/0033688208092183.
Leaning, S. (2017, November 20). Learning a second language? Develop your mother tongue | Shane Leaning | TEDxXiguanED. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3yRR8rNCSc.
Ramirez, C. M. (1987). “Developmental Linguistic Interdependence and Bilingual Education : Cummins and Beyond in Language in Home, Community, Region, and Nation.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language, no. 63, Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 81–98.
Ramirez, N. F. (2017, February 8). Creating bilingual minds | Naja Ferjan Ramirez | TEDxLjubljana. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp2Fvkt-TRM.
YouTube. (2021). DivED – Jim Cummins: What do school leaders need to know about students learning the school language. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czOsfsDwfQQ.
YouTube. (2010). Stephen Krashen on Language Acquisition. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiTsduRreug.
Zobl, Helmut. “Converging Evidence for the ‘Acquisition-Learning’ Distinction.” Applied Linguistics, vol. 16, no. 1, Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 35–56, doi:10.1093/applin/16.1.35.