Downpour of blessings

I thought my luck has bid me goodbye with the closing of my year, 2012, the year of the Dragon in the Chinese calendar. But what happened today just proves that the good things that happened to me last year may just be a series of icings in my career's cake.

It was 3PM and my classmates in German 10 and I decided to leave CAL 503 (our room) since it seems that our professor in the subject will not be coming anymore. UP's rule is that students can leave the room if their teacher don't come within the first 30 minutes of a 1 and 1/2 hour class. I felt that her absence today is a blessing in disguise because I haven't read my share in the colloquium in my MA class.

I decided to buy a can of ice cold coffee in a store in front of the Faculty Center. When I went out, I saw my former professor, who is known for her extremely high standards in the teaching-learning process especially among graduate students of the University. She is one of those professors who seems hard to please which makes earning a good grade in her class a proof that you are worthy to be called a UP student. I am lucky to have earned exceptionally good marks in the two MA courses I took with her.

I greeted her and when I was about to turn my back, she called me to tell me a very important matter. She asked me if there's someone who approached me already. Her first sentence immediately made me nervous. I asked her what she means. And she replied with a motherly tone: "Dr. Muhi (?) asked me for a graduate student in the program to present a paper in a colloquium, and I recommended you..."

I didn't know how I should reply, but what went out my mouth was Thank you po!, although at the back of my mind, I was thinking of how I could say no because it will surely be another thing to think about.

She told me that this Dr. Muhi prefers a graduate student in the program who is in the thesis stage, but she said that she reasoned that I already have presented papers abroad, and that she thinks she knows that I know what I am doing. "Kaya kapag may lumapit sa'yo at nagtanong tungkol don, e ako ang may kasalanan..." (So if someone approaches you and asks you about it, it's my fault.).

My mouth let out: "Thank you po talaga Ma'am. It's an honor in my part", coupled with that distinct smile. She told me that she'll send the whole information to me as a personal message in Facebook when she receives word about the conference.

I continued walking toward the store, but the thought seemed to be processed by my brain only then. I became excited at first, then I realized that the audience would most likely be fellow academics/ graduate students of the University of the Philippines-Diliman. The thought of being watched and most likely being scrutinized by the premiere academic community in the country is unbearable. I thought that having the guts to face them may turn out to be fatal to my blossoming career.

But the problem is, it seems like I didn't have a choice in the first place. As always, I just looked at the bright side. I tried to console myself for my looming career death by telling myself that I should be happy since they recognize my potential as a researcher, and that they are confident in my capabilities to carry out research in my program that deserves attention from language scholars in the field.

Then I started to question my capabilities. I tried to reflect and for me, what I have done and what I have achieved so far is nothing compared to the achievements of many people I know, some of whom I idolize, which leaves me thinking that I am not worthy of being recommended at all at this stage.

However, if I would say no to such an unexpected offer, which my mind later on realizes to be a wonderful opportunity, I might crush the heart of that great professor who believes in me. I tried to believe that this professor of mine would't really vouch for me if I haven't proven myself to be worthy of that recommendation.

And so, I was left with thanking our merciful God in heaven for another career-lifting and confidence-building opportunity he sent from above. Then I prayed that I wont disappoint the people who believe in me.

Well, I guess I have to ready myself for yet another year full of downpour of blessings.

To God be all the Glory!

How to teach English in College

Despite the rigid efforts teachers in college exert in their attempts to curb the seemingly questionable high school English education they supposed to have received, it is certainly impossible to expect significant changes to happen overnight. And by overnight, I mean one semester.


Read more about my advice on Philippine Daily Inquirer published last February 27, 2012: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/152253/how-to-teach-english

In case you are curious about the article I commented in, you can read it here: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/148747/help-her-college-students-dont-know-their-grammar

ENG Studies: Language and Cognition in the Perspective of Chomsky and Piaget

Noam Chomsky

The perpetual search for truth of humans has largely opened several views on matters influencing, if not entirely affecting our day-to-day experiences, thus creating a rather extensive but not exhaustive list of propositions to explain certain phenomena. One of such phenomena which has relatively sparked the curiosity of theorists, mostly in the past century, dealt with the relationship between language and cognition. Several literatures of important scholars (Piaget, Vygotsky, Whorf, and Chomsky) provide the inquisitive community answers to the apparent bond between the two concepts at hand, opening a wider window for intelligent debates in the role that language and thought plays in child development. 

Jean Piaget

However, the debate between Jean Piaget, a Swiss biologist and scholar, and Noam Chomsky, an American linguist and political critic, is, in general sense, worth examining given the fact that their debate has been “compared more and more frequently” (Piatelli-Palmarini, 1982: xiv) in the scholarly sphere. Their works about language and cognition have immensely influenced many other fields particularly and more importantly the pedagogy, which perhaps instigated historically notable paradigm shifts.

A radical constructivist, Jean Piaget has earlier offered his own explanation of the relationship between the two through his rigidly reviewed theory on child development which is dubbed as “cognitive determinism” (Owens, 1996: 131). Piaget believes that intellectual development is a direct continuation of inborn biological attributes which undergoes four stages1 as the child grows old.

Language development, which he considers part of intellectual development is therefore not independent and may generally be regarded as an offshoot of the child’s ability to represent reality as he continues to cultivate those inborn attributes through organization and adaptation. In other words, cognition is responsible for language development (see Fig.1) because as Piaget puts it, “…in the first place, adults convey different modes of thought by means of speech… [and] his language serves only to assert,… state objective facts [which] are closely bound up with cognition” (Piaget, 1959: 1).

Fig. 1. Language is both based on and determined by thought. (cognitive determinism) 

   

On the other hand, Noam Chomsky strongly dismissed the point raised by Piaget about cognition being a catalyst in the acquisition and development of language. Considered a leading figure in the cognitive revolution in the 1950s and 1960s, Chomsky (1968), who is an innatist, espoused the notion that “the child acquires language… at a time when he is not capable of complex intellectual achievements in many other domains” (p. 66). In this sense, the language of the child is not necessarily bound up with cognition, but is in fact, independent of it.

For Chomsky, human language, aside from being species-specific, is innate and not just borne out of the need to express thought as Piaget proposes. He considers the “language organ,” which is embedded within the broader architecture of the mind/brain2, responsible for the innate ability of the child to use language to convey thoughts. As an organ, compared to vital systems such as circulatory system, visual system, and immune system among others, it harnesses its full potentials through growth, predetermined by an initial state and equally complemented by the growth of other organs. This means that as a child grows, his language organ grows together with the increasing complexity of thought and his other body organs. Interaction, therefore, of these systems is a necessary requirement to carry out tasks such as expression of ideas. This interaction is explained more precisely by Chomsky (2000) in the following example which highlights the important role of language in generating expressions in the phonological level:

“The sensorimotor systems, for example, have to be able to read the instructions having to do with sound, that is the ‘phonetic representations’ generated by the language. The articulatory and perceptual apparatus have specific design that enables them to interpret certain phonetic properties, not others. These systems… must provide expressions with the proper phonetic form” (p.9).

In this case, production of language and thought are two separately maturing human abilities which are, in certain extents, interdependent with one another as well as with other body organs (see Fig. 2).
.

Fig. 2. Language and thought are independent but related abilities

While both agree on the concept of a non-empty, genetically-determined initial state (fixed nucleus), followed by an intermediate state, and later on by a stable state of certain features of the human brain, which is developed through learning “in an external environment characterized by problems” (Cellerier in Piatelli-Palmarini, 1982: 68), the disagreement lies in the question how much is innate and how much is acquired.

In Chomsky’s point of view, humans are born with abstract concepts of language universals such as a system of rules and structures which we use to express thought in a grammatical and comprehensible manner. Since we are born with these, “knowledge of language is normally attained through ‘brief’ exposure…” (Chomsky, 1968: ix). He regards this intrinsic knowledge of language as linguistic competence, which is manifested through linguistic performance. Thus, language is a nature of man, which doesn’t necessarily require formal training and exposure.

Chomsky also points out that one would expect that human language should directly reflect the characteristics of human intellectual capacities, that language should be a direct “mirror of the mind.” In essence, language nurtures cognition in the onset of child development.

Contrary to this assumption, Piaget believes that man’s “fixed nucleus” or his practical intelligence should be organized and coordinated, adapting to the demands of the environment in which a person dwells. However, in order to accomplish this, a more formal knowledge of structure and “problem space” is required. The formal knowledge spells a general sense of coordination among processes such as mental and motor compositions. This, therefore, proposes the need to nurture the cognitive faculty, which covers the linguistic ability of man in order to coordinately perform tasks to successfully pass through the stages of development.

These conflicting points were instrumental to the academe’s radical adoption of approaches in teaching language. Chomskyan linguistics, for one, has a dramatic impact on the Cognitive Approach in language teaching. As a response to the inadequacies posed by the behaviourist features of the earlier predominant approach (i.e.-audiolingualism), the cognitive approach views language learning as rule acquisition, not habit formation. In addition, the approach doesn’t give much attention to the teaching of grammar, but if needed, it should be taught deductively (i.e. – rule first, practice later) (Celce-Murcia, 2006). Chomsky’s theory therefore, led to the removal of explicit grammar knowledge in the teaching of language since the child is believed to possess the innate capacity to learn the rules of the language even without explicit instruction.

Meanwhile, Piaget’s position on cognitive development profoundly influenced, not just language teaching but the entire academe as a whole. As a forerunner of the Theory of Constructivism in Learning, he proposed that in order for the child to harness his full cognitive potentials, “teachers as instructional managers should ensure that the learning environment should be rich in physical (concrete) experiences because growth in any one stage depends upon activity” (Simatwa, 2010: 370). Following these principles, constant exposure to the target language, in terms of language teaching can be regarded as a major requirement for language development. This means that teachers should expose children to realistic situations by allowing them to “play” in their environment.

These significant theorists and their theoretical innovations, as proven in the preceding paragraphs, have indeed carved their own space in the rich history of man’s search for truth and meaning. Because of their debate in the concept of language and cognition, more light was shed in this previously obscured domain of human knowledge.


_________________________

1. Jean Piaget theorized that the child from birth undergoes four stages of development – sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational and formal operational stage.

2. Chomsky recognizes the fact the faculty of language, being a very recent revolutionary development, is “biologically isolated in crucial respects” (Chomsky, 2000). He hopes that Biolinguistic inquiry would some day give the slash “/” in mind and brain substantive content in the future.



References

Beilin, H. (1975). Studies in the cognitive basis of language development. USA: Academic Press.

Celce-Murcia, M. (2006). “Language teaching approaches: An overview.” In Celce-Murcia, M (Ed.), Teaching of English as a second or foreign language, 3rd Ed. Singapore: Heinle & Heinle.

Chomsky, N. (1968). Language and mind. USA: Harcourt Brace Javanovich.

Chomsky, N. (2000). New horizons in the study of language and mind. UK: Cambridge University Press.

Owens, R.E. (1996). Language development: An introduction. USA: Allyn & Bacon.

Piaget, J. (1959/2002). The language and thought of the child. UK: Routledge.

Piatelli-Palmarini, M. (1982). Language and learning: The debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky. UK: Routledge.

Philip, J. (2001). Psycholinguistics: Influences on Language Pedagogy. Date retrieved: November 30, 2011 from http://golum.riv.csu.edu.au/~srelf/SOTE/EML504/Chomsky.htm.

Simatwa, E. (2010, July). “Piaget’s theory of intellectual development and its implication for instructional management at pre-secondary school level.” Educational Research and Reviews. Date retrieved: November 30, 2011 from http://www.academicjournals.org/err/PDF/Pdf%202010/July/Simatwa.pdf.






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