ENGL 116- PRELIMS ANSWER

Noam Chomsky's Language Acquisition Device (LAD) has led into an entirely new approach in the field of linguistics: generative phonology and transformational grammar. What is the focus of this new approach?

• It focuses almost entirely on the abstract “deep structure‟ of an individual’s native language.

• It focuses on the device itself and how it is used in teaching.

• It focuses on how the individual acquires and learns a language.

• It focuses on language teaching and not on language learning.

They view language as being divided into various components interacting with each other and then forming the rules of the language.

• Structuralists

• Transformationalists

• Functionalists

• Interactionalists

How do cognitivists such as Chomsky perceive the commission of error by learners?

• Errors are indicators of failure to learn; thus should be right away eliminated.

• Errors foster wrong speech habits and should be stamped out by repeated drills and exercises.

• Errors are welcome in that they indicate what has been learned and what needs yet to be learned.

• Contrastive analysis before language teaching minimizes error occurrence.

Interactionists describe language development as:

• a combination of environmental experiences and biological influence

• a system of arbitrary language formation which involves communication

• a human to human interaction among native speakers of a language

• a complex system of communication which involves human interaction

Which of these is an illustration of Pavlov’s classical conditioning?

• A mother who only allows her son to play Mobile Legends after finishing his homework.

• A grade-schooler who replies immediately to anyone who greets him or her in school.

• A baby who babbles eventually trying to combine or create new words and sounds.

• A teacher who disciplines her students by deducting points whenever they submit their requirements late.

Which teaching activities would be most appropriate if the objective of teaching speaking is the improvement of fluency?

I. Delivering speeches, group discussions, negotiations and debates, interviews and meetings, etc.

II. Working on specific vowels, troublesome consonants, exercises on sounds not present in the first language, etc.

III. Working on reductions e.g. want to - wanna, word stress, intonation patterns, etc.

• I only

• I and II

• I, II, III

• II and III

Which of the following is NOT a salient contribution of the nativist framework to the understanding of first language acquisition?

• The emphasis on empirical observation and the scientific method to explain the miracle of language acquisition

• The systematic description of the child's linguistic repertoire as either rule-governed or operating out of parallel distributed processing capacities

• The construction of a number of potential properties of Universal Grammar

• The freedom from the restrictions of the so-called “scientific method” to explore the unseen, unobservable, underlying, abstract linguistic structures being developed in the child

Which of the following is NOT a fact that some of the precepts of the Innatist approach should be refined?

• There is an undeniable effect in language learning coming from the social environment since infants grow up biologically in a social environment from which they cannot be divorced.

• The use and influence of imitations and reinforcements cannot totally be denied or disregarded by saying that they destroy or relegate the possible creativity in language learning.

• Analogizing and generalizations are not entirely the application of rules and transformations, but are productions and reinforcements and can only be sophisticated by repetitions.

• Language is not a verbal behavior that involves innovation, the formation of new sentences, and new patterns in accordance with rules of great abstractness and intricacy.

Language teachers have generally been most concerned with the types of learner characteristics. Which of these factors refer to learning strategies, study skills, and beliefs about language learning?

• Affective factors

• Cognitive factors

• Psychomotor factors

• Metacognitive factors

What theory or approach in first language acquisition emphasizes both the learner's role in constructing meaning out of available linguistic input and the importance of social interaction in creating a new linguistic system?

• Behaviorist Approach

• Constructivist Approach

• Nativist Approach

• Interactive Approach