Six Popular Beliefs on Language Learning with the Different Theories and Principles on Second Language Learning

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INTRODUCTION
Language learning is learning the language either for communication or for learners to achieve their studies.Some students struggle to learn the language but there are approaches, ways, and theories that help learners to obtain the target language.To define learning, learning is a process initiated by learners it is acquired y learners as Mori (1999) puts it, Print ISSN: 2054-6297(Print) Online ISSN: 2054-6300 (Online) Website: https://www.eajournals.org/Publication of the European Centre for Research Training and Development-UK 13 "The conceptualization of learning has drastically changed in the last two decades.In new theories of learning, learning is perceived as an active process initiated by learners rather than a passive process: Knowledge is not handed down by authority but acquired by learners on their own.There is no "right" way to acquire knowledge: It is a learners' job to determine how they should obtain necessary information and to evaluate the Effectiveness of their strategies.Because students have different thoughts about learning or reasons for their own actions, they approach challenging situations in a different way."(p.4)It is the learner's job to learn how to acquire the language.So, there are six common beliefs related to language learning.Each belief contains a different notion.Some theories and approaches help in learning the language.It permits the students to acquire the language and look at the process of learning differently.The approaches and theories guide learners in learning it show them how to learn the language properly.In addition, the approaches and the theories aid learners by providing some specific rules and principles for learning the language.language learning strategies is "... any sets of operations, steps, plans, routines used by the learner to facilitate the obtaining, storage, retrieval, and use of information."Wenden and Rubin (1987:19)

LITERATURE REVIEW
One of the beliefs in this article is imitation and there is a relevant study by Holley, and King (1971) that shows imitation is not a successful technique to use in language learning, especially for children.The study was conducted on children whose ages ranged between 22 to 34 months and the children were exposed to grammatical rules to follow.The results of the study showed that there was no progress in their grammar by using the technique of imitation.Other researchers like Jespersen (1922) "one thing which plays a great role in children's acquisition of language, and especially in their early attempts to form sentences, is Echoism: the fact that children echo what is said to them" p. 135 Jespersen claimed that imitation worked with children and that children could learn with imitating and repetition of words and sentences.
Another belief discussed is the significance of pronunciation and there are relevant studies Bakar, and Abdullah (2015) that mention the importance of pronunciation when teaching English.As the researchers claimed the "English lesson should also focus on the teaching of pronunciation and Correction is vital in learning pronunciation" p. 155.Other studies also agreed that working on proper pronunciation provides confidence to learners in oral communication (Bang, 1999) A study conducted on Malaysian ESL teachers Rajadurai (2001) showed that a high percentage of the trainees agreed that pronunciation is one of the most significant elements in teaching the English language.
Moreover, the article also discusses one of the beliefs that states that young learners are faster learners and some studies (Bruner, 1972Carey & Gelman, 1991;Gardner, 1991;Print ISSN: 2054-6297(Print) Online ISSN: 2054-6300 (Online) Website: https://www.eajournals.org/Publication of the European Centre for Research Training and Development-UK 14 & Brown, 1986;Wellman & Gelman, 1992 as cited in Bransford & Brown, 1999) agree that this could be because young learners are capable of learning quicker than adults and more competent and their minds function differently than elder learners.In addition, they are considered active agents more than elder learners.

Gelman
The final belief discussed in this paper is the importance of error correction.Some researchers agreed with correcting students' mistakes as soon as they have been noticed by their teachers.A relevant study Tursina (2016) that showed using direct correction works very well with students.Students' language skills improved when they received corrections on their work.Another relevant study Rahmawati (2017) also showed that when students received feedback and corrections on their work helped them to prosper and acquire the language.The statistics of the study showed high numbers in the mean in its results.This shows that students improve when being corrected directly.

The six beliefs of language learning
There are some common beliefs on how language could be learned.The first popular idea about languages, or language learning is that languages are learned mainly through imitation.Imitation is commonly defined as the word-for-word, repetition of a piece of all or part of someone else's utterance.For example, in the following conversation between a mother and her child, the mother says, shall we play with dolls?And Lucy replies, play with dolls.That would be an example of an imitation of what the mother said.Practice, on the other hand, refers to the repetitive manipulation of a forum, such as in the following example.Claire says 'it corrodes', and the other one replies 'corrodes'.Claire says 'They both eat carrots', and the other one replies 'Carrot'.She's repeating the same language structure to try and learn it.So indeed, there is language that is learned through imitation and practice.Jesperson (1922) stated, "One thing which plays a great role in children's acquisition of language, and especially in their early attempts to form sentences, is Echoism: the fact that children echo what is said to them" (p.135) Yamaoka mentioned (Celce-Murcia, 2001) claiming that "Repetition and imitation is one of the oldest methods used to teach an L2.Since 1631, repetition has been seen as the most effective way to learn an L2 for functional use; ever since then, the most successful methodologies in L2 teaching and learning have included repetition and imitation of words andsentences to a greater or lesser extent" (Yamaoka, 2006 p.2).
In particular, imitation can explain the learning of some regular and routine aspects of language.Imitation has explained some aspects of language learning.For example, routines such as Good morning, how are you?How are you doing good to see you today.These routines could aid language learners in learning because these phrases are repeated and utilized in daily life routines.The learned language could be counted as a source of input.Most of the learning in reality develops from extracting patterns from language, extracting patterns from the input.So, the learners are exposed to great amounts of input and they identify patterns, commonalities, and regularities in that input, and thus how they acquire language rather than by imitation.Imitation is a good way to learn the language in addition to repetition.When students do not repeat or imitate they will not be able to memorize and keep the knowledge on long term.They are required to understand and then memorize the obtained language or they will lose what they have learned.
The second common belief is that younger learners who start early in learning language will acquire it quicker than older learners.In other words, the younger the better.It depends on various things and one of the things is the context.It depends on the learning context in which the language is being learned.So, for example, if a language is learned in a naturalistic environment, that is when you learn the language because it's spoken in your home, younger learners come to do better than older learners.However, if we are learning the language in formal learning contexts, such as when a person learns a language as part of a school education, then young learners tend to do worse than their older counterparts.This is because older learners, like teenagers or adults, have more cognitive capacity than young learners.Therefore, they can learn faster in terms of rate than younger learners.One valid reason that children could be faster learners is because they won't get embarrassed speaking the new language as Cameron (2001) puts it, "Children often seem less embarrassed than adults at talking in a new language, and their lack of inhibition seems to help them get a more native-like accent" p.1 Older learners because they are more cognitive than younger learners.In addition, they can catch up with younger learners who start early in the language-learning process.When young learners have received great amounts of exposure to the language they can learn it swiftly.Language could be learned from a younger age or an older age and it differs on how each learner according to their age could acquire the learned language.As ÇAĞAÇ (2018) puts it, "One of the important factors today is to learn a language must be age factor.Firstly, most of the results of the research studies show us that there are many advantages to learn a language at an early age.A number of studies report that the children can acquire the language better than adults do." (p.132) Children from all over the world can learn any language as a second language when they are born in that specific country.As Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams (2003) put it "Any normal child, born anywhere in the world, of any racial, geographical, social, or economic heritage, is capable of learning any language to which he or she is exposed (p.27).When children are exposed to a language from an early age they can speak that language fluently.They hear it daily and that helps them in obtaining the words and the sound of language quicker than older learners.Learners should commence learning the language at a younger age rather than an older age because it helps them conceptualize and gain the required target language swiftly as it is innate through their knowledge quickly.
The third popular idea is that learners must be able to pronounce all the individual sounds in the language properly to speak the language appropriately.If language is not pronounced properly then it won't be understood through communication.As Prashant (2018) puts it, "The exact meaning of pronunciation is how word is pronounced.If we change in pronunciation, the meaning will be changed.Pronunciation is the production of sounds that we use to make meaning."(p.16).Some learners think that pronunciation is not that significant they think learning vocabulary and grammar is much more crucial than learning how to pronounce the words appropriately.When students speak like native speakers it will show that they are fluent in that language the quality of the pronunciation matters.In addition, pronouncing the language properly builds self-confidence as Prashant (2018) stated, "Good pronunciation skill can give you more self-confidence when you speak in front of many people.So, it has become more and more obvious that pronunciation cannot be underestimated.It must become one's priority while he/she is learning English."(p.17).Incorrect pronunciation could lead to a lot of misunderstandings and there are several reasons behind mispronunciations.One reason is students could have received the wrong pronunciation when they were taught.Receiving wrong pronunciations happens a lot when the teacher is unqualified and weak in the language.This happens a lot in some countries where public schools hire unqualified teachers to teach the language, therefore, students receive wrong pronunciations.Wrong pronunciations may lead to embarrassment; some learners may not want to speak in class due to their wrong pronunciations of the words they do not want to be embarrassed in class.This leads to a lack of self-confidence and causes language to disrupt the utterance may not be conveyed properly.
A fourth popular idea about language learning suggests that students must learn what they are taught.They have to figure out which way is the best for them to learn the language fluently.They have to reminisce about what they have learned in their language classes to reach fluency and proficiency.Students do not learn everything that they have been taught immediately they forget a lot of what they have been taught.Teaching is significant but remembering the information is a prerequisite as Klemm (2007) puts it, "I agree that the ultimate goal should be to teach people how to think, solve problemsand to create.Central to these capabilities, however, is the ability to remember things.The more one knows (remembers), the more intellectual competencies one has to draw upon for thinking, problem solving, and even creativity" p.61 Students have the cognitive capacity to learn and acquire what has been taught but they need to keep this knowledge they obtained.They could keep this knowledge in the long term through repetition or they won't remember everything and all the rich pieces of information they do not learn what they are taught immediately.students do not learn what they are taught immediately, but they do learn it through the proper amount of replication.And they also sometimes learn stuff that we don't teach them explicitly from incidental exposure to the language.Students do not always learn everything we teach, sometimes they learn things that we do not teach, just simply from being exposed to the language outside of the classroom or even in the classroom through music or some radio programs, blogs, or blogs that we present in the classroom.Overall, learning happens, but teachers need to understand it will not happen immediately after the lesson is delivered.Repetition is required for the students to learn because students may not remember what they took in class.if students lose what they have learned then there is no use in learning.The idea of learning is to keep a vast amount of knowledge in learners' long-term memory as long as they can.
The fifth belief is that the learners' errors should be corrected as soon as they are made to prevent the formation of bad habits.This belief, derived from this audio-lingual method, which suggested that language learning is a process of habit formation.Sidabutar (2021) defined the audio-lingual method by claiming, "Audio-Lingual Method in teaching speaking is more congruent with learning and talking teaching practices.It is more like the real and able to provide the correct response directly.The Audio-Lingual Method is like the direct method that is also an oral-based approach.However, it is very different in that rather than emphasizing vocabulary acquisition through exposure to its use in situations, the Audio-Lingual Method drills students in the use of grammatical sentence patterns.It also, unlike the Direct Method, has a strong theoretical base in linguistics and physiology."(p.57).
Therefore, learners' errors should be corrected as soon as they're made because teachers don't want them to become habits.Learners "learners notice the gaps in their knowledge through external or internal feedback (i.e.monitoring) and thus aim to fill these gaps."(Georgiadou,p.96).
When students are being corrected as quickly as they make a mistake they will learn from that mistake and further on they will avoid it.Correcting students' errors as soon as they make the mistake will create a supporting learning environment.In addition, it will eventually develop students' language skills.Development commences when learners learn and make mistakes when the mistakes are determined and explained clearly why it was wrong, learners will obtain that knowledge and development.Permitting students to make mistakes will make them critical thinkers.They will critically think of a better answer and a better sentence once they know that there are errors in their spoken language."Teachers can utilize student's mistakes as their teaching tools" (Ferdouse,2012 p.63) mistakes are used as tools to show learners where and how they were wrong.Pointing out the mistakes and showing them the exact errors will cultivate learners and make them better learners.Learners need to know where they went wrong it is essential to enlighten them as Zafar (2016) puts it, "The importance of error analysis lies in the fact that errors can be minimized only if they are identified.Categorizing and analyzing the errors can provide a further clarity to the student and the teacher as to which errors occur more frequently and why they occur."(p.698).If students are not corrected immediately they will sustain utilizing that erroneous mistake over and over again until it becomes a bad habit.
Finally, the last, the popular belief suggests that students can learn both language and academic content simultaneously in places where the subject matter is taught in their second language.This is also called content-based language learning or development.Learners learn the language by using the content displayed in the target language."Content-based English language development is effective not only because it develops academic language skills, but also because it may be more interesting to students than ESL classes.Content areas such as science, mathematics, and social studies present numerous topics related to a variety of personal interests, whereas ESL classes focus on language only" (Chamot, 1986 p.11).Learners when studying different academic contents are forced to read, write, speak, and conceptualize the target language.Hence, they can learn both language and academic content simultaneously.Integrating language and content is an excellent approach because it allows students to learn new knowledge through the target language.They will end up learning two different things at the same time this approach will make them better learners.This approach provides the opportunity for the learners to become academic and strong in the target language.Content makes learning motivating and interesting because learners are exposed to different materials they may even learn new vocabulary words when exposed to new subjects.Students may utilize the language to accomplish real purposes instead of just memorizing and learning.This approach could result in making students more independent and have selfconfidence.

Different theories of second language learning
There are theories that explain how people learn second languages.Some of these theories are more easily applicable to the second language classroom than others therefore they have been more popular in language teaching context.These theories have a strong influence on second language teaching.These are the linguistic theories of universal grammar, monetary theory, and the sociological or Sociocultural Theory of sociocultural second language acquisition.

Universal grammar theory
Universal Grammar Theory was put forward by Noam Chomsky.As Cook (2008, p.215) puts it, "The Universal Grammar (UG) model, in the version first proposed by Chomsky in the 1980s, bases its general claims about learning on the principles and parameters grammar" Chomsky is one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century and basically what this universal grammar theory claims is that children are born with an understanding of the way languages work.That is an understanding of the rules of language, or in other words, they consider language to be innate.Universal grammar theory claims that some linguistic features are all languages have in common and these common universal linguistic features are called principles.Some of these principles claim to be common languages or universal attributes of all languages.As a matter of fact, all languages have words that talk about, things such as nouns.Or all languages have a way of talking about actions such as verbs, and that all languages have some ways of talking Vol. 12, No.3, pp.12-24, 2024 Print ISSN: 2054-6297(Print) Online ISSN: 2054-6300 (Online) Website: https://www.eajournals.org/Publication of the European Centre for Research Training and Development-UK 19 about past and future actions.So, for a scholar's supporters of universal grammar, these would be some examples of the universal features that are common to all languages, or as they call it, Principles.this is universal grammar scholars claim that knowledge of these principles is inherent in the human mind this knowledge is innate.In other words, they claim that we are genetically programmed for language learning.some of these principles are already hardwired into our brains when we are born.
Universal Grammar Theory is directly connected to the cognitive code approach, which was also based on the idea that language is innate in humans and requires the acquisition of rules and grammar.So, the cognitive code approach is derived from this universal grammar theory.The universal grammar theory suggests that language is innate and that we have these common features.This theory also says that there are differential features in different language areas, features that are distinct in the various languages they call these distinct features parameters.Examples of parameters or differential features between languages are, word orders varied from language to language, or the use of affixes to create new works, which varies from morphologically complex languages such as Turkey's.Turkey adds multiple affixes to create new derivations of words.Whereas in English, this is far less common and is morphologically simpler.So, these would be examples of parameters or differential features between languages.Because the universal grammar theory considers language to be innate, they say that children simply need to be enough exposed to that particular language in order to find out how these parameters or differential futures behave in their language.These principles are universal features and that learners already have in mind when they are born.In addition, acquiring parameters or the difference of features of languages through exposure to that particular language.There is, according to universal grammar, children do not need to learn the principles in any language they meet because they're already built in their minds.
What they need to learn is the parameters.Principals are innate, but we need exposure to the target language in order to learn the parameters.As Cook (2008 p.215 puts it "The Universal Grammar model claims that these principles and parameters are built into the human mind.Children do not need to learn the locality principle because their minds automatically impose it on any language they meet, whether it is English, Chinese, or Arabic."What this universal grammar theory suggests is that teachers should focus on providing sufficient amounts of input to the students in order to trigger the learning acquisition of these parameters.In other words, second language teaching should focus on teaching only.While this universal grammar theory is as interesting as any other theory, it has limitations.First of the limitations is the analysis of the real language they teach nowadays has shown that there are things in the language that are not rule-based.For example, collocations, how we put two words together for no grammatical reason but basically because for natural use, people start using it that way with no linguistic explanation, it becomes a pattern in the language.Also, the universal grammar was criticized because originally it did not explain performance, and did not focus on how learners produced a language which is essential in the communicative language teaching approach.This has changed nowadays.They have added a performer's component.

Socio-cultural theory
Second language learning takes place within a society and has a function in this society that is a tool for thought in society.Second language learning usually takes place in social situations where people interact with each other, such as in the classroom or outside."One of the most influential models since the early 1990s has been sociocultural theory, which emphasizes the importance of interaction from a rather different perspective.This theory takes its starting point from the work of Lev Vygotsky" (Cook, 2008, p. 228).
So, the key idea underlying this socio-cultural and second language acquisition theory is that language is communication within social contexts.Therefore, there are social factors that affect language acquisition with abuse, there are aspects such as motivation, which is the attitude to learn a language and ability.How good student is learning languages?These aspects, these affective aspects, influence our second language learning.The second key idea underlying the sociocultural theory is that language learning is social mediation between the learner and someone else, and therefore, learning a second language learning is dependent on face-to-face interaction.children or second language learners learn within communities, not individually, because all forms of how human activities, such as communication, are mediated by other people's support, by the support and help from others.This is the idea of how well you can do something with the support from your teachers for their peers as supposed to, how well you can do the same thing on your own.So according to this sociocultural theory, we best learn languages with the support from others in a social environment and through social communication and mediation from others.Two key concepts explain language learning and are related to the sociocultural theory.

The Monitor Model Theory
This monitor model theory was proposed by Stephen Krashen in 1977 but became popular in the 1980's.This monitor model hypothesis involves five different hypotheses about how languages are learned.The first hypothesis is the acquisition versus learning.The second theory is the monitor hypothesis.The third hypothesis is the Natural order hypothesis, the fourth hypothesis is the comprehensible input hypothesis and finally, the fifth theory is the affective filter hypothesis.Introducing the first hypothesis which is acquisition, is based on the idea that second language learning L2 is similar to L1 learning and the value of this theory is that it emphasizes the key role that comprehension and input have in second language learning.To learn a language, they must be exposed to input.It's a combination of structure where students know and structure where the students don't know.Acquisition and learning are different you can achieve a second language in two ways either by Acquisition or by learning.Acquisition is picking up language automatically through meaningful communication this kind of learning means making a conscious effort to learn.
Acquisition leads to proper language learning.Learning on the other hand is like memorizing.As Bahrani (2011) p.281 puts it, "Language acquisition is a process similar to the way a child learns his first language.Language acquirers are not consciously aware of the grammatical rules of the language.On the contrary, language learning refers to the conscious knowledge of a second language, knowing the rules, being aware of them, and being able to talk about them." The second hypothesis is the monitor hypothesis it is when the learner is aware of the rules of the target language they monitor what they say to make sure that it complies with the rules of language."The Monitor Hypothesis explains the relationship between acquisition and learning, and defines the influence of one on the other.This hypothesis holds that formal learning has only one function which is as a monitor for the learner's output."As Bahrani (2011) p.281The third hypothesis is the natural order hypothesis which is developmental sequences and it is when grammar goes in sequence order."The Natural Order Hypothesis states that the acquisition of grammatical structures happens in a predictable order.Some grammatical structures tend to be acquired early, some late.This occurs regardless to the first language of a given learner, the age and conditions of exposure."Bahrani (2011) p.281The fourth hypothesis is the comprehensible input and it is when learners need to receive meaningful input."we acquire the language only when we understand language which contains structure that is 'a little beyond' our current level… A result of this hypothesis is that language learners should be given an initial 'silent period' during which they can build up acquired competence in the language before beginning to produce it."Bahrani (2011) p.282The fifth hypothesis is the affective filter, this is where learners with negative attitudes to language will influence learning, and the knowledge will not pass through.Learners with low self-esteem will inhibit acquisition as Bahrani (2011) p. 282 puts it, "Low motivation, low self-esteem, and debilitating anxiety can combine to 'raise' the affective filter and form a 'mental block' that prevents comprehensible input from being used for acquisition.In other words, a high affective filter inhibits acquisition, whereas a low affective filter promotes it."

Ellis Seven Principles in L2 Learning
All teachers have a particular teaching style.As teachers, we need to set the right conditions when teaching.Ellis (2005) created 12 principles but we will concentrate on 7 only.Ellis's principles "address the nature of L2 competence and the foci of instruction and are offered to language curricula developers and L2 teachers as a guide for a learning-centered pedagogy " Howard, and Millar (2009) p.36 The first concept is that learners need to develop both formal expressions and rule competence.For years language was based on teaching only grammar and a little vocabulary.Nowadays it is accepted that teaching formalic expressions is a key for language fluency.Formulaic expressions are fixed expressions that convey a particle message like; what's the time?I don't know; Can I have?I am sorry to hear that.Those are fixed expressions that convey a specific message.Grammar helps to convey a message which is conveyed by words.Rather than language being all in grammar it should have formalic expressions.So, language is a grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar.Grammar was considered the building block of learning then they learn the fixed expressions but here it is the opposite."Instruction needs to ensure that learners develop both a rich repertoire of formulaic expressions and a rule-based competence " Howard, and Millar (2009) p.36 The second concept is that learners need to focus predominantly on the meaning This principle states that language is the tool of communication rather than being the object of study.The focus was on teaching grammar and grammatical rules and practicing grammar.Nowadays meaning enables appropriate language learning."Instruction needs to ensure that learners focus predominantly on meaning " Howard, and Millar (2009) p.36.
The third concept states that learners should also focus on form.The form should be focused on, and form is noticing grammatical forms."Instruction needs to ensure that learners also focus on form " Howard, and Millar (2009) p.36 To convey the message, we must use form.Ex. use many examples and ask students to extract the grammatical rule or give the rule and allow students to do exercises or students could discover the rule.
The fourth concept states that instructions need to be considered.Learners follow the natural order same sequence acquisition.Stages to go through in order to learn you cannot skip them chronologically they should be studied."Instruction needs to be predominantly directed at developing implicit knowledge of the L2 while not neglecting explicit knowledge " Howard, and Millar (2009) p.36 The fifth concept declares that Successful instruction requires extensive L2 input (Monitor model) to learn the language, learners should be exposed to a great amount of language.If not, they will not successfully acquire language.The more exposure received the faster students will learn."Instruction needs to take into account learners' "built-in syllabus " Howard, and Millar (2009) p.36 The sixth concept claims that Successful instruction also requires opportunities for L2 output.Output is also essential same as the input.Students should use language all the time to learn it.It forces students to pay attention, it develops fluency and discourse skills.It makes the language more automatic."Successful instructed language learning requires extensive L2 input " Howard, and Millar (2009) p.36 The seventh concept is that Interaction in the L2 is central to developing L2 proficiency.This focuses on the interaction between speakers to help learners be fluent.Producing the language in output will make it more fluent.When interacting with other people learners will notice the gap in their language.This interaction gives a lot of scaffolding."Successful instructed language learning also requires opportunities for output " Howard, and Millar (2009) p.36

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the paper tried to present and elaborate on the significance of different theories utilized in language learning.It introduces the six popular beliefs of language learning and explains what each belief suggests.The paper exhibits that universal grammar learning is innate and is implemented inside the learner's brain, while the sociocultural approach elaborates on communication between learners to develop their learning skills.The monitor model theory explains how language is learned in addition the paper introduces five different hypotheses on language learning.One of the learning theories suggests that a second language could be learned either by acquisition or by learning.The learner should be aware of the rules when learning the language.In addition, self-esteem plays a significant role in learning, learners with low self-esteem may not learn properly.Language is acquired when understood but when it is not conceptualized properly then there will be difficulties in obtaining the language.Ellis's principles are significant and became successful for Instructed learning it left a great impact on L2 teaching.She not only explains the principles but also guides L2 teaching.
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