"Learning to use" versus "using to learn"
Howatt (1984) concluded that the Communicative Language Teaching movement had two distinct versions: a weak version with a "learning to use" approach and a strong version with a "using to learn" approach. Most applied linguists would agree that a strong version is much more effective in L2 teaching (cf. Lightbown & Spada, 2013). Long (2000) regretted the "learning to use" approach with its heavy emphasis on focus on forms and mentioned that there was not a good linguistic theory to support strong versions of CLT. At the time, the dominant view of language was based on 1960's theories. There was a universal grammar and grammar, and syntax drove the language system.
Much more in line with a "using to learn" approach is a Dynamic Usage Based (DUB) view of language. It is based on theories from the 1980's. Usage Based Linguistics focuses on how humans learn language through embodied experience and general learning mechanisms involving perception, association, categorization, schematization and so on (cf. Schmid, 2020). In the late 1990's, Complex Dynamic Systems Theory found its way into SLA (Larsen-Freeman, 1997) and claimed that there are no separate systems in language, the learner, or the context, but that all sub-systems interact with each other over time, resulting in non-linear development, and Langacker (2009) argues that language is a complex, dynamic system. In L1 acquisition, Tomasello (2001) argues that languages are learned on the basis of using language and Van Geert (1994) shows that language development is a dynamic process. In SLA research, usage-based linguistics is now well-established (cf. Ellis, 2008). Unfortunately, however, DUB has hardly made its way to general linguistics courses, teacher training colleges, teachers, textbooks or classrooms.
In this presentation, I will briefly review the theories but then focus on what teachers need to know about a DUB approach to language and language learning, so that they can let go of their "learning to use" approaches and confidently move to a "using to learn" approach.
Langacker, R. (2009). A dynamic view of usage and language acquisition, Cognitive Linguistics, 20(3) 627-640.
Long, M. H. (2000). Focus on form in task-based language teaching. Language policy and pedagogy: Essays in honor of A. Ronald Walton, 179, 192.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (1997). Chaos/complexity science and second language acquisition. Applied linguistics, 18(2), 141-165.
Tomasello, M. (2001) First steps toward a usage-based theory of language acquisition, Cognitive Linguistics. 11, 1-2, 61-82
van Geert, P. (1994). Dynamic systems of development: Change between complexity and chaos. Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Howatt, A. P. (1984). The history of English language teaching. Oxford University Press.
Lightbown, P. M., & Spada, N. (2013). How Languages are Learned (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.
Schmid H. J. (2020). The dynamics of the linguistic system: usage, conventionalization, and entrenchment (First). Oxford University Press.
Ellis, N. C. (2008). The dynamics of second language emergence: Cycles of language use, language change, and language acquisition. The modern language journal, 92(2), 232-249.
