Lingustics, Education, Psychology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Lingustics, Education, Psychology - Essay Example In fact, it can be said that child starts learning right from the womb where they have been acutely active listeners where they learned to recognize the speech patterns, tunes and tones of the languages especially of the mother and other people in the home (The National Literacy Trust, 2007). Though most children begin to vocalize and gradually verbalize at different ages and at different rates, the first language acquisition generally happens without much conscious instruction from parents or caretakers. The complexity and difficulty increases with increase in age (Wikipedia, 2007). In education and psychology, learning theories aid in understanding the process of learning which is also applicable to language development. There are basically three main perspectives in learning theories, constructivism, cognitivism and behaviorism. Constructivism views learning as a process in which the learner actively constructs or builds new ideas or concepts based upon current and past knowledge. In other words, "learning involves constructing one's own knowledge from one's own experiences". Constructivist learning, is, therefore, a very personal effort, whereby internalized concepts, rules, and general principles may reasonably be applied in a practical real-world context. Behaviourism is another educational theory based on the works of B. F. Skinner and Ivan Pavlov. According to the behaviorists believe, organisms need reinforcements to keep them interested and that the use of stimuli can be very effective in controlling behavior.