JALT2003 AT SHIZUOKA CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS574 Quantum Leaps in Language Learning

This paper looks at how principles in physics, cognitive science or neuroscience combined with psycholinguistic theories can offer new ways of looking at what language teachers teach. Chaos and Complexity Theory has particularly been used as a metaphor for the processes that occur in the classroom. Though linguistic theory remains notoriously inaccessible and inapplicable to many teachers this paper for the most part nonetheless persists in staying mainly theoretical the aim being to assist in making science and metaphoric language use natural areas of language teaching. In particular, three problems areas in language teaching are set out (i.e., syllabus design, focus on form and the zone of proximal development) and three solutions are suggested for each respective problem (i.e., connectionism, perspective taking and the introduction of a new approach to language teaching, socio-cognitive learning)