Acquisition and Learning Views

            Perhaps because of my experiences or my own learning preferences, I lean toward the acquisition view, especially when learning a second language.  When trying to speak another language, I feel more successful when parts of the language become subconscious.  From my experience, acquisition view makes this more possible.  The learning view seems to have a tendency to train my brain to think in English first and then translate into the other language, using such activities as looking up definitions in the dictionary, worksheets, and conducting drills.  These activities teach valuable information about the language and its structure, but practiced in isolation seem to train my brain to activate the prior knowledge of my first language, not of the second language. From the acquisition view’s emphasis on a desire to communicate (making books on the topic, reading language experience stories, and shared reading of a big book,) the words in the second language have their own meaning and not a meaning tied to an English word. 

            Because of my preference for the acquisition view, I was less able to see all the possible uses of the learning view.  I was interested to hear other peoples’ perspectives.  I though that Brandy’s description of repetitive texts was particularly insightful.   As I look back on the list of activities and how many of them can pertain to both views, I think that acquisition versus learning is a false dichotomy, as is phonics versus whole language, and decodable texts versus authentic texts.  In education, we so often talk about the pendulum swinging from one to the other, roll our eyes and go with the flow.  The pendulum swing does our students a disservice.  They need both.  We, as educators, need both.  ELLs need both—the acquisition to practice using and communicating in the language, the learning to understand its structures.  Too much of education is controlled by politics, one the of the reasons for the pendulum swing, but I wish that we could drop the pendulum and start talking about refining.   By refining, I mean taking all the information, teaching methods, lesson ideas and use them all, when needed.  I think most educators do this already, but the debate continues.