An Experiment in Teaching a Second Language

Abstract

We are indebted to Father E. P. Dineen, Head ofthe German Dept. at Georgetown University, for making the experimental test possible.3 ) A first version of the German program was written by Irene Jones und er the supervision of C B. Ferster. M. I. Rocha e Silva was responsible for a radical revision, extension of the content and scope of the program, and the empirical trial at Georgetown University. C B. Ferster was responsible for the functional analysis of verbal behavior and its extension to the program construction. Brought to you by | University of California Authenticated Download Date | 6/9/15 11:48 PM IRAL, VOL. IV/2, JUNE 1966 ren textlichen oder graphischen Antworten zu wählen. Folgt er diesem Programm, handelt er insofern als Hörer und Leser. Dennoch ist es das Ziel des Programms, den Schüler zum Sprechen und Schreiben zu bringen. Es geht darum, die Hypothese zu beweisen, daß es für den Schüler genüge, eine Fremdsprache gut verstehen und lesen zu können, urn imstande zu sein, sie schon einigermaßen zu sprechen und zu schreiben. Man hat sich nicht bemüht, die Artikulations-oder Intonationsfehler zu korrigieren, sondern vertraute auf die wachsende Hörfähigkeit des Schülers, um seine Aussprache zu verbessern. Eine andere Eigentümlichkeit dieses weitgehend autodidaktischen Programms: nach jeder Lektion und am Ende des Gesamtprogramms unterzog sich der Schüler einer Examinierung durch den Lehrer, der nicht nur eine kurze Probe vornahm, sondern das gesamte Repertoire des vom Schüler zum fraglichen Zeitpunkt erworbenen Wissens kontrollierte. Acht Freiwillige, Studenten von 17 bis 19 Jahren, haben bei dem Programm mitgearbeitet, welches, je nach dem, 14 bis 18 Stunden Arbeit umfaßte. Das Ergebnis hat: -die Ausgangshypothese bestätigt, -die Unzulänglichkeit des Programms als einziges Unterrichtsmittel bewiesen, -verschiedene Studien-und Anwendungsrichtlinien erbracht.Ffgurel. A photograph of the teaching machine used for the matching-to sample procedure.Brought to you by |

Effects on Spelling of Training Children to Read

“…With speaking and instruction-following, this collateral instatement of new skills has not convincingly been shown in children learning grammatical skills in their first language (Lee, 1981). But it has been shown in adults learning second-language skills (Rocha e Silva & Ferster, 1966). The question raised by such collateral instatement of new skills is how subjects get from one repertoire to the other when there is no physical basis for response induction.…”

“…This discussion suggested that chained practice of spelling let the present subjects get from reading to spelling. Perhaps chained practice in getting from listening to speaking accounted for the collateral instatement of speaking in adults (Rocha e Silva & Ferster, 1966). If so, then the possibility exists of teaching this skill of "translating" between the two repertoires to children who have yet to learn it, so that they can "self-control" their acquisition of grammatical skills in one repertoire collateral to training in the other.…”

Learning a foreign language: Effects of tact and listener instruction on the emergence of bidirectional intraverbals

“…Several behavior-analytic studies have evaluated the efficacy of different procedures to teach rudiments of a second language to typically developing children (e.g., Cao & Greer, 2019;Davidson & O'Connor, 2019;Dounavi, 2011;May, Downs, Marchant, & Dymond, 2016;Petursdottir & Haflidadóttir, 2009;Petursdottir, Ólafsdóttir, & Aradóttir, 2008;Rosales, Rehfeldt, & Huffman, 2012;Rosales, Rehfeldt, & Lovett, 2011) and adults (e.g. Dounavi, 2013;Rocha e Silva & Ferster, 1966). Some of these studies investigated the extent to which learners (children or adults) may derive novel intraverbals when other relations are reinforced (cf., Dounavi, 2011;Petursdottir & Haflidadóttir, 2009;Petursdottir, Ólafsdóttir et al, 2008).…”

A Systematic Review of Emergent Learning Outcomes Produced by Foreign language Tact Training

“…This literature applies emergent learning practices and verbal operants to foreign vocabulary training (Daly & Dounavi, 2020 ). The languages taught include Native American (Haegele et al, 2011 ), Japanese (Petursdottir et al, 2014 ), French (Daly & Dounavi, 2020 ; Polson et al, 1997 ; Polson & Parsons, 2000 ), German (Rocha e Silva & Ferster, 1966 ), Spanish (Joyce & Joyce, 1993 ; Matter et al, 2020 ; Petursdottir et al, 2008 ; Ramirez et al, 2009 ), Italian (Petursdottir & Hafliđadóttir, 2009 ), Chinese (Wu et al, 2019 ), Welsh (May et al, 2016 , 2019 ), and English (Cortez et al, 2020 , 2021 ; Dounavi, 2011 , 2014 ; Rosales et al, 2011 , 2012 ). This literature’s defining feature is its focus on emergent learning as a critical outcome of effective foreign language instruction.…”

“…Instead, the instructor expects untrained operants to emerge following a carefully selected subset of learning content (Critchfield, 2018 ; Dixon & Stanley, 2020 ). Studies in this field have implemented training procedures involving a range of verbal operants, including listener behavior (e.g., Rocha e Silva & Ferster, 1966 ), echoics (e.g., Petursdottir et al, 2014 ), mands (e.g., Wu et al, 2019 ), native-to-foreign intraverbals (NFI; e.g., Petursdottir & Hafliđadóttir, 2009 ), foreign-to-native intraverbals (FNI; e.g., Polson & Parsons, 2000 ), and tacts (e.g., Petursdottir et al, 2008 ) and tested for the emergence of untrained verbal operants.…”