PROFESSIONAL TRAINING FOR

ENGLISH LANGUAGE
TEACHERS
MODULE 1
1.2 LEARNING THEORIES
1.2.3 Skinner
AIM
At the end of this session participants should have a solid understanding of Skinner´s theory of language
development as a learning theory to further aid their professional practice as English language teachers.

INTRODUCTION
Skinner's explanation of language was that any acquisition was due to a learning process involving the shaping
of grammar into a correct form by the re-enforcement of other stimulus, correct grammar is positively re-
enforced and will be used in the future, and incorrect grammar is negatively re-enforced and will be not be used
again.

EXPLANATION
According to Skinner the child imitates the language of its parents and the persons who are around him. An
adult who recognizes a word spoken by a child will praise the child and/or give it what it is asking for. Therefore,
successful utterances are reinforced during the process of rewarding (response/smile /food etc.) while
unsuccessful ones are forgotten.

As stated by Skinner the main principle of operant

conditioning is reinforcement.

B.F. Skinner (1938) coined the term operant

conditioning; it means roughly changing of
behavior by the use of reinforcement which is
given after the desired response. Skinner
identified three types of responses or operant that
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• Neutral operant: responses from the environment that neither increase nor decrease the probability of a
behavior being repeated.

• Reinforcers: Responses from the environment that increase the probability of a behavior being repeated.
Reinforcers can be either positive or negative.

• Punishers: Responses from the environment that decrease the likelihood of a behavior being repeated.
Punishment weakens behavior.

Reinforcement is the process in which a

behavior is strengthened, and thus, more
likely to happen again. Positive
Reinforcement is making behavior stronger
by following the behavior with a pleasant
stimulus. For example, a rat presses a lever
and receives food. Negative Reinforcement is
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making behavior stronger by taking away a
negative stimulus. For example, a rat presses a lever and turns off the electric shock.

Skinner applied his theory of operant conditioning in explaining the language acquisition process of a child.
Skinner viewed babies as ‘empty vessels’ in which language had to be ‘put in to’. He said children learn language
from their environment and consequences of their actions (a nurture view of language).

According to Skinner, a child learns language through positive reinforcement. His basic explanation for the
development of speech was that parents tend to reward infant vocalizations (such as babbling) by giving their
attention to the infant. This reward which according to him is reinforcement increases the frequency of
vocalization. He would suggest that the child will not progress from babbling to language unless the parent’s
shape the child’s language behavior.
He further argues that after rewarding vocalizations for a while, parents become used to a child’s babbling and
pay less attention to it. This motivates the infant to vary the babbling. Sometimes, by accident, the child
produces more recognizable speech sounds e.g. if an infant suddenly
said ‘Dadadada’, parents might respond excitedly to this, thinking that
the child is trying to say the word ‘Daddy’. The response reinforces the
child’s production of this type of speech sound. Other sounds that are
less like actual speech tend to be ignored. However, parents soon get
bored by repetitions of ‘Dadadada’, and this motivates the child to
modify such sounds until the shaping process results in recognizable
words.
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This process continues, resulting in sentences of increasing complexity and grammatical correctness. In addition,
the use of language is rewarded when a child asks for something and as a result, succeeds in getting it. Skinner
did not claim that parents intentionally set out to shape the language development of infants, but that this
happens naturally.

Children imitate speech sounds and words spoken by caregivers and, provided this imitation is rewarded,
learning will take place. This is how children learn new words. However, this theory assumes that without
reinforcement, imitation will not result in learning.

CONCLUSION
The theory of language acquisition by Skinner is criticized based on certain evidences that children produce
during language acquisition. While there must be some truth in Skinner's explanation, there are many objections
to it. Some of them are presented here:

· Language is based on a set of structures or rules, which could not be worked out simply by imitating individual
utterances. The mistakes made by children reveal that they are not simply imitating but actively working out
and applying rules. For example, a child who says "drinked" instead of "drank" is not copying an adult but rather
over-applying a rule. The child has discovered that past tense verbs are formed by adding a /d/ or /t/ sound to
the base form. The "mistakes" occur because there are irregular verbs which do not behave in this way. Such
forms are often referred to as intelligent mistakes or virtuous errors.

· Most children go through the same stages of language

acquisition. There appears to be a definite sequence of steps.
We refer to developmental milestones. Apart from certain
extreme cases the sequence seems to be largely unaffected by
the treatment the child receives or the type of society in which
s/he grows up.

· Children are often unable to repeat what an adult says,

especially if the adult utterance contains a structure the child
Esta foto está bajo licencia CC BY has not yet started to use. The classic demonstration comes
from the American psycholinguist David McNeill. The structure in question here involves negating verbs:

Child: Nobody don't like me

Mother: No, say, "Nobody likes me."

Child: Nobody don't like me.

(Eight repetitions of this dialogue)

Mother: No, now listen carefully: say, "Nobody likes me."

Child: Oh! Nobody don't likes me. (McNeil in The Genesis of Language, 1966)
Parents are more interested in politeness and truthfulness rather than correct grammar. Only few parents tend
to say explicit grammatical correction. According to Brown, Cazden and Bellugi (1969): "It seems to be truth
value rather than well-formed syntax that chiefly governs explicit verbal reinforcement by parents - which
renders mildly paradoxical the fact that the usual product of such a training schedule is an adult whose speech
is highly grammatical but not notably truthful." (cited in Lowe and Graham, 1998)

There is evidence for a critical period for language acquisition. Children who have not acquired language by the
age of about seven will never entirely catch up. The most famous example is that of Genie, discovered in 1970
at the age of 13. She had been severely neglected, brought up in isolation and deprived of normal human
contact. Of course, she was disturbed and underdeveloped in many ways. During subsequent attempts at
rehabilitation, her carers tried to teach her to speak. Despite some success, mainly in learning vocabulary, she
never became a fluent speaker, failing to acquire the grammatical competence of the average five-year-old.

While encountering irregular items, there is a stage when they

replace forms based on the regular patterns of language
automatically and gradually switch over to the process of
‘analogy’ as they start working out the language for themselves.
Analogy is a reasoning process and cannot be attributed to
imitation.

Secondly it appears that children sometimes are unable to

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imitate adult grammatical constructions exactly. They speak
what they infer as right. Thus, language acquisition is more a matter of maturation than of imitation.

Some parents pay very little attention to the vocalization of their infants; still the children can develop language.

Shaping as described by behaviorist is a very lengthy process, whereas a child’s language development,
particularly during the second year of life is rapid.

The theory assumes that imitation without reinforcement will not lead to learning.
TO LEARN MORE
Skinner on his theory on language:
Biophily2 (2016, septiembre 19). B. F. Skinner - Focus on Verbal Behavior (1988) [Archivo de vídeo]. YouTube.
Recuperado de: https://youtu.be/-Iz6uOkk_Kk

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LEARNING ACTIVITY
Instructions
Reflect on previous lessons you have taught and describe 5 examples of positive reinforcers, 5 examples of
negative reinforcers and 3 examples of punishers you have used or have seen in class while teaching productive
skills (speaking and writing).

The following will be taking into account for evaluation:

- Relevance and consistency

- Spelling, grammar usage and writing

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bates, E. (1994), Modularity, Domain Specificity and The Development of Language Behavioral and Brain
Sciences

Pinker, S. (1994), Language Acquisition - Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Pinker, S & Bloom, P. (1990), Natural Language and Natural Selection- Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13

Slobin, D. (1979), Psycholinguistics Second Edition - Scott, Foreman and Co.