Lesson Plan 1 Course title: English as an International Language (Culture)

The Behaviorist Perspective
One theory that explains the impact of _______and culture on language development is the behaviorist theory. One of the main proponents of this theory, B.F. Skinner, proposed that language is acquired in the same way as any other________, through operant conditioning. In operant conditioning, learning is defined as changes in behavior as a result of experiences that occur after a response.

Skinner said that operant conditioning occurs in ____________when sounds are made by a child and then reinforced by their parent's reactions. An example of this reinforcement would be an excited smile, hugs and _______whenever a sound resembling a word is made. This makes the child more likely to repeat the word and associate it with a corresponding object or event. This operant conditioning combines with imitation to allow rapid language development to occur.

Remember Katie? According to the behaviorist perspective, her language acquisition would look something like this: Katie begins ______ something similar to 'cawa-cawa-rrrr-caw-carrr-aaa.' She does this one day while watching her father pull the car into the driveway. Katie's mother becomes excited. She points to the car and says 'car.' Katie _____her mother and repeats 'carrr-aaa.' Soon Katie is saying 'carrr-aaa' every time she sees a car to get attention and begins to associate the word 'car' with the object.

1. 
   attention b. babbling. c. imitate d. environment
   

e. behavior f. language development
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The Interactionist Perspective
Now that you know a little about the behaviorist perspective, let's look at language development through the interactionist perspective. This point of view emphasizes the interactions between innate ______ and environmental influences. Two main sub-groups exist within the interactionist perspective: the information-processing perspective of language development and the social interaction perspective of language development.

Some information-processing theorists ______ that children make sense of complex language through instinctive cognitive abilities combined with their ______ experiences. They agree with the biological theories that infants are _______ with an amazing ability to analyze language. However, they also argue that these capabilities are probably not sufficient to account for all of their language development.

Proponents of social interaction theories emphasize that _______ and language experiences are essential to language development. According to this view, any active child with the ability to develop language will _______ to communicate. When the child makes these attempts at language development, caregivers will begin to provide experiences that will assist the process. In this way, the child learns to relate language development to its social meaning.

1. 
   attempt b. born c. assume d. environmental
   

e. social skills f. ability
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