Behaviourism and its Implications for Second Language Acquisition

Abstract

This paper aims at reviewing the literature regarding the theory of Behaviourism and its implications for second language acquisition (SLA). It discusses behaviourists’ perceptions of the process of second language acquisition and the pedagogical practices, including contrastive analysis and audiolingualism, that the theory inspired in the field of second language acquisition. It provides a brief introduction to the theory by outlining its underlying principles, traces the origin of the theory, and briefly discusses its implications for first language learning. It presents the major criticisms levelled against behaviourism and the pedagogical practices that it inspired in the field of SLA followed by the reviewer’s own critique. The paper concludes that behaviourism cannot adequately explain language learning in general or second language acquisition in particular, and the pedagogical practices it inspired, including contrastive analysis and audiolingualism, are not considered as effective as they once were. Nonetheless, these pedagogical practices cannot be regarded as entirely useless as they can produce useful results in combination with other pedagogical practices and techniques. 

Keywords

Behaviourism, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, contrastive analysis, audiolingualism.