by Patricia L. Jones

Created on: December 11, 2008   Last Updated: September 09, 2010

The frustrations, which haunt many instructors and research peers in the field of second language acquisition, are often shared in the similar field of composition (Lightbown, 2006) Both of these closely related, yet vastly differing, fields are riddled with historic misconceptions about both the learners and the pedagogy, conflicting advice and theories from "field experts," and counter intuitive leaps in logic by all parties involved. As we have seen in our text, many theories and schools have developed in order to break down the barriers constructed by apprehension and misguided, if well meaning, acts.

The undoing of such pre existing damage, and subsequent endeavor to build on the foundation of prior experience, shares a significant amount of dialogue with modern trauma theory, as approached by Cathy Caruth (Caruth, 1996) and the American Psychological Association. I am particularly interested in these areas as both a researcher and an instructor, as I come to the table with some exposure to the theories. Before taking up composition, and later the study of TESOL, I earned my undergraduate minor in psychology with an emphasis in cognitive behaviorism. However, on reading the multiple approaches and the summary from the second section of Lightbown (Lightbown, 2006), I am thoroughly convinced I come to the table with some outdated notions as well. The realization simply leads me back to an old conclusion: every instructor must remain a student.

Given my pedagogical stance on the necessity of multiple approaches to language and learning, I find the cognitive and developmental psychological theory to be well constructed and crucial to an understanding of some ways in which a classroom approach to second language acquisition can be made more successful. The recognition of the amount of time and cognitive energy required to process, and then learn, new information about a second language is important. New advances in understanding linguistic patterns and devices are helping us to use technology more efficiently, and as a way to help speed up the process of second language acquisition.(Lightbown, 2006)However, it is important to keep in mind speed is not the final goal. The student is likely to become frustrated and self-effacing if he or she is lead to believe that they are a slow' learner.

These frustrations can be avoided by using a few techniques that seem to be shared by several schools of theory in TESOL, as well as Composition and even Psychology. Don't

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>