Patronage of Mary Development School

Poblacion, Boljoon, Cebu

Tel. Nos. (032)482-9302/(032)410-2466 - Website: www.pmds.ph - Email Address: pmdsmamamary@gmail.com

ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL PURPOSES

LESSON 4
Reading A Concept Paper

Objectives:
1. discuss the purpose of a concept paper;
2. express ideas on how to present a concept paper; and
3. describe the interplay of theory and practice in concept paper.

GETTING DEEPER

As we all know, love is a multifaceted and complicated concept, and each of us normally
defines it in various ways. In some of the things that may influence our definition of love are our
experiences in relation to it, what we have read about it, and what others are saying about it. Using
this various sources, we are able to concoct our own concept of love. In fact, so many authors have
already attempted to define love and examine its several dimensions that probably thousands of
books have already been written on the subject, and yet none of them are the same. This is because
each of these authors has his or her notion of what love entails, and they take great lengths in
expounding it.

The same can be said when writing a concept paper. The purpose of the concept paper is to
explain, clarify, or theorize a particular concept so that it can be discussed in the world of the
academe. Thus, when one writes a concept paper, he or she is said to be engaging in an academic
discourse about it – that is, he is contributing to the dialogue of scholars about a given topic.

In building up a concept, it is important to connect theory and experience. Theory comes from
the numerous academic articles written about your desired topic while experience comes from the
day-to-day observations made by the researcher. The important thing in writing a concept paper is to
be able to connect the two.

Let us try to see how this happens as we examine a concept paper written about the nature of
language acquisition.

Language Acquisition and Learning:

Understanding How We Communicate
By: Daryl Wyson

1. Perhaps one of the most fascinating phenomena in human civilization is the reality of
language. How can letters, which by themselves are meaningless, form meaningful utterances
when combined, and these single utterances, in turn, convey a message when transformed
into a sentence or paragraph? (Varga, 2010). This characteristic of language enables it to
serve as a medium that facilitates the transmission of knowledge and culture.

2. Yet, despite the significance of language, we have barely unveiled the principles that govern
language acquisition and learning. Yes, we need to learn a language to be understood, and we
all do so using different methods. As such, language scholars have developed paradigms
which have attempted to explain how language acquisition and learning occur.
Throughout history, these have helped us understand the complex nature of
language learning and acquisition, and as we learn new insights about these
phenomena, the said paradigms, in turn, also evolve and develop.

3. In this days of the psychologist B.F Skinner, language learning was primarily viewed through
behaviorist terms. Just like any other behavior, a person learns a language as certain
utterances are positively or negatively reinforced. If a behavior is rewarded, it develops; if it is
shunned, a person refrains from performing it. When applied in language learning, Skinnerian
psychology would posit that utterances which are positively reinforced or rewarded are
retained while those that were not reinforced or even penalized would eventually be unlearned
(Stern, 1983).

4. Language then, through Skinnerian terms, is viewed largely as the result of habits formed
through reinforcement. Thus, in this paradigm, a grammatical error committed by a child is
considered as a bad habit, and at an early stage, should be corrected so that it would not
become a “fossilized” or an error that cannot be corrected, so to speak. Exhibition of excellent

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 syntax, vocabulary, and speech, on the other hand, is considered as a good habits and
therefore should be rewarded.

5. Under this paradigm, several teaching methodologies were developed and employed in
language learning environments. For instance, back in the 70s, Filipino students in certain
schools were fined for each Tagalog word they uttered while in school to help them learn
English. In this scenario, speaking in Filipino was deemed as a bad habit, and thus, should be
penalized. Aside from the said policy, the audio-lingual method also reflects this principle. In
this approach to language learning, students are asked to recite what they hear on tape in the
hope that by doing so, they will form a habit and become proficient English speakers.

6. Despite the seeming promise of behaviorism, it falls short in taking into account why new and
creative sets of utterances are created by humans. If what this theory posits were true, then
there would only be certain patterns, those which were positively reinforced, that humans can
produce. In reality, however, the act of language production, or what we call as speech act
(Austin, 1962 quoted in Brown, 1994), is very creative and purposeful as it seeks to
accomplish new, and an infinite number of combinations used by language speakers. Thus,
though languages follow syntactical rules, new words are still formed, and even older ones are
able to take on new meanings.

7. For these reasons, Noam Chomsky criticized Skinner’s view and proposed a more cognitive-
oriented view. For Chomsky, grammar is transformational and generative; this means that
new utterances are continually being created, and meaning does not remain static. Through
the use of a brain structure called the Language Acquisition Device (LAD), we are able to learn
a language (Chomsky, 1965). He proposed the concept of universal grammar, or the idea that
people, through the use of the LAD, are able to process language in such a way that they are
patterned in comprehensible and syntactical outputs. Thus, for Chomsky, language learning
takes place from within and not from merely responding to external stimuli.

8. Similarly, Vygotsky offers an idea similar to Chomsky’s; according to him, language and
rationality, though they gave different roots, intertwine at some point in a person’s
development, and when this happens, rationality will be expressed through language, and
language, on the other hand, could not manifest in the absence of rational thought. According
to him, a child has two types of concepts, namely spontaneous concepts and scientific
concepts. The spontaneous concepts are learned naturally from the child’s environment even
without conscious instruction. Examples of which are the codes a child uses to refer to adults
(e.g. papa, mama) or one-word utterances which try to elicit a response (e.g. water, pupu).
Scientific concepts, on the other hand, are the ones which gave to be consciously taught such
as grammar, reading, and the like.

9. Perhaps Piaget’s psychological development framework may provide a clue on how language
actually develops in the LAD throughout the different stages in cognitive development (Banks
and Thompson, 1995). The first of these is called the sensorimotor stage. At this point in
development, actions are reflexive rather than planned. It isn’t until the latter part of the
sensorimotor stage that a child uses words (or proto-words) and numbers to represent objects
(e.g. mamam=water; dada=father).

10. When a child turns two, he enters what Piaget termed as preoperational stage. In this part of
human development, children are now capable of storing internal images which represent their
view of reality. A child at this stage is egocentric, probably as a result of his being the center
of attention in his early years, and uses language to satisfy his needs. Those who belong to
this stage tend to verbalize what they feel without thinking of how others would react or feel.
This stage lasts until around age six.

11. At around six years old, a child enters the concrete operational stage. At this point, the child
now recognizes logical relationships and grammatical structures. Thus, it is also the stage
when formal grammatical instruction can begin since the child now recognizes patterns.
Furthermore, it is also at this point when a child realizes that grammar rules are not rigidly
fixed and may vary as the context and use also change.

12. Finally, Piaget posits that at around puberty, a person enters into the highest stage of
cognitive development, the formal operational stage. At this point, a person is now capable of
understanding abstract concepts. Thus, it is assumed that at puberty, a child can now
appreciate poetry and deduce the different contexts in which statements are used.

13. Although language development occurs throughout the different stages of development, some
would argue that there is only a critical time by which a person can efficiently learn a
language. This is what we call as the critical period hypothesis, and according to some, the
best time to acquire a language is prior to puberty when the brain cells are still developing and
can easily absorb knowledge. This was first suggested by the neurophysiologist Penfield
(Stern, 1983). Recently, Wolfe and Brundt (2001) reasserted this hypothesis, stating that the
best time to learn a language is before ten years old. Until now, however, despite many
succeeding studies, this issue remains debatable since there are several cases where adults
effectively learn a second language.

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 14. These theories call on language teachers to appropriate their respective pedagogies according
to how cognitive functions develop. Since it assumes that the brain, through the LAD, can
decipher grammatical patterns, language can be taught using the structures that comprise
language. Moreover, these also call for a graduated teaching of language which follows brain
development. For instance, in the early grades, grammatical structures should already be
taught since the LAD is now able to recognize them. In high school, however, since it is
assumed that students can now understand abstract concepts, more advanced linguistic skills
such as literary analysis, expository writing, summarizing, and other higher order thinking
capacities (Arrends, 1994 quoted in Salandanan, 2009) should already taught.

15. Perhaps a more balanced view of language learning is the one proposed by Krashen (1981).
He both took into consideration and delineated the roles of input (environment) and cognition
on language learning and how each of the two functions. According to him, language
acquisition happens when one is constantly exposed to linguistic input. This linguistic input,
then, is unconsciously acquired by the learner until such time that the learner himself or
herself is now able to produce the language. Language learning, for him, is an entirely
different phenomenon; it happens when one consciously studies the rules and intricacies of
the target language; i.e grammar rules, principles of coherence and unity, etc. What a person
has acquired through language learning forms his monitor, or that device which he uses to
filter out his linguistic output. For instance, when a person speaks in a casual conversation, he
does not employ his monitor a lot, which means that he neither self-corrects his grammar
errors nor consciously thinks of grammar rules when speaking.

16. He also took into consideration a person’s affective filter, which determines how much
language a person would learn. If a person has a high affective filter, that is, he has a high
degree of anxiety towards the language, he is less likely to learn the language. On the other
hand, of a person’s affective filter is low, that is, he feels comfortable with the language, then
language learning is also high.

17. As far as Krashen is concerned, language classrooms, then, should be viewed only as a place
where learning is facilitated and not entirely a place of acquisition, although acquisition may
also take place in the classroom when the teacher asks the students to form buzz groups, read
a particular selection, or watch a film. However, the classroom can offer only so much
acquisition given the limited time students spend there. Thus, taking into account Krashen’s
model, language teachers are advised to encourage the students to expose themselves to
authentic language inputs, or language inputs used in actual communication situations. In the
classroom, language teachers could also facilitate acquisition although their main concern is to
give them formal language instruction, which involve the teaching of grammar rules and
structures, reading techniques, vocabulary building techniques, and the like. Presumably,
having learned the aforementioned lesson points would allow students to improve their
communicative competence.

18. Although there are several theories on how we learn a language, none of them is exhaustive
and comprehensive. Instead, each theory, together with the studies that accompany them,
contain certain truisms which can be added to a language teacher’s repertoire of learning
theories and teaching techniques. The challenge, then, for the language teachers and students
alike is to identify the points in the theories which would best apply to them and use them to
facilitate language learning. We cannot have a one-size-fits-all theory of language learning,
but the ones enumerated in this paper somehow give us an idea on the different ways we can
approach language learning and teaching.

Some observations on the concept paper

One important function of a concept paper is to marry theory with practice. To do this,
scholars come up with paradigms which can be used to examine real-life phenomena (known as
deductive reasoning), or produce a theory from bits and pieces of information (known as inductive
reasoning). Thus, a concept paper can be developed in any of these two ways. The important thing is
for the writer to be able to establish a clear relationship between theory and practice.

References
Saqueton, Grace and Marikit Tara A. Uychoco (2016). English for Academic and Professional Purposes. Manila: Rex
Bookstore
Wyson, John Daryl B. (2016) English for Academic and Professional Purposes. Quezon City: Vibal Group Inc.

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 Patronage of Mary Development School
Poblacion, Boljoon, Cebu
Tel. Nos. (032)482-9302/(032)410-2466 - Website: www.pmds.ph - Email Address: pmdsmamamary@gmail.com

ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL PURPOSES

Learning Task 4

Name: ___________________________________________________________________
Grade/Section: ___________________________ Date: __________ Score: _______

A. Vocabulary. Check the letter that corresponds to the meaning of the underlined words
in the sentences.

1. Language learning was previously viewed through behaviorist terms.

a. one who loves to learn new language
b. a person who hates bad attitudes of people
c. the study of words and phrases
d. advocate in learning through interaction with the environment

2. A child in the preoperational stage is egocentric.

a. healthy and happy
b. sad and lonely
c. developing
d. thinking only of oneself

3. Language and rationality intertwine at some point in the person’s development.

a. reading and listening
b. in accordance with reason
c. perspectives and views
d. through utterances

4. Piaget posits that around puberty stage, a person enters into the highest stage of
cognitive development.
a. attraction to the opposite sex
b. emotion and psyche
c. mental process of acquiring knowledge
d. the process of understanding the self

5. A concept paper can be developed through inductive or deductive reasoning.

a. a scientific investigation
b. data analysis
c. legal documents
d. a brief paper about a research question

B. Essay. Answer the following questions comprehensively.

1. How would you define love?

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2. What factors would you take into consideration in defining love?
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3. What is a concept paper? What is its main purpose?
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4. How are the ideas in a concept paper presented?
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5. Describe the interplay between theory and practice in a concept paper.
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