An Overview Of Cooperative Learning

Without the cooperation of its members society cannot survive, and the society of man has survived because the cooperativeness of its members made survival possible….  It was not an advantageous individual here and there who did so, but the group.  In human societies the individuals who are most likely to survive are those who are best enabled to do so by their group.

(Ashley Montagu, 1965)

How students interact with each another is a neglected aspect of instruction.  Much training time is devoted to helping teachers arrange appropriate interactions between students and materials (i.e., textbooks, curriculum programs) and some time is spent on how teachers should interact with students, but how students should interact with one another is relatively ignored.  It should not be.  How teachers structure student-student interaction patterns has a lot to say about how well students learn, how they feel about school and the teacher, how they feel about each other, and how much self-esteem they have.

In the mid-1960s, cooperative learning was relatively unknown and largely ignored by educators.  Elementary, secondary, and university teaching was dominated by competitive and individualistic learning.  Cultural resistance to cooperative learning was based on social Darwinism, with its premise that students must be taught to survive in a “dog-eat-dog” world, and the myth of “rugged individualism” underlying the use of individualistic learning.  While competition dominated educational thought, it was being challenged by individualistic learning largely based on B. F. Skinner’s work on programmed learning and behavioral modification.  Educational practices and thought, however, have changed.  Cooperative learning is now an accepted and often the preferred instructional procedure at all levels of education.  Cooperative learning is presently used in schools and universities in every part of the world, in every subject area, and with every age student.  It is difficult to find a text on instructional methods, a teacher’s journal, or instructional materials that do not discuss cooperative learning.  Materials on cooperative learning have been translated into dozens of languages.  Cooperative learning is now an accepted and highly recommended instructional procedure.

Definition of Cooperative Learning

Students’ learning goals may be structured to promote cooperative, competitive, or individualistic efforts.  In every classroom, instructional activities are aimed at accomplishing goals and are conducted under a goal structure.  A learning goal is a desired future state of demonstrating competence or mastery in the subject area being studied.  The goal structure specifies the ways in which students will interact with each other and the teacher during the instructional session.  Each goal structure has its place (Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 1999).  In the ideal classroom, all students would learn how to work cooperatively with others, compete for fun and enjoyment, and work autonomously on their own.  The teacher decides which goal structure to implement within each lesson.  The most important goal structure, and the one that should be used the majority of the time in learning situations, is cooperation.

Cooperation is working together to accomplish shared goals.  Within cooperative situations, individuals seek outcomes that are beneficial to themselves and beneficial to all other group members. Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning.  It may be contrasted with competitive (students work against each other to achieve an academic goal such as a grade of “A” that only one or a few students can attain) andindividualistic (students work by themselves to accomplish learning goals unrelated to those of the other students) learning.  In cooperative and individualistic learning, you evaluate student efforts on a criteria-referenced basis while in competitive learning you grade students on a norm-referenced basis.  While there are limitations on when and where you may use competitive and individualistic learning appropriately, you may structure any learning task in any subject area with any curriculum cooperatively.

Theorizing on social interdependence began in the early 1900s, when one of the founders of the Gestalt School of Psychology, Kurt Koffka, proposed that groups were dynamic wholes in which the interdependence among members could vary.  One of his colleagues, Kurt Lewin refined Koffka’s notions in the 1920s and 1930s while stating that (a) the essence of a group is the interdependence among members (created by common goals) which results in the group being a “dynamic whole” so that a change in the state of any member or subgroup changes the state of any other member or subgroup, and (b) an intrinsic state of tension within group members motivates movement toward the accomplishment of the desired common goals.  For interdependence to exist, there must be more than one person or entity involved, and the persons or entities must have impact on each other in that a change in the state of one causes a change in the state of the others.  From the work of Lewin’s students and colleagues, such as Ovisankian, Lissner, Mahler, and Lewis, it may be concluded that it is the drive for goal accomplishment that motivates cooperative and competitive behavior.

In the late 1940s, one of Lewin’s graduate students, Morton Deutsch, extended Lewin’s reasoning about social interdependence and formulated a theory of cooperation and competition (Deutsch, 1949, 1962).  Deutsch conceptualized three types of social interdependence–positive, negative, and none.  Deutsch’s basic premise was that the type of interdependence structured in a situation determines how individuals interact with each other which, in turn, largely determines outcomes.  Positive interdependence tends to result in promotive interaction, negative interdependence tends to result in oppositional or contrient interaction, and no interdependence results in an absence of interaction.  Depending on whether individuals promote or obstruct each other’s goal accomplishments, there is substitutability, cathexis, and inducibility.  The relationships between the type of social interdependence and the interaction pattern it elicits is assumed to be bidirectional.  Each may cause the other.  Deutsch’s theory has served as a major conceptual structure for this area of inquiry since 1949.

Types Of Cooperative Learning

Formal Cooperative Learning

Formal cooperative learning consists of students working together, for one class period to several weeks, to achieve shared learning goals and complete jointly specific tasks and assignments (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 2008).  In formal cooperative learning groups the teachers’ role includes (see Figure 4):

1.  Making preinstructional decisions.  Teachers (a) formulate both academic and social skills objectives, (b) decide on the size of groups, (c) choose a method for assigning students to groups, (d) decide which roles to assign group members, (e) arrange the room, and (f) arrange the materials students need to complete the assignment.  In these preinstructional decisions, the social skills objectives specify the interpersonal and small group skills students are to learn.  By assigning students roles, role interdependence is established.  The way in which materials are distributed can create resource interdependence.  The arrangement of the room can create environmental interdependence and provide the teacher with easy access to observe each group, which increases individual accountability and provides data for group processing.

2.  Explaining the instructional task and cooperative structure.Teachers (a) explain the academic assignment to students, (b) explain the criteria for success, (c) structure positive interdependence, (d) structure individual accountability, (e) explain the behaviors (i.e., social skills) students are expected to use, and (f) emphasize intergroup cooperation (this eliminates the possibility of competition among students and extends positive goal interdependence to the class as a whole).  Teachers may also teach the concepts and strategies required to complete the assignment.  By explaining the social skills emphasized in the lesson, teachers operationalize (a) the social skill objectives of the lesson and (b) the interaction patterns (such as oral rehearsal and jointly building conceptual frameworks) teachers wish to create.

3.  Monitoring students’ learning and intervening to provide assistance in (a) completing the task successfully or (b) using the targeted interpersonal and group skills effectively.While conducting the lesson, teachers monitor each learning group and intervene when needed to improve taskwork and teamwork.  Monitoring the learning groups creates individual accountability; whenever a teacher observes a group, members tend to feel accountable to be constructive members.  In addition, teachers collect specific data on promotive interaction, the use of targeted social skills, and the engagement in the desired interaction patterns.  This data is used to intervene in groups and to guide group processing.

4.  Assessing students’ learning and helping students process how well their groups functioned.  Teachers (a) bring closure to the lesson, (b) assess and evaluate the quality and quantity of student achievement, (c) ensure students carefully discuss how effectively they worked together (i.e., process the effectiveness of their learning groups), (d) have students make a plan for improvement, and (e) have students celebrate the hard work of group members.  The assessment of student achievement highlights individual and group accountability (i.e., how well each student performed) and indicates whether the group achieved its goals (i.e., focusing on positive goal interdependence).  The group celebration is a form of reward interdependence.  The feedback received during group processing is aimed at improving the use of social skills and is a form of individual accountability.  Discussing the processes the group used to function, furthermore, emphasizes the continuous improvement of promotive interaction and the patterns of interaction need to maximize student learning and retention.

Informal Cooperative Learning

Informal cooperative learning consists of having students work together to achieve a joint learning goal in temporary, ad-hoc groups that last from a few minutes to one class period (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 2008).  During a lecture, demonstration, or film, informal cooperative learning can be used to focus student attention on the material to be learned, set a mood conducive to learning, help set expectations as to what will be covered in a class session, ensure that students cognitively process and rehearse the material being taught, summarize what was learned and precue the next session, and provide closure to an instructional session.  The teacher’s role for using informal cooperative learning to keep students more actively engaged intellectually entails having focused discussions before and after the lesson (i.e., bookends) and interspersing pair discussions throughout the lesson.  Two important aspects of using informal cooperative learning groups are to (a) make the task and the instructions explicit and precise and (b) require the groups to produce a specific product (such as a written answer).  The procedure is as follows.

1.  Introductory Focused Discussion:  Teachers assign students to pairs or triads and explain (a) the task of answering the questions in a four to five minute time period and (b) the positive goal interdependence of reaching consensus.  The discussion task is aimed at promoting advance organizing of what the students know about the topic to be presented and establishing expectations about what the lecture will cover.  Individual accountability is ensured by the small size of the group.  A basic interaction pattern of eliciting oral rehearsal, higher-level reasoning, and consensus building is required.

2.  Intermittent Focused Discussions:  Teachers divide the lecture into 10 to 15 minute segments.  This is about the length of time a motivated adult can concentrate on information being presented.  After each segment, students are asked to turn to the person next to them and work cooperatively in answering a question (specific enough so that students can answer it in about three minutes) that requires students to cognitively process the material just presented.  The procedure is:

a.  Each student formulates his or her answer.

b.  Students share their answer with their partner.

c.  Students listen carefully to their partner’s answer.

d.  The pairs create a new answer that is superior to each member’s initial formulation by integrating the two answers, building on each other’s thoughts, and synthesizing.

The question may require students to:

a.  Summarize the material just presented.

b.  Give a reaction to the theory, concepts, or information presented.

c.  Predict what is going to be presented next; hypothesize.

d.  Solve a problem.

e.  Relate material to past learning and integrate it into conceptual frameworks.

f.  Resolve conceptual conflict created by presentation.

Teachers should ensure that students are seeking to reach an agreement on the answers to the questions (i.e., ensure positive goal interdependence is established), not just share their ideas with each other.  Randomly choose two or three students to give 30 second summaries of their discussions.  Such individual accountabilityensures that the pairs take the tasks seriously and check each other to ensure that both are prepared to answer.  Periodically, the teacher should structure a discussion of how effectively the pairs are working together (i.e., group processing).  Group celebrations add reward interdependence to the pairs.

3.  Closure Focused Discussion:  Teachers give students an ending discussion task lasting four to five minutes.  The task requires students to summarize what they have learned from the lecture and integrate it into existing conceptual frameworks.  The task may also point students toward what the homework will cover or what will be presented in the next class session.  This provides closure to the lecture.

Informal cooperative learning ensures students are actively involved in understanding what is being presented.  It also provides time for teachers to move around the class listening to what students are saying.  Listening to student discussions can give instructors direction and insight into how well students understand the concepts and material being as well as increase the individual accountability of participating in the discussions.

Cooperative Base Groups

Cooperative base groups are long-term, heterogeneous cooperative learning groups with stable membership (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 2008).  Members’ primary responsibilities are to (a) ensure all members are making good academic progress (i.e., positive goal interdependence) (b) hold each other accountable for striving to learn (i.e., individual accountability), and (c) provide each other with support, encouragement, and assistance in completing assignments (i.e., promotive interaction).  In order to ensure the base groups function effectively, periodically teachers should teach needed social skills and have the groups process how effectively they are functioning.  Typically, cooperative base groups are heterogeneous in membership (especially in terms of achievement motivation and task orientation), meet regularly (for example, daily or biweekly), and last for the duration of the class (a semester or year) or preferably for several years.  The agenda of the base group can include academic support tasks (such as ensuring all members have completed their homework and understand it or editing each other’s essays), personal support tasks (such as getting to know each other and helping each other solve nonacademic problems), routine tasks (such as taking attendance), and assessment tasks (such as checking each other’s understanding of the answers to test questions when the test is first taken individually and then retaken in the base group).

The teacher’s role in using cooperative base groups is to (a) form heterogeneous groups of four (or three), (b) schedule a time when they will regularly meet (such as beginning and end of each class session or the beginning and end of each week), (c) create specific agendas with concrete tasks that provide a routine for base groups to follow when they meet, (d) ensure the five basic elements of effective cooperative groups are implemented, and (e) have students periodically process the effectiveness of their base groups.

The longer a cooperative group exists, the more caring their relationships will tend to be, the greater the social support they will provide for each other, the more committed they will be to each other’s success, and the more influence members will have over each other.  Permanent cooperative base groups provide the arena in which caring and committed relationships can be created that provide the social support needed to improve attendance, personalize the educational experience, increase achievement, and improve the quality of school life.

Integrated Use Of All Three Types Of Cooperative Learning

These three types of cooperative learning may be used together (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 2008).  A typical class session may begin with a base group meeting, which is followed by a short lecture in which informal cooperative learning is used.  The lecture is followed by a formal cooperative learning lesson.  Near the end of the class session another short lecture may be delivered with the use of informal cooperative learning.  The class ends with a base group meeting.

Basic Elements of Cooperation

Not all groups are cooperative (Johnson & F. Johnson, 2009).  Placing people in the same room, seating them together, telling them they are a group, does not mean they will cooperate effectively.  To be cooperative, to reach the full potential of the group, five essential elements need to be carefully structured into the situation:  positive interdependence, individual and group accountability, promotive interaction, appropriate use of social skills, and group processing (Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005).  Mastering the basic elements of cooperation allows teachers to:

1.  Take existing lessons, curricula, and courses and structure them cooperatively.

2.  Tailor cooperative learning lessons to unique instructional needs, circumstances, curricula, subject areas, and students.

3.  Diagnose the problems some students may have in working together and intervene to increase the effectiveness of the student learning groups.

The first and most important element is positive interdependence.  Teachers must give a clear task and a group goal so students believe they “sink or swim together.”  Positive interdependenceexists when group members perceive that they are linked with each other in a way that one cannot succeed unless everyone succeeds.  If one fails, all fail.  Group members realize, therefore, that each person’s efforts benefit not only him- or herself, but all other group members as well.  Positive interdependence creates a commitment to other people’s success as well as one’s own and is the heart of cooperative learning.  If there is no positive interdependence, there is no cooperation.

The second essential element of cooperative learning is individual and group accountability.  The group must be accountable for achieving its goals.  Each member must be accountable for contributing his or her share of the work (which ensures that no one “hitch-hikes” on the work of others).  The group has to be clear about its goals and be able to measure (a) its progress in achieving them and (b) the individual efforts of each of its members. Individual accountability exists when the performance of each individual student is assessed and the results are given back to the group and the individual in order to ascertain who needs more assistance, support, and encouragement in completing the assignment.  The purpose of cooperative learning groups is to make each member a stronger individual in his or her right.  Students learn together so that they can subsequently perform higher as individuals.

The third essential component of cooperative learning is promotive interaction, preferably face-to-face. Promotive interactionoccurs when members share resources and help, support, encourage, and praise each other’s efforts to learn.  Cooperative learning groups are both an academic support system (every student has someone who is committed to helping him or her learn) and a personal support system (every student has someone who is committed to him or her as a person).  There are important cognitive activities and interpersonal dynamics that can only occur when students promote each other’s learning.  This includes orally explaining how to solve problems, discussing the nature of the concepts being learned, teaching one’s knowledge to classmates, and connecting present with past learning.  It is through promoting each other’s learning face-to-face that members become personally committed to each other as well as to their mutual goals.

The fourth essential element of cooperative learning is teaching students the required interpersonal and small group skills.  In cooperative learning groups students are required to learn academic subject matter (taskwork) and also to learn the interpersonal and small group skills required to function as part of a group (teamwork).  Cooperative learning is inherently more complex than competitive or individualistic learning because students have to engage simultaneously in taskwork and teamwork.  Group members must know how to provide effective leadership, decision-making, trust-building, communication, and conflict-management, and be motivated to use the prerequisite skills.  Teachers have to teach teamwork skills just as purposefully and precisely as teachers do academic skills.  Since cooperation and conflict are inherently related, the procedures and skills for managing conflicts constructively are especially important for the long-term success of learning groups.  Procedures and strategies for teaching students social skills may be found in Johnson (2009) and Johnson and F. Johnson (2009).

The fifth essential component of cooperative learning is group processing.  Group processing exists when group members discuss how well they are achieving their goals and maintaining effective working relationships.  Groups need to describe what member actions are helpful and unhelpful and make decisions about what behaviors to continue or change.  Continuous improvement of the process of learning results from the careful analysis of how members are working together.

These five elements are essential to all cooperative systems, no matter what their size.  When international agreements are made and when international efforts to achieve mutual goals (such as environmental protection) occur, these five elements must be carefully implemented and maintained.

The Validating Research

Amount And Characteristics Of Research

The study of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic efforts is commonly recognized as one of the oldest fields of research in social psychology.  In the late 1800’s Triplett in the United States, Turner in England, and Mayer in Germany conducted a series of studies on the factors associated with competitive performance.  Since then over 750 studies have been conducted on the relative merits of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic efforts and the conditions under which each is appropriate.  This is one of the largest bodies of research within psychology and education.

An extensive literature search was conducted aimed at identifying all the available studies from published and nonpublished sources.  Seven-hundred-fifty-four studies contained enough data to compute an effect size (there are many studies from which an effect size could not be computed) (Johnson & Johnson, 1989).  The research on social interdependence, furthermore, has an external validity and a generalizability rarely found in the social sciences.  The more variations in places, people, and procedures the research can withstand and still yield the same findings, the more externally valid the conclusions.  The research has been conducted over twelve decades by many different researchers with markedly different theoretical and practical orientations working in different settings and countries.  A wide variety of research tasks, ways of structuring social interdependence, and measures of the dependent variables have been used.  Participants in the studies varied from ages three to post-college adults and have come from different economic classes and cultural backgrounds.  The studies were conducted with different durations, lasting from one session to 100 sessions or more.  Research on social interdependence has been conducted in numerous cultures in North America (with Caucasian, Black-American, Native-American, and Hispanic populations) and countries from North, Central, and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific Rim, and Africa.  The research on social interdependence includes both theoretical and demonstration studies conducted in educational, business, and social service organizations.  The diversity of these studies gives social interdependence theory wide generalizability and considerable external validity.

Promotive, oppositional, and no interaction have differential effects on the outcomes of the situation (see Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005).  The research has focused on numerous outcomes, which may be subsumed within the broad and interrelated categories of effort to achieve, quality of relationships, and psychological health (Johnson, 2003; Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005) (see Table 1 and Figure 2).  Figure 1 shows the relationships among the outcomes.

Table 1

Mean Effect Sizes For Impact Of Social Interdependence On Dependent Variables

ConditionsAchievementInterpersonal AttractionSocial SupportSelf-Esteem

Total Studies

Coop vs. Comp0.670.670.620.58

Coop vs. Ind0.640.600.700.44

Comp vs. Ind0.300.08-0.13-0.23

High Quality Studies

Coop vs. Comp0.880.820.830.67

Coop vs. Ind0.610.620.720.45

Comp vs. Ind0.070.27-0.13-0.25

Note:  Coop = Cooperation, Comp = Competition, Ind = Individualistic

Reprinted By Permission From:  Johnson, D. W. & Johnson, R. (1989).  Cooperation and Competition:  Theory and Research.Edina, MN:  Interaction Book Company

Effort To Achieve

From Table 1 it may be seen that cooperation promotes considerable greater effort to achieve than do competitive or individualistic efforts.  Effort exerted to achieve includes such variables as achievement and productivity, long-term retention, on-task behavior, use of higher-level reasoning strategies, generation of new ideas and solutions, transfer of what is learned within one situation to another, intrinsic motivation, achievement motivation, continuing motivation to learn, and positive attitudes toward learning and school.  Overall, cooperation tends to promote higher achievement than competitive or individualistic efforts (effect-sizes = 0.67 and 0.64 respectively).  The impact of cooperative learning on achievement means that if schools wish to prepare students to take proficiency tests to meet local and state standards, the use of cooperative learning should dominate instructional practice.

An important aspect of school life is engagement in learning.  One indication of engagement in learning is time on task.  Cooperators spent considerably more time on task than did competitors (effect size = 0.76) or students working individualistically (effect size = 1.17).  In addition, students working cooperatively tended to be more involved in activities and tasks, attach greater importance to success, and engage in more on-task behavior and less apathetic, off-task, disruptive behaviors.  Finally, cooperative experiences, compared with competitive and individualistic ones, have been found to promote more positive attitudes toward the task and the experience of working on the task (effect-sizes = 0.57 and 0.42 respectively).

Quality Of Relationships

Quality of relationships includes such variables as interpersonal attraction, liking, cohesion, esprit-de-corps, and social support.  The degree of emotional bonding that exists among students has a profound effect on students’ behavior.  The more positive the relationships among students and between students and faculty, the lower the absenteeism and dropout rates and the greater the commitment to group goals, feelings of personal responsibility to the group, willingness to take on difficult tasks, motivation and persistence in working toward goal achievement, satisfaction and morale, willingness to endure pain and frustration on behalf of the group, willingness to defend the group against external criticism or attack, willingness to listen to and be influenced by colleagues, commitment to each other’s professional growth and success, and productivity (Johnson & F. Johnson, 2009).

There are over 175 studies that have investigated the relative impact of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic efforts on quality of relationships and another 106 studies on social support (Johnson, 2003; Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005).  As Table 2 shows, cooperation generally promotes greater interpersonal attraction among individuals than does competitive or individualistic efforts (effect sizes = 0.67 and 0.60 respectively).  Cooperative experiences tend to promote greater social support than does competitive (effect-size = 0.62) or individualistic (effect-size = 0.70) efforts.  Stronger effects are found for peer support than for superior (teacher) support.  The high-quality studies tend to have even more powerful effects.

It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of these research results.  Friends are a developmental advantage (see Johnson, 2003; Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005).  There is a close association between antisocial behavior and rejection by the normal peer group.  Rejected children tend to be deficient in a number of social-cognitive skills, including peer group entry, perception of peer group norms, response to provocation, and interpretation of prosocial interactions.  Among children referred to child guidance clinics, 30 to 75 percent (depending on age) are reported by their parents to experience peer difficulties.  Moreover, children referred for psychological treatment have fewer friends and less contact with them than nonreferred children, their friendships are significantly less stable over time, and their understanding of the reciprocities and intimacies involved in friendships is less mature.  Peer group acceptance and friendships may be built through the extensive use of cooperative learning.

Psychological Health

Asley Montagu (1966) was fond of saying that with few exceptions the solitary animal in any species is an abnormal creature.  Similarly, Karen Horney (1937) stated that the neurotic individual is someone who is inappropriately competitive and, therefore, unable to cooperate with others.  Montagu and Horney recognized that the essence of psychological health is the ability to develop and maintain cooperative relationships.  More specifically, psychological health is the ability (cognitive capacities, motivational orientations, and social skills) to build, maintain, and appropriately modify interdependent relationships with others to succeed in achieving goals (Johnson, 2003; Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005).  People who are unable to do so often (a) become depressed, anxious, frustrated, and lonely, (b) tend to feel afraid, inadequate, helpless, hopeless, and isolated, and (c) rigidly cling to unproductive and ineffective ways of coping with adversity.

With our students and colleagues, we have conducted a series of studies relating cooperative, competitive, and individualistic efforts and attitudes to various indices of psychological health (see Johnson, 2003; Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2005).  The samples studied included middle-class junior-high students, middle-class high school seniors, high-school age juvenile prisoners, adult prisoners, Olympic ice-hockey players, adult step-couples, and business executives in China.  The diversity of the samples studied and the variety of measures of psychological health provide considerable generalizability of the results of the studies.  A strong relationship was found between cooperativeness and psychological health, a mixed picture was found with competitiveness and psychological health, and a strong relationship was found between an individualistic orientation and psychological pathology.

Finally, there is evidence that cooperation promotes more frequent use of higher level reasoning strategies than do competitive (effect size = 0.93) or individualistic (effect size = 0.97) efforts.  Similarly, cooperation tends to promote more accurate perspective taking than do competitive (effect size = 0.61) or individualistic (effect size = 0.44) efforts.  Thus, the more cooperative learning experiences students are involved in, the more mature their cognitive and moral decision making and the more they will tend to take other people’s perspectives in account when making decisions.

Conclusions and Summary

Teachers who wish to use cooperative learning should ideally base their classroom practices on theory validated by research.  The closer classroom practices are to validated theory, the more likely they will be effective.  When more directly practice is connected to theory, furthermore, the more likely practice will be refined, upgraded, and improved over the years.  There are, however, few classroom practices that are directly based on validated theory.  The close relationship between theory, research, and practice makes cooperative learning somewhat unique.  It also creates a set of issues for teachers using cooperative learning.

The first issue is understanding the nature of social interdependence.  Social interdependence is created when goals are structured so that the accomplishment of a person’s goal is affected by others’ actions.  The interdependence may be positive (which results in individuals working cooperatively to achieve their mutual goals) or negative (which results in individuals competing to see who will achieve the goal).  The absence of interdependence indicates no connection between people’s attempts to achieve their goals.  In cooperative situations, students’ actions substitute for each other, students are inducible, and a positive cathexis is created toward other’s actions.  In competitive situations, the opposite psychological processes may be found.  The fundamental premise of social interdependence theory is that the way in which goals are structured determines how individuals interact, and those interaction patterns create outcomes.  Positive goal interdependence tends to result in promotive interaction, negative goal interdependence tends to result in oppositional interaction, and no interdependence tends to result in no interaction.

The second issue is understanding the research validating social interdependence theory.  There are hundreds of studies indicating that cooperation, compared to competitive and individualistic efforts, tends to result in greater effort to achieve, more positive relationships, and greater psychological health.  The diversity of this research provides considerable generalizabiity to the findings.

The third issue is to understand the five basic elements that make cooperation work.  There is nothing magical about putting students in groups.  Students can compete with groupmates, students can work individualistically while ignoring groupmates, or students can work cooperatively with groupmates.  In order to structure cooperative learning effectively, teachers need to understand how tostructure positive interdependence, individual accountability, promotive interaction, appropriate use of social skills, and group processing into learning situations.

The fourth issue is to understand the flexibility and many faces of cooperative learning.  When the five basic elements may be effectively implemented in formal cooperative learning situations (formal cooperative learning may be used to structure most learning situations), informal cooperative learning situations (informal cooperative learning may be used to make didactic lessons cooperative), and cooperative base groups (which are used to personalize a class and the school).  Together they provide an integrated system for instructional organization and design (as well as classroom management).  When utilizing these three types of cooperative learning, any learning situations in any subject area with any age students and with any curriculum can be structured cooperatively.

6 DIFFERENT TYPES OF ESL LEARNERS AND HOW TO TEACH THEM

Adapt your lessons to cater for the different learning styles of your students

When we are teaching English to kids, as teachers we need to be aware of the differences in learning styles of our students so that we can incorporate all of these learning styles into our lessons.  Being able to identify which types of learners our students are will help us to make sure they don’t get left out of learning effectively.

Below are the 6 different learner types and details on different activities to suit their learning styles.

Visual Learners

Visual learners learn best by looking. The enjoy reading (and often prefer to see the words they are learning) and seeing pictures.

Visual learners respond well to:

• information on the whiteboard
• flashcards
• colorful pictures
• videos
• story books with pictures
• computer graphics
• maps (e.g. treasure maps)
• charts
• cartoons
• posters
• board games
• worksheets
• puzzles

When teaching kids, we can ensure our visual learners are well catered for by having lots of visuals and a wide variety of things to look at.  If you can, fill your classroom with colorful, attractive posters.  Make use of flashcards (we have lots on our website) and pictures when teaching new vocab.  Use readers with lots of colorful illustrations.  If you have the resources, use video and computer graphics.  Whenever you are planning your lesson, think how you can visually stimulate your learners.

Auditory Learners

Auditory learners learn best by listening. They work well with spoken instructions and learn quickly by listening to stories and songs. They will not need to see written words to learn.

Auditory learners respond well to:

• songs
• listening to stories
• poems and riddles
• verbal instructions and explanations
• listening activities
• participating in oral activities

As audio learners tune in to sounds, try and provide as many opportunities to have sound and noise added to your lesson.  Songs are an obvious source and encourage your learners to listen and sing along.  If you can find a song which fits your lesson theme or target vocab, all the better – we have a growing selection of theme based ESL songs on our website. Using stories in lessons is something all kids love.  There are lots of readers available, but you can also make up your own stories to fit in with your lesson (also try to add pictures for your visual learners).

Always think how sounds can be added to lessons, such as teach animal noises along with animal vocab, sounds of cars, airplanes, trains, etc. when teaching transportation, and so on.  You’ll be surprised at the amount of sounds you can teach!  Concentrate on pronunciation of sounds as well, from the letters of the alphabet to words and sentences – your audio learners will really pick up on this if you provide the opportunity. Also, do listening exercises which require students to listen to your instructions in order to complete a task (see our section on Top 10 listening activities without a CD).

Always allow for oral communication during activities – set up pair or groups work together where your students have to talk and listen to each other to complete the tasks.

Tactile Learners

Tactile learners learn physically by touching and manipulating objects.

Tactile learners respond well to:

• drawing
• songs with gestures
• playing board games
• making models (e.g. with play doh or lego)
• craft activities
• feeling in the bag activities
• following instructions to make things

Tactile learners need to feel and touch – without this they won’t internalize new vocab / structures as easily.  Let them touch and feel everything!  When using flashcards, always pass them around (you’ll see the tactile learners really come to life at this point). Have lots of objects available to teach new vocab (cars, plastic fruit, animal toys, blocks, colored paper, etc.) so when you teach new words you can let your students touch and play with the objects.

Use puppets for role playing structures and let your students touch, cuddle, tickle and even use the puppet themselves. Also, try setting up feeling type activities – place an object in a bag and have students feel and guess what it is, use blindfolds and have students feel things or find their way around the classroom.

Let your tactile learners express themselves by drawing and making things.  Have them draw a scene with new vocab that they have just learned, or build and make things with lego or play doh. Crafts are also a great way to teach and reinforce new vocab.

Kinesthetic Learners

Kinesthetic learners learn physically by moving around.

Kinesthetic learners respond well to:

• songs with gestures
• playing games in which they need to use their whole body (e.g. Charades)
• doing exercise type activities which require running and jumping
• movement activities
• making models  (e.g. with play doh or lego)
• craft activities
• following instructions to make something
• setting up experiments

Kinesthetic kids always want to be on the go.  Just sitting and watching/listening won’t keep them interested for long. Have lots of gestures to use with songs and let them act out new vocab (e.g. teach “horse” and let your students run around like a horse, teach “eat breakfast” and have them pretending to eat cereal and toast, etc.).

Set lots of action activities which lets them express themselves with movement (see our Top 10 Flashcard Exciting Games & Activities). Include craft and model making activities (your tactile learners will also thank you for this) and always encourage your students to experiment actively when learning new things – if a student wants to roll around on the floor like a ball when you are teaching the word ball, let him.

Analytic Learners

Analytic learners focus on the details of language, such as grammar rules, and enjoy taking apart words and sentences.

Analytic learners respond well to:

• well-structured and clear lessons
• information and instructions given in steps
• clearly stated goals and objectives of tasks
• activities which require thought, such as matching exercises, puzzles, missing letters, etc.

Your analytic learners will enjoy activities and tasks where they need to think and work on the specifics of the language.  Play games like concentration with flashcards when learning new vocab, do worksheets with matching and word scramble activities.  Play games on the whiteboard where student have to guess the missing letters of a word (hangman is a great choice).  Give out alphabet letter blocks and have your students put the letters in alphabetical order and make words. When giving instructions, always take care to be clear and give step-by-step details.

For even very young learners they are a lot of things you can do which require some analytical thought: put colored fruit and colored paper around the room and ask your students to match the fruit with their colors (red paper with red apple, etc.); put objects of different sizes and tell students to put large objects in one box and small objects in another (or soft / hard, heavy / light, etc.).  Most activities can have a thoughtful element.

Global Learners

Global learners focus on the whole picture and do not care so much about specific details. They do not want to get bored with slow moving lessons and enjoy interesting and attractive materials.

Global learners respond well to:

• games
• group activities
• story writing
• lots of action based activities
• computer games
• talking without being interrupted for correction

Make sure to include lots of fun games and activities for your global learners where the language learning objective is not so forced or obvious. Let them play with the objects or write stories simply for the fun of doing them (although they are still learning they won’t realize it). Get them working in pairs or groups to complete tasks and let them move around the class as they do their activity.

Global learners tend not to like being interrupted when doing their activity (why would they? It stops them doing what they are trying to do!) so correcting can be done at the end of the task or you could chat to the students during the task asking questions which are based on checking their understanding of the main teaching point.

Conclusion

You may have read the above and thought “How on earth do I include all of these different learning styles in all of my teaching points and activities?”.  Yes, there are a lot of different styles and many contradict each other – Analytic and Global learners, for instance, are at opposite ends of the spectrum. The key is to include different styles at different points of the lesson.

For example, when you teach some new words use flashcards and get all of the kids to listen to you and say the words clearly with associated noises (for the Visual and Auditory learners), then have the students run around acting out the words (for the Kinesthetic learners), next do a feel in the bag activity to guess the objects and then have your students do a drawing activity (for the Tactile learners), after that have your students in teams make models of the objects with play doh with a prize for the best team (for the Global learners) and finally have a worksheet activity where students need do matching or guessing activities (for the Analytic learners – be sure to clearly explain how to do the task).

You don’t have to include all learning styles for each teaching point, but try to include a variety of styles throughout the lesson so all of your students get catered for at some point.

Finally, if you are able to identify the type of learners you have in your class you can adapt your lesson on the spot if you see some are having trouble understanding or losing interest.  For example, if a student is looking puzzled at your big / small presentation, have him or her stand up big or curl up small, make a big play-doh ball and small ball, color in a worksheet with big and small objects, etc.

Having a wide variety of styles included in your lesson will really help your students understand, internalize and enjoy your lessons.

Second-language acquisition

Second-language acquisition (SLA), second-language learning, or L2 (language 2) acquisition, is the process by which people learn a second language. Second-language acquisition is also the scientific discipline devoted to studying that process. The field of second-language acquisition is a subdiscipline of applied linguistics, but also receives research attention from a variety of other disciplines, such as psychology and education.

A central theme in SLA research is that of interlanguage, the idea that the language that learners use is not simply the result of differences between the languages that they already know and the language that they are learning, but that it is a complete language system in its own right, with its own systematic rules. This interlanguage gradually develops as learners are exposed to the targeted language. The order in which learners acquire features of their new language stays remarkably constant, even for learners with different native languages, and regardless of whether they have had language instruction. However, languages that learners already know can have a significant influence on the process of learning a new one. This influence is known as language transfer.

The primary factor driving SLA appears to be the language input that learners receive. Learners become more advanced the longer they are immersed in the language they are learning, and the more time they spend doing free voluntary reading. The input hypothesis developed by linguist Stephen Krashen makes a distinction between language acquisition and language learning (acquisition–learning distinction),^[1] claiming that acquisition is a subconscious process, whereas learning is a conscious one. According to this hypothesis, the acquisition process in L2 (Language 2) is the same as L1 (Language 1) acquisition. The learning process is consciously learning and inputting the language being learned.^[2]However, this goes as far as to state that input is all that is required for acquisition. Subsequent work, such as the interaction hypothesis and the comprehensible output hypothesis, has suggested that opportunities for output and for interaction may also be necessary for learners to reach more advanced levels.

Research on how exactly learners acquire a new language spans a number of different areas. Focus is directed toward providing proof of whether basic linguistic skills are innate (nature), acquired (nurture), or a combination of the two attributes. Cognitive approaches to SLA research deal with the processes in the brain that underpin language acquisition, for example how paying attention to language affects the ability to learn it, or how language acquisition is related to short-term and long-term memory. Sociocultural approaches reject the notion that SLA is a purely psychological phenomenon, and attempt to explain it in a social context. Some key social factors that influence SLA are the level of immersion, connection to the L2 community, and gender. Linguistic approaches consider language separately from other kinds of knowledge, and attempt to use findings from the wider study of linguistics to explain SLA. There is also a considerable body of research about how SLA can be affected by individual factors such as age and learning strategies. A commonly discussed topic regarding age in SLA is the critical period hypothesis, which suggests that individuals lose the ability to fully learn a language after a particular age in childhood. Another topic of interest in SLA is the differences between adult and child learners. Learning strategies are commonly categorized as learning or communicative strategies, and are developed to improve their respective acquisition skills. Affective factors are emotional factors that influence an individual's ability to learn a new language. Common affective factors that influence acquisition are anxiety, personality, social attitudes, and motivation.

Individuals may also lose a language through a process called second-language attrition. This is often caused by lack of use or exposure to a language over time. The severity of attrition depends on a variety of factors including level of proficiency, age, social factors, and motivation at the time of acquisition. Finally, classroom research deals with the effect that language instruction has on acquisition.

Contents

• 1Definitions
• 2Research background
• 3Stages
• 4Comparisons with first-language acquisition
• 5Learner language
  • 5.1Interlanguage
  • 5.2Sequences of acquisition
  • 5.3Variability
• 6Language transfer
• 7Input and interaction
• 8Cognitive factors
• 9Sociocultural factors
  • 9.1Sociocultural approaches
• 10Linguistic factors
• 11Individual variation
  • 11.1Age
  • 11.2Strategies
  • 11.3Affective factors
• 12Attrition
• 13Classroom second-language acquisition
• 14See also
• 15Notes
• 16References
• 17Bibliography

Definitions[edit]

Second language refers to any language learned in addition to a person's first language; although the concept is named second-language acquisition, it can also incorporate the learning of third, fourth, or subsequent languages.^[3] Second-language acquisition refers to what learners do; it does not refer to practices in language teaching, although teaching can affect acquisition. The term acquisition was originally used to emphasize the non-conscious nature of the learning process,^{[note 1]} but in recent years learning and acquisitionhave become largely synonymous.

SLA can incorporate heritage language learning,^[4] but it does not usually incorporate bilingualism. Most SLA researchers see bilingualism as being the end result of learning a language, not the process itself, and see the term as referring to native-like fluency. Writers in fields such as education and psychology, however, often use bilingualism loosely to refer to all forms of multilingualism.^[5] SLA is also not to be contrasted with the acquisition of a foreign language; rather, the learning of second languages and the learning of foreign languages involve the same fundamental processes in different situations.^[6]

Research background[edit]

The academic discipline of second-language acquisition is a subdiscipline of applied linguistics. It is broad-based and relatively new. As well as the various branches of linguistics, second-language acquisition is also closely related to psychology, cognitive psychology, and education. To separate the academic discipline from the learning process itself, the terms second-language acquisition research, second-language studies, and second-language acquisition studies are also used.

SLA research began as an interdisciplinary field, and because of this it is difficult to identify a precise starting date.^[7] However, two papers in particular are seen as instrumental to the development of the modern study of SLA: Pit Corder's 1967 essay The Significance of Learners' Errors, and Larry Selinker's 1972 article Interlanguage.^[8] The field saw a great deal of development in the following decades.^[7] Since the 1980s, SLA has been studied from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, and theoretical perspectives. In the early 2000s, some research suggested an equivalence between the acquisition of human languages and that of computer languages (e.g. Java) by children in the 5 to 11 year age window, though this has not been widely accepted among educators.^[9] Significant approaches in the field today are: systemic functional linguistics, sociocultural theory, cognitive linguistics, Noam Chomsky's universal grammar, skill acquisition theory and connectionism.^[8]

There has been much debate about exactly how language is learned, and many issues are still unresolved. There are many theories of second-language acquisition, but none are accepted as a complete explanation by all SLA researchers. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the field of SLA, this is not expected to happen in the foreseeable future. Although attempts have been made to provide a more unified account that tries to bridge first language acquisition and second language learning research. ^[10]

Stages[edit]

Stephen Krashen divides the process of second-language acquisition into five stages: preproduction, early production, speech emergence, intermediate fluency, and advanced fluency.^[11][12] The first stage, preproduction, is also known as the silent period. Learners at this stage have a receptive vocabulary of up to 500 words, but they do not yet speak their second language.^[12] Not all learners go through a silent period. Some learners start speaking straight away, although their output may consist of imitation rather than creative language use. Others may be required to speak from the start as part of a language course. For learners that do go through a silent period, it may last around three to six months.^[13]

The second of Krashen's stages of acquisition is early production, during which learners are able to speak in short phrases of one or two words. They can also memorize chunks of language, although they may make mistakes when using them. Learners typically have both an active and receptive vocabulary of around 1000 words. This stage normally lasts for around six months.^[12]

The third stage is speech emergence. Learners' vocabularies increase to around 3000 words during this stage, and they can communicate using simple questions and phrases. They may often make grammatical errors.

The fourth stage is intermediate fluency. At this stage, learners have a vocabulary of around 6000 words, and can use more complicated sentence structures. They are also able to share their thoughts and opinions. Learners may make frequent errors with more complicated sentence structures.

The final stage is advanced fluency, which is typically reached somewhere between five and ten years of learning the language. Learners at this stage can function at a level close to native speakers.^[12]

Krashen has also developed a number of hypotheses discussing the nature of second language learners' thought processes and the development of self-awareness during second language acquisition. The most prominent of these hypotheses are Monitor Theory and the Affective Filter hypothesis ^[14].

The time taken to reach a high level of proficiency can vary depending on the language learned. In the case of native English speakers, some estimates were provided by the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the U.S. Department of State, which compiled approximate learning expectations for a number of languages for their professional staff (native English speakers who generally already know other languages). Of the 63 languages analyzed, the five most difficult languages to reach proficiency in speaking and reading, requiring 88 weeks (2200 class hours), are Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean. The Foreign Service Institute and the National Virtual Translation Center both note that Japanese is typically more difficult to learn than other languages in this group.^[15]

Comparisons with first-language acquisition[edit]

Adults who learn a second language differ from children learning their first language in at least three ways: children are still developing their brains whereas adults have mature minds, and adults have at least a first language that orients their thinking and speaking. Although some adult second-language learners reach very high levels of proficiency, pronunciation tends to be non-native. This lack of native pronunciation in adult learners is explained by the critical period hypothesis. When a learner's speech plateaus, it is known as fossilization.

Some errors that second-language learners make in their speech originate in their first language. For example, Spanish speakers learning English may say "Is raining" rather than "It is raining", leaving out the subject of the sentence. This kind of influence of the first language on the second is known as negative language transfer. French speakers learning English, however, do not usually make the same mistake of leaving out "it" in "It is raining." This is because pronominal and impersonal sentence subjects can be omitted (or as in this case, are not used in the first place) in Spanish but not in French.^[16] The French speaker knowing to use a pronominal sentence subject when speaking English is an example of positive language transfer. It is important to note that not all errors occur in the same ways; even two individuals with the same native language learning the same second language still have the potential to utilize different parts of their native language. Likewise, these same two individuals may develop near-native fluency in different forms of grammar.^[17]

Also, when people learn a second language, the way they speak their first language changes in subtle ways. These changes can be with any aspect of language, from pronunciation and syntax to the gestures the learner makes and the language features they tend to notice.^[18] For example, French speakers who spoke English as a second language pronounced the /t/ sound in French differently from monolingual French speakers.^[19] This kind of change in pronunciation has been found even at the onset of second-language acquisition; for example, English speakers pronounced the English /p t k/ sounds, as well as English vowels, differently after they began to learn Korean.^[20] These effects of the second language on the first led Vivian Cook to propose the idea of multi-competence, which sees the different languages a person speaks not as separate systems, but as related systems in their mind.^[21]

Learner language[edit]

Learner language is the written or spoken language produced by a learner. It is also the main type of data used in second-language acquisition research.^[22] Much research in second-language acquisition is concerned with the internal representations of a language in the mind of the learner, and in how those representations change over time. It is not yet possible to inspect these representations directly with brain scans or similar techniques, so SLA researchers are forced to make inferences about these rules from learners' speech or writing.^[23]

Interlanguage[edit]

Main article: Interlanguage

Originally, attempts to describe learner language were based on comparing different languages and on analyzing learners' errors. However, these approaches weren't able to predict all the errors that learners made when in the process of learning a second language. For example, Serbo-Croat speakers learning English may say "What does Pat doing now?", although this is not a valid sentence in either language.^[24]

To explain this kind of systematic error, the idea of the interlanguage was developed.^[25] An interlanguage is an emerging language system in the mind of a second-language learner. A learner's interlanguage is not a deficient version of the language being learned filled with random errors, nor is it a language purely based on errors introduced from the learner's first language. Rather, it is a language in its own right, with its own systematic rules.^[26] It is possible to view most aspects of language from an interlanguage perspective, including grammar, phonology, lexicon, and pragmatics.

There are three different processes that influence the creation of interlanguages:^[24]

• Language transfer. Learners fall back on their mother tongue to help create their language system. Transfer can be positive, i.e. promote learning, or negative, i.e. lead to mistakes. In the latter case, linguists also use the term interference error.
• Overgeneralization. Learners use rules from the second language in roughly the same way that children overgeneralise in their first language. For example, a learner may say "I goed home", overgeneralizing the English rule of adding -ed to create past tense verb forms. English children also produce forms like goed, sticked, bringed. German children equally overextend regular past tense forms to irregular forms.
• Simplification. Learners use a highly simplified form of language, similar to speech by children or in pidgins. This may be related to linguistic universals.

The concept of interlanguage has become very widespread in SLA research, and is often a basic assumption made by researchers.^[26]

Sequences of acquisition[edit]

1.	Plural -s	Girls go.
2.	Progressive -ing	Girls going.
3.	Copula forms of be	Girls are here.
4.	Auxiliary forms of be	Girls are going.
5.	Definite and indefinite articles the and a	The girls go.
6.	Irregular past tense	The girls went.
7.	Third person -s	The girl goes.
8.	Possessive 's	The girl's book.
A typical order of acquisition for English, according to Vivian Cook's 2008 book Second Language Learning and Language Teaching.[27]

Main article: Order of acquisition

In the 1970s, several studies investigated the order in which learners acquired different grammatical structures.^{[note 2]}These studies showed that there was little change in this order among learners with different first languages. Furthermore, it showed that the order was the same for adults and children, and that it did not even change if the learner had language lessons. This supported the idea that there were factors other than language transfer involved in learning second languages, and was a strong confirmation of the concept of interlanguage.

However, the studies did not find that the orders were exactly the same. Although there were remarkable similarities in the order in which all learners learned second-language grammar, there were still some differences among individuals and among learners with different first languages. It is also difficult to tell when exactly a grammatical structure has been learned, as learners may use structures correctly in some situations but not in others. Thus it is more accurate to speak of sequences of acquisition, in which specific grammatical features in a language are acquired before or after certain others but the overall order of acquisition is less rigid. For example, if neither feature B nor feature D can be acquired until feature A has been acquired and if feature C cannot be acquired until feature B has been acquired but if the acquisition of feature D does not require the possession of feature B (or, therefore, of feature C), then both acquisition order (A, B, C, D) and acquisition order (A, D, B, C) are possible.

Variability[edit]

Although second-language acquisition proceeds in discrete sequences, it does not progress from one step of a sequence to the next in an orderly fashion. There can be considerable variability in features of learners' interlanguage while progressing from one stage to the next.^[28] For example, in one study by Rod Ellis a learner used both "No look my card" and "Don't look my card" while playing a game of bingo.^[29] A small fraction of variation in interlanguage is free variation, when the learner uses two forms interchangeably. However, most variation is systemic variation, variation that depends on the context of utterances the learner makes.^[28] Forms can vary depending on linguistic context, such as whether the subject of a sentence is a pronoun or a noun; they can vary depending on social context, such as using formal expressions with superiors and informal expressions with friends; and also, they can vary depending on psycholinguistic context, or in other words, on whether learners have the chance to plan what they are going to say.^[28] The causes of variability are a matter of great debate among SLA researchers.^[29]

Language transfer[edit]

Main article: Language transfer

One important difference between first-language acquisition and second-language acquisition is that the process of second-language acquisition is influenced by languages that the learner already knows. This influence is known as language transfer.^{[note 3]} Language transfer is a complex phenomenon resulting from interaction between learners’ prior linguistic knowledge, the target-language input they encounter, and their cognitive processes.^[30] Language transfer is not always from the learner’s native language; it can also be from a second language, or a third.^[30] Neither is it limited to any particular domain of language; language transfer can occur in grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, discourse, and reading.^[31]

Language transfer often occurs when learners sense a similarity between a feature of a language they already know and a feature of the interlanguage they have developed. If this happens, the acquisition of more complicated language forms may be delayed in favor of simpler language forms that resemble those of the language the learner is familiar with.^[30]Learners may also decline to use some language forms at all if they are perceived as being too distant from their first language.^[30]

Language transfer has been the subject of several studies, and many aspects of it remain unexplained.^[30] Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain language transfer, but there is no single widely accepted explanation of why it occurs.^[32]

Input and interaction[edit]

The primary factor affecting language acquisition appears to be the input that the learner receives. Stephen Krashen took a very strong position on the importance of input, asserting that comprehensible input is all that is necessary for second-language acquisition.^[33][34] Krashen pointed to studies showing that the length of time a person stays in a foreign country is closely linked with his level of language acquisition. Further evidence for input comes from studies on reading: large amounts of free voluntary reading have a significant positive effect on learners' vocabulary, grammar, and writing.^[35][36] Input is also the mechanism by which people learn languages according to the universal grammar model.^[37]

The type of input may also be important. One tenet of Krashen's theory is that input should not be grammatically sequenced. He claims that such sequencing, as found in language classrooms where lessons involve practicing a "structure of the day", is not necessary, and may even be harmful.^[38]

While input is of vital importance, Krashen's assertion that only input matters in second-language acquisition has been contradicted by more recent research. For example, students enrolled in French-language immersion programs in Canada still produced non-native-like grammar when they spoke, even though they had years of meaning-focused lessons and their listening skills were statistically native-level.^[39] Output appears to play an important role, and among other things, can help provide learners with feedback, make them concentrate on the form of what they are saying, and help them to automatize their language knowledge.^[40] These processes have been codified in the theory of comprehensible output.^[41]

Researchers have also pointed to interaction in the second language as being important for acquisition. According to Long's interaction hypothesis the conditions for acquisition are especially good when interacting in the second language; specifically, conditions are good when a breakdown in communication occurs and learners must negotiate for meaning. The modifications to speech arising from interactions like this help make input more comprehensible, provide feedback to the learner, and push learners to modify their speech.^[42]

Cognitive factors[edit]

Much modern research in second-language acquisition has taken a cognitive approach.^[43] Cognitive research is concerned with the mental processes involved in language acquisition, and how they can explain the nature of learners' language knowledge. This area of research is based in the more general area of cognitive science, and uses many concepts and models used in more general cognitive theories of learning. As such, cognitive theories view second-language acquisition as a special case of more general learning mechanisms in the brain. This puts them in direct contrast with linguistic theories, which posit that language acquisition uses a unique process different from other types of learning.^[44][45]

The dominant model in cognitive approaches to second-language acquisition, and indeed in all second-language acquisition research, is the computational model.^[45] The computational model involves three stages. In the first stage, learners retain certain features of the language input in short-term memory. (This retained input is known as intake.) Then, learners convert some of this intake into second-language knowledge, which is stored in long-term memory. Finally, learners use this second-language knowledge to produce spoken output.^[46] Cognitive theories attempt to codify both the nature of the mental representations of intake and language knowledge, and the mental processes that underlie these stages.

In the early days of second-language acquisition research on interlanguage was seen as the basic representation of second-language knowledge; however, more recent research has taken a number of different approaches in characterizing the mental representation of language knowledge.^[47] There are theories that hypothesize that learner language is inherently variable,^[48] and there is the functionalist perspective that sees acquisition of language as intimately tied to the function it provides.^[49] Some researchers make the distinction between implicit and explicit language knowledge, and some between declarative and procedural language knowledge.^[50] There have also been approaches that argue for a dual-mode system in which some language knowledge is stored as rules, and other language knowledge as items.^[51]

The mental processes that underlie second-language acquisition can be broken down into micro-processes and macro-processes. Micro-processes include attention;^[52] working memory;^[53] integration and restructuring. Restructuring is the process by which learners change their interlanguage systems;^[54] and monitoring is the conscious attending of learners to their own language output.^[55] Macro-processes include the distinction between intentional learning and incidental learning; and also the distinction between explicit and implicit learning.^[56] Some of the notable cognitive theories of second-language acquisition include the nativization model, the multidimensional model and processability theory, emergentist models, the competition model, and skill-acquisition theories.^[57]

Other cognitive approaches have looked at learners' speech production, particularly learners' speech planning and communication strategies. Speech planning can have an effect on learners' spoken output, and research in this area has focused on how planning affects three aspects of speech: complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Of these three, planning effects on fluency has had the most research attention.^[58] Communication strategies are conscious strategies that learners employ to get around any instances of communication breakdown they may experience. Their effect on second-language acquisition is unclear, with some researchers claiming they help it, and others claiming the opposite.^[59]

Sociocultural factors[edit]

From the early days of the discipline researchers have also acknowledged that social aspects play an important role.^[60] There have been many different approaches to sociolinguistic study of second-language acquisition, and indeed, according to Rod Ellis, this plurality has meant that "sociolinguistic SLA is replete with a bewildering set of terms referring to the social aspects of L2 acquisition".^[61] Common to each of these approaches, however, is a rejection of language as a purely psychological phenomenon; instead, sociolinguistic research views the social context in which language is learned as essential for a proper understanding of the acquisition process.^[62]

Ellis identifies three types of social structure that affect acquisition of second languages: sociolinguistic setting, specific social factors, and situational factors.^[63] Sociolinguistic setting refers to the role of the second language in society, such as whether it is spoken by a majority or a minority of the population, whether its use is widespread or restricted to a few functional roles, or whether the society is predominantly bilingual or monolingual.^[64] Ellis also includes the distinction of whether the second language is learned in a natural or an educational setting.^[65] Specific social factors that can affect second-language acquisition include age, gender, social class, and ethnic identity, with ethnic identity being the one that has received most research attention.^[66] Situational factors are those that vary between each social interaction. For example, a learner may use more polite language when talking to someone of higher social status, but more informal language when talking with friends.^[67]

Immersion programs provide a sociolinguistic setting that facilitates second-language acquisition. Immersion programs are educational programs where children are instructed in an L2 language.^[68] Although the language of instruction is the L2 language, the curriculum parallels that of non-immersion programs and clear support exists in the L1 language, as the teachers are all bilingual. The goal of these programs is to develop a high level of proficiency in both the L1 and L2 languages. Students in immersion programs have been shown to have greater levels of proficiency in their second language than students who receive second language education only as a subject in school.^[68] This is especially true in terms of their receptive skills. Also, students who join immersion programs earlier generally have greater second-language proficiency than their peers who join later. However, students who join later have been shown to gain native-like proficiency. Although immersion students' receptive skills are especially strong, their productive skills may suffer if they spend the majority of their time listening to instruction only. Grammatical skills and the ability to have precise vocabulary are particular areas of struggle. It is argued that immersion is necessary, but not sufficient for the development of native-like proficiency in a second language.^[68] Opportunities to engage in sustained conversation, and assignments that encourage syntactical, as well as semantic development help develop the productive skills necessary for bilingual proficiency.^[68]

A learner's sense of connection to their in-group, as well as to the community of the target language emphasize the influence of the sociolinguistic setting, as well as social factors within the second-language acquisition process. Social Identity Theory argues that an important factor for second language acquisition is the learner's perceived identity in relation to the community of the language being learned, as well as how the community of the target language perceives the learner.^[69] Whether or not a learner feels a sense of connection to the community or culture of the target language helps determine their social distance from the target culture. A smaller social distance is likely to encourage learners to acquire the second language, as their investment in the learning process is greater. Conversely, a greater social distance discourages attempts to acquire the target language. However, negative views not only come from the learner, but the community of the target language might feel greater social distance to the learner, limiting the learner's ability to learn the language.^[69] Whether or not bilingualism is valued by the culture or community of the learner is an important indicator for the motivation to learn a language.^[70]

Gender, as a social factor, also influences SLA. Females have been found to have higher motivation and more positive attitudes than males for second-language acquisition. However, females are also more likely to present higher levels of anxiety, which may inhibit their ability to efficiently learn a new language.^[71]

There have been several models developed to explain social effects on language acquisition. Schumann's Acculturation Model proposes that learners' rate of development and ultimate level of language achievement is a function of the "social distance" and the "psychological distance" between learners and the second-language community. In Schumann's model the social factors are most important, but the degree to which learners are comfortable with learning the second language also plays a role.^[72] Another sociolinguistic model is Gardner's socio-educational model, which was designed to explain classroom language acquisition. Gardner's model focuses on the emotional aspects of SLA, arguing that positive motivation contributes to an individuals willingness to learn L2; furthermore, the goal of an individual to learn a L2 is based on the idea that the individual has a desire to be part of a culture, in other words, part of a (the targeted language) mono-linguistic community. Factors, such as integrativeness and attitudes towards the learning situation drive motivation. The outcome of positive motivation is not only linguistic, but non-linguistic, such that the learner has met the desired goal. Although there are many critics of Gardner's model, nonetheless many of these critics have been influenced by the merits that his model holds.^[73] [74] The inter-group model proposes "ethnolinguistic vitality" as a key construct for second-language acquisition.^[75] Language socialization is an approach with the premise that "linguistic and cultural knowledge are constructed through each other",^[76] and saw increased attention after the year 2000.^[77] Finally, Norton's theory of social identity is an attempt to codify the relationship between power, identity, and language acquisition.^[78]

Sociocultural approaches[edit]

A unique approach to SLA is Sociocultural theory. It was originally developed by Lev Vygotsky and his followers.^[79] Central to Vygotsky's theory is the concept of a zone of proximal development (ZPD). The ZPD notion states that social interaction with more advanced target language users allows one to learn language at a higher level than if they were to learn language independently.^[80] Sociocultural theory has a fundamentally different set of assumptions to approaches to second-language acquisition based on the computational model.^[81] Furthermore, although it is closely affiliated with other social approaches, it is a theory of mind and not of general social explanations of language acquisition. According to Ellis, "It is important to recognize... that this paradigm, despite the label 'sociocultural' does not seek to explain how learners acquire the cultural values of the L2 but rather how knowledge of an L2 is internalized through experiences of a sociocultural nature."^[81]

Linguistic factors[edit]

Linguistic approaches to explaining second-language acquisition spring from the wider study of linguistics. They differ from cognitive approaches and sociocultural approaches in that they consider language knowledge to be unique and distinct from any other type of knowledge.^[44][45] The linguistic research tradition in second-language acquisition has developed in relative isolation from the cognitive and sociocultural research traditions, and as of 2010 the influence from the wider field of linguistics was still strong.^[43] Two main strands of research can be identified in the linguistic tradition: approaches informed by universal grammar, and typological approaches.^[82]

Typological universals are principles that hold for all the world's languages. They are found empirically, by surveying different languages and deducing which aspects of them could be universal; these aspects are then checked against other languages to verify the findings. The interlanguages of second-language learners have been shown to obey typological universals, and some researchers have suggested that typological universals may constrain interlanguage development.^[83]

The theory of universal grammar was proposed by Noam Chomsky in the 1950s, and has enjoyed considerable popularity in the field of linguistics. It focuses on describing the linguistic competence of an individual. He believed that children not only acquire language by learning descriptive rules of grammar; he claimed that children creatively play and form words as they learn language, creating meaning of these words, as opposed to the mechanism of memorizing language.^[84] It consists of a set of principles, which are universal and constant, and a set of parameters, which can be set differently for different languages.^[85] The "universals" in universal grammar differ from typological universals in that they are a mental construct derived by researchers, whereas typological universals are readily verifiable by data from world languages.^[83] It is widely accepted among researchers in the universal grammar framework that all first-language learners have access to universal grammar; this is not the case for second-language learners, however, and much research in the context of second-language acquisition has focused on what level of access learners may have.^[85]

Universal grammar theory can account for some of the observations of SLA research. For example, L2-users often display knowledge about their L2 that they have not been exposed to.^[86] L2-users are often aware of ambiguous or ungrammatical L2 units that they have not learned from any external source, nor from their pre-existing L1 knowledge. This unsourced knowledge suggests the existence of a universal grammar.

Individual variation[edit]

Main article: Individual variation in second-language acquisition

There is considerable variation in the rate at which people learn second languages, and in the language level that they ultimately reach. Some learners learn quickly and reach a near-native level of competence, but others learn slowly and get stuck at relatively early stages of acquisition, despite living in the country where the language is spoken for several years. The reason for this disparity was first addressed with the study of language learning aptitude in the 1950s, and later with the good language learner studies in the 1970s. More recently research has focused on a number of different factors that affect individuals' language learning, in particular strategy use, social and societal influences, personality, motivation, and anxiety. The relationship between age and the ability to learn languages has also been a subject of long-standing debate.

Age[edit]

The issue of age was first addressed with the critical period hypothesis.^{[note 4]} The strict version of this hypothesis states that there is a cut-off age at about 12, after which learners lose the ability to fully learn a language. However, the exact age marking the end of the critical period is debated, and ranges from age 6 to 13, with many arguing that it is around the onset of puberty.^[69] This strict version has since been rejected for second-language acquisition, as some adult learners have been observed who reach native-like levels of pronunciation and general fluency. However, in general, adult learners of a second-language rarely achieve the native-like fluency that children display, despite often progressing faster in the initial stages. This has led to speculation that age is indirectly related to other, more central factors that affect language learning.

Children who acquire two languages from birth are called simultaneous bilinguals. In these cases, both languages are spoken to the children by their parents or caregivers and they grow up knowing the two languages. These children generally reach linguistic milestones at the same time as their monolingual peers.^[87] Children who do not learn two languages from infancy, but learn one language from birth, and another at some point during childhood, are referred to as sequential bilinguals. People often assume that a sequential bilingual's first language is their most proficient language, but this is not always the case. Over time and experience, a child's second language may become his or her strongest.^[87] This is especially likely to happen if a child's first language is a minority language spoken at home, and the child's second language is the majority language learned at school or in the community before the age of five. Proficiency for both simultaneous and sequential bilinguals is dependent upon the child's opportunities to engage in meaningful conversations in a variety of contexts.^[87]

Often simultaneous bilinguals are more proficient in their languages than sequential bilinguals. One argument for this is that simultaneous bilinguals develop more distinct representations of their languages, especially with regards to phonological and semantic levels of processing.^[88] This would cause learners to have more differentiation between the languages, leading them to be able to recognize the subtle differences between the languages that less proficient learners would struggle to recognize. Learning a language earlier in life would help develop these distinct representations of language, as the learner's first language would be less established. Conversely, learning a language later in life would lead to more similar semantic representations.^[88]

Although child learners more often acquire native-like proficiency, older child and adult learners often progress faster in the initial stages of learning.^[89] Older child and adult learners are quicker at acquiring the initial grammar knowledge than child learners, however, with enough time and exposure to the language, children surpass their older peers. Once surpassed, older learners often display clear language deficiencies compared to child learners. This has been attributed to having a solid grasp on the first language or mother tongue they were first immersed into. Having this cognitive ability already developed can aid the process of learning a second language since there is a better understanding of how language works.^[90] For this same reason interaction with family and further development of the first language is encouraged along with positive reinforcement. The exact language deficiencies that occur past a certain age are not unanimously agreed upon. Some believe that only pronunciation is affected, while others believe other abilities are affected as well. However, some differences that are generally agreed upon include older learners having a noticeable accent, a smaller vocabulary, and making several linguistic errors.

One explanation for this difference in proficiency between older learners and younger learners involves Universal Grammar. Universal Grammar is a debated theory that suggests that people have innate knowledge of universal linguistic principles that is present from birth.^[89] These principles guide children as they learn a language, but its parameters vary from language to language.^[91] The theory assumes that, while Universal Grammar remains into adulthood, the ability to reset the parameters set for each language is lost, making it more difficult to learn a new language proficiently.^[89] Since adults have an already established native language, the language acquisition process is much different for them, than young learners. The rules and principles that guide the use of the learners' native language plays a role in the way the second language is developed.^[91]

Some nonbiological explanations for second-language acquisition age differences include variations in social and psychological factors, such as motivation; the learner's linguistic environment; and the level of exposure. Even with less advantageous nonbiological influences, many child learners attain a greater level of proficiency than adult learners with more advantageous nonbiological influences.^[89]

Strategies[edit]

Considerable attention has been paid to the strategies learners use to learn a second language. Strategies have been found to be of critical importance, so much so that strategic competence has been suggested as a major component of communicative competence.^[92] Strategies are commonly divided into learning strategies and communicative strategies, although there are other ways of categorizing them. Learning strategies are techniques used to improve learning, such as mnemonics or using a dictionary. Communicative strategies are strategies a learner uses to convey meaning even when he or she doesn't have access to the correct form, such as using pro-forms like thing, or using non-verbal means such as gestures. If learning strategies and communicative strategies are used properly language acquisition is successful. Some points to keep in mind while learning an additional language are: providing information that is of interest to the student, offering opportunities for the student to share their knowledge and teaching appropriate techniques for the uses of the learning resources available.^[93]

Another strategy may include intentional ways to acquire or improve official their second language skills. Adult immigrants and/or second language learners seeking to acquire a second language can engage in different activities to receive and share knowledge as well improve their learning; some of these include:

• incidental or informal learning (media resources, family/friend interactions, work interactions)
• purposeful learning (self-study, taking language classes)
• pursuing formal education ^[94]

Affective factors[edit]

The learner's attitude to the learning process has also been identified as being critically important to second-language acquisition. Anxiety in language-learning situations has been almost unanimously shown to be detrimental to successful learning. Anxiety interferes with the mental processing of language because the demands of anxiety-related thoughts create competition for mental resources. This results in less available storage and energy for tasks required for language processing.^[95] Not only this, but anxiety is also usually accompanied by self-deprecating thoughts and fear of failure, which can be detrimental to an individual's ability to learn a new language.^[71] Learning a new language provides a unique situation that may even produce a specific type of anxiety, called language anxiety, that affects the quality of acquisition.^[96] Also, anxiety may be detrimental for SLA because it can influence a learner's ability to attend to, concentrate on, and encode language information.^[71] It may affect speed and accuracy of learning. Further, the apprehension created as a result of anxiety inhibits the learner's ability to retrieve and produce the correct information.

A related factor, personality, has also received attention. There has been discussion about the effects of extravert and introvert personalities. Extraverted qualities may help learners seek out opportunities and people to assist with L2 learning, whereas introverts may find it more difficult to seek out such opportunities for interaction.^[69] However, it has also been suggested that, while extraverts might experience greater fluency, introverts are likely to make fewer linguistic errors. Further, while extraversion might be beneficial through its encouragement of learning autonomously, it may also present challenges as learners may find reflective and time-management skills to be difficult.^[97] However, one study has found that there were no significant differences between extraverts and introverts on the way they achieve success in a second language.^[98]

Other personality factors, such as conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness influence self-regulation, which helps L2 learners engage, process meaning, and adapt their thoughts, feelings, and actions to benefit the acquisition process.^[97] SLA research has shown conscientiousness to be associated with time-management skills, metacognition, analytic learning, and persistence; agreeableness to effort; and openness to elaborative learning, intelligence, and metacognition. Both genetics and the learner's environment impact the personality of the learner, either facilitating or hindering an individual's ability to learn.

Social attitudes such as gender roles and community views toward language learning have also proven critical. Language learning can be severely hampered by cultural attitudes, with a frequently cited example being the difficulty of Navajo children in learning English^{[citation needed]}.

Also, the motivation of the individual learner is of vital importance to the success of language learning. Motivation is influenced by goal salience, valence, and self-efficacy.^[99] In this context, goal salience is the importance of the L2 learner's goal, as well as how often the goal is pursued; valence is the value the L2 learner places on SLA, determined by desire to learn and attitudes about learning the L2; and self-efficacy is the learner's own belief that he or she is capable of achieving the linguistic goal.^[99] Studies have consistently shown that intrinsic motivation, or a genuine interest in the language itself, is more effective over the long term than extrinsic motivation, as in learning a language for a reward such as high grades or praise. However, motivation is dynamic and, as a L2 learner's fluency develops, their extrinsic motivation may evolve to become more intrinsic.^[99] Learner motivation can develop through contact with the L2 community and culture, as learners often desire to communicate and identify with individuals in the L2 community. Further, a supportive learning environment facilitates motivation through the increase in self-confidence and autonomy.^[99] Learners in a supportive environment are more often willing to take on challenging tasks, thus encouraging L2 development.