Learning and teaching

In similar fashion, we can ask questions about constructs like learningand teaching.Consider again some traditional definitions. A search in contem­porary dictionaries reveals that learning is "acquiring or getting of knowl­edge of a subject or a skill by study, experience, or instruction." A more specialized definition might read as follows: "Learning is a relatively perma­nent change in a behavioral tendency and is the result of reinforced prac­tice" (Kimble & Garmezy). Similarly, teaching, which is implied in the first definition of learning, may be defined as "showing or helping someone to learn how to do something, giving instructions, guiding in the study of something, providing with knowledge, causing to know or under­stand." How awkward these definitions are! Isn't it curious that professional lexicographers cannot devise more precise scientific definitions? More than perhaps anything else, such definitions reflect the difficulty of defining com­plex concepts like learning and teaching.

Illustration 1.4 - Various definitions of “learning”

These concepts can also give way to a number of subfields within the dis­cipline of psychology: acquisition processes, perception, memory (storage) systems, recall, conscious and subconscious learning styles and strategies, theories of forgetting, reinforcement, the role of practice.

Teaching cannot be defined apart from learning. Teaching is guiding and facilitating learning, enabling the learner to learn, setting the condi­tions for learning. Your understanding of how the learner learns will deter­mine your philosophy of education, your teaching style, your approach, methods, and classroom techniques.

References & Suggested Readings

1. Bloom L. Language Development. – Cambridge (Mass.), 1970. – 564p.

2. Braine M.D.S. The insufficiency of a finite state model for verbal reconstructive memory // Psychonomic Science. – 1965. – V. 2. - p.132-138.

3. Bruner J.S. From communication to language // Cognition. V. 33. 1974–1975.

4. Carroll J.B. The Study of Language. – Cambridge (Mass.), 1953.

5. Carroll J.B. Language and thought. – Englewood Cliffs, 1964.

6. Chomsky N. A Review of Verbal Behavior, by B.F. Skinner // Language. V 35. – 1959. № 1.

7. Clark H.N., Clark E. V. Psychology of Language. An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. – New York, 1977. – 165p.

8. Diller, Karl Conrad. The Language Teaching Controversy. Rowley, Massachusetts: Newbury House, 1978. - 239p.