Learning and teaching

What is learning and what is teaching and how do they interact? 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 and Garmezy 1963:133). 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 rather 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.

Breaking down the components of the definition of learning, we can extract, as we did with language, domains of research and inquiry:

1. Learning is acquisition or "getting."

2. Learning is retention of information or skill.

3. Retention implies storage systems, memory, cognitive organization.

4. Learning involves active, conscious focus on and acting upon events outside or inside the organism.

5. Learning is relatively permanent, but subject to forgetting.

6. Learning involves some form of practice, perhaps reinforced practice.

7. Learning is a change in behavior.

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. Very quickly the concept of learning be­anies every bit as complex as the concept of language. Yet the second language learner brings all these and more variables into play in the learning of a second language.

Teaching cannot be defined apart from learning. Nathan Gage (1964:269) noted that "to satisfy the practical demands of education, theories of learning must l>c 'stood on their head' so as to yield theories of teaching." 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. If, like B.F. Skinner, you look at learning as a process of operant conditioning through a carefully paced program of reinforcement, you will teach accordingly. If you view second language learning basically as a deductive rather than an inductive process, you will probably choose to present copious rules and paradigms to your students rather than let them "discover" those rules inductively. An extended definition-or theory-of teaching will spell out governing principles for choosing cer­tain methods and techniques. A theory of teaching, in harmony with your integrated understanding of the learner and of the subject matter to be learned, will point the way to successful procedures on a given day for given learners under the various constraints of the particular context of learning.

The chapters of this book are intended to serve not as a theory of teaching or instruction, but rather as an essential component underlying the subsequent formu­lation of a theory of instruction. Jerome Bruner (1966b:40-41) noted that a theory of instruction should specify the following features:

1. The experiences which most effectively implant in the individual a predispo­sition toward learning

2. The ways in which a body of knowledge should be structured so that it can be most readily grasped by the learner

3. The most effective sequences in which to present the materials to be learned

4. The nature and pacing of rewards and punishments in the process of learning and teaching

At least the first three features refer quite pointedly to the subject matter itself and to the learner, implying that one needs an understanding of the subject matter and a practical theory of learning before a theory of instruction can be formed. The purpose of this volume is to focus on the general nature of the subject matter, lan­guage, and upon the process of learning as essential foundation stones for building a theory of teaching.