The most recent research in errors of second-language learners support the following assumptions regarding second-language learning:
1. Errors occur both as a result of interference from the mother tongue and as a result of incomplete interim grammars of the learner.
2. Hopefully, future research will furnish more information about learner
strategies. These insights may provide clues as to more efficient teachinglearning procedures.
3. Apparently, both first- and second-language learning is characterized by the creation of language and by the comparison of the learner's interim language system with that of adult or native speech. As has been true throughout this examination of first- and second-language learning, the implication is that we, as second-language teachers, should be much more tolerant of student errors in the initial and intermediate stages of language learning.
CONCLUSION
Thus, the same mechanistic-mentalistic distinction made in the fields of linguistics and psychology also influences interpretations of first-language learning. Dulay and Burt (1973, p. 245) state, "In the last fifteen years of first-language research the emphasis has shifted from a search for environmental factors such as reinforcement and frequency of stimulus-response associations to a search for the innate ability of the human child to organize speech data."
Fodor (1966, p. 112) supports the cognitive stance when he states, "Notice that imitation and reinforcement, the two concepts with which American psychologists have traditionally approached problems about languagelearning, are simply useless here." Krech (1969, p. 374) concurs, saying, "Whatever value so-called reinforcement or stimulus-response theories of learning may have for describing acquisition of motor skills by people, maze-learning by rats, and bar-pressing by pigeons—these theories are assessed as completely trivial and utterly irrelevant when it comes to understanding . . . the acquisition of language by the child."
Recent studies in first-language learning have convinced the researchers that language is much more than a collection of conditioned verbal responses. As Miller (1964, p. 99) explains, ". . . syntactic and semantic habits must have a character that linguists call productive. It is their productivity that distinguishes our linguistic rules from our other, simpler habits. On the basis of a finite exposure to grammatical and meaningful utterances, we are able to deal with an infinite variety of different and novel utterances." It is believed that the comprehension of the native speaker's "competence" is the key to understanding the "productivity" of language. Undoubtedly, the young child learning her mother tongue can "use what she knows." Typically the second- language learner knows many words and the basic language structures; yet she finds herself unable to "use what she knows." Further studies may provide insights into why this stumbling block exists in second-language learning. If the psychological and cognitive processes of first-language learning can be
duplicated or reactivated in second-language learning, perhaps modern- language teachers will indeed be able to teach large numbers of students to use a second language.
Until that time arrives, if it ever does, the teacher must rely on her intuitive extrapolations of the implications of first-language learning with reference to second-language teaching. The position taken in this chapter is that at present, modern-language teachers should not, and cannot, duplicate the process of first-language learning, but that they can gain many valid and applicable insights by considering the various viewpoints regarding native-language acquisition.