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Language acquisition is of the central topics in cognitive science. Every theory of cognition has tried to explain it. Probably no other topic has aroused such controversy. Possessing a language is the essentially human trait: all normal humans speak, no nonhuman animal does. ( Language Acquisition ) Noam Chomsky argues that children are born with a unique kind of knowledge which fits them for learning. This knowledge is embodied in a mechanism called the Language Acquisition Device or LAD. He believes that without notion such a device it is impossible to understand how children master their native language in such a short time in spite of the highly abstract nature of the rules. According to Chomsky, it would be impossible for a child to learn the abstract system of a language from such degenerate data unless he had some prior knowledge about the general character of natural languages. He argues that since children must be equipped to learn any language as a native language, ...

Current theories of second language acquisition are based on years of research in a wide variety of fields including linguistics, psychology, sociology and neurolinguistics. The length of time each student spends at a particular stage may vary greatly. These stages are most often identified as: Stage I The silent/ Receptive or Preproduction Stage: This stage can last from 10 hours to six months. Students often have up to 500 ‘receptive’ words and can understand new words that are made comprehensive to them. Stage II The Early Production Stage: The early production stage can last an additional six months after the initial stage. Students have usually developed close to 1,000 receptive/ active words. During this stage, students can usually speak in one or two words. Stage III The Speech Emergence Stage: This stage can last up to another year. Students have usually developed approximately 3,000 words and can use short phrases and simple sentences to communicate. Stage I...

The best test may give unreliable and invalid results if it is not well administered. Improper administration can cause entire groups to perform at less than their maximum effectiveness and thus invalidate inter group comparisons. The administrators, therefore, will have to bear in mind a set of points when administering a test. Even though most of the points will be very obvious, some of them can be forgotten without a list of this kind to refer to. The key to successful test administration is careful advance preparation. In particular, attention should be given to the followings: Materials and equipments: 1.      Organise the printing of test booklets and answer sheets in plenty of time. Check that there are no errors or any faulty preparation. 2.      If previously used booklets are to be employed, check that there are no marks left by candidates. 3.      Number all the materials; this permits gr...

Test techniques simply are means of eliciting behaviour from candidates which will tell us about their language abilities. According to Hughes (2003) what we need are techniques which-  1)     “will elicit behaviour which is a reliable and valid indicator of the ability in which we are interested; 2)     will elicit behaviour which can be reliably scored; 3)     are as economical of time and effort as possible; 4)     will have a beneficial backwash effect”. Two important test techniques- multiple choice and cloze test- are discussed below with their advantages and disadvantages. 1) Multiple choice Multiple-choice items take many forms but their basic structure is as follows: There is a stem. Anwar has been there ……….. half an hour. (A) during        (B) for       (C) while       (D) si...

The term ‘syllabus’ and ‘curriculum’ are basically connected with education and teaching learning activities. There are, however, several conflicting views on just what it is that distinguishes ‘Syllabus Design’ from ‘Curriculum Development’. In defining syllabus, two types of approaches are involved- broad and narrow. The narrow view draws a clear distinction between syllabus design and methodology. The broad view argues with the advent of communicative language teaching. Now we will discuss the relationship between ‘syllabus’ and ‘curriculum’ in the light of the following three types of attitudes that many linguists and researchers hold:              I.      They are distinct and separate.           II.      They are synonymous.        III.      They are interrelated...

Structural syllabus, also known as the grammatical syllabus, is the most common and traditional syllabus type. It has been in use by language teachers for many years. It is a product oriented, content based syllabus in that the focus is on knowledge and skills which learners should gain as a result of instruction, not on how they can attain them. Synthetic approach to syllabus designing is essential to produce such a syllabus. Most grammatical syllabus seems to be that language consists of a finite set of rules and these rules can be learned one by one in an additive fashion. Content: Structural / grammatical syllabus generally consists of two components: (i) a list of linguistic structures and (ii) a list of words Selection and gradation / sequencing: Syllabus input is graded according to grammatical notions of simplicity and complexity. Selection and sequencing of vocabulary in a structural syllabus are done with the help of the criteria mentioned by Michael West (1953)...

Dictation is one of the oldest language teaching activities. It is perhaps for the reason that it has been recently neglected by the teachers, claiming that it is “too teacher centered, uncommunicative, boring and old fashioned”.   Dictation is a decoding-recording activity. It is the act or process of dictating material to another for transcription. Oller (1979) defines it as a “psychologically real system that sequentially orders linguistic elements in time and it relates to extra linguistic context in meaningful ways”. “The passage intended for dictation has to be broken down into stretches that will be spoken without a break. These should be fairly long, beyond rote memory so that the candidates can decode, store and then re-decode what they hear”. Then the stretches are read out, not too slowly, one after the other with enough time for the candidates to write down they have heard. Three elements are involved in dictation: (a) Filter, (b) Organizer and (c) Monitor. ...