What is learning and what is teaching and how do they 
interact? Consider again some traditional definitions. A search 
in contemporary dictionaries reveals that learning is “acquiring 
or getting of knowledge of a subject or a skill by study, 
experience, or instruction.” A more specialized definition might 
read as follows: “Learning is a relatively permanent change in 
a behavioral tendency and is the result of reinforced practice” 
(Kimble and Garmezy 1963:133). Similarly, teaching, which 
is implied in the first definition of learning, may be defined as 
“showing or helping someone to learn how to do something, 
giving instructions, guiding in the study of something, 
providing with knowledge, causing to know or understand.” 
How awkward these definitions are! Isn’t it rather curious that 
learned lexicographers cannot devise more precise scientific 
definitions? More than perhaps anything else, such definitions 
reflect the difficulty of defining complex concepts like learning 
and teaching.
These concepts can also give way to a number of subfields 
within the discipline of psychology: acquisition processes, 
perception memory (storage) systems, recall, conscious 
and subconscious learning, learning styles and strategies, 
theories of forgetting, reinforcement, the role of practice. Very 
quickly the concept of learning becomes every bit as complex 
as the concept of language. Yet the second language learner 
brings all these and more variables into play in the learning of 
a second language.
Teaching cannot be defined apart from learning. Nathan 
Gage (1964:269) noted that “to satisfy the practical demands 
of education, theories of learning must be ‘stood on their 
head’ so as to yield theories of teaching.” Teaching is guiding 
and facilitating learning, enabling the learner to learn, setting 
the conditions for learning. Your understanding of how the 
learner learns will determine your philosophy of education, 
your teaching style, your approach, methods, and classroom 
techniques. If, like B. F. Skinner, you look at learning as a 
process of operant conditioning through a carefully paced 
program of reinforcement, you will teach accordingly. If you 
view second language learning basically as a deductive 
rather than an inductive process, you will probably choose to 
present copious rules and paradigms to your students rather 
than let them “discover” those rules inductively. An extended 
definition—or theory—of teaching will spell out governing 
principles for choosing certain methods and techniques. 
A theory of teaching, in harmony with your integrated 
understanding of the learner and of the subject matter to be 
learned, will point the way to successful procedures on a 
given day for given learners under the various constraints of 
the particular context of learning.

Not long ago, when American structural linguistics and 
behaviorist psychology were the prevailing influences in 
language teaching methods and materials, second/foreign 
language teachers talked about communication in terms 
of four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and 
writing. __1__  skill categories were widely accepted and 
provided a ready-made framework for methods manuals, 
learner course materials, and teacher education programs. 
Speaking and writing were collectively __2__  as active skills, 
reading and listening as passive skills.
Today, listeners and readers no longer are regarded as 
passive. They are seen as active participants in the negotiation 
of __3__ . Schemata, expectancies, and top-down/bottom-up 
processing are among the terms now used to capture the 
necessarily complex, interactive nature of this negotiation. Yet 
full and widespread understanding of __4__  as negotiation 
has been made difficult by the terms that came to replace the 
earlier active/passive dichotomy. The skills needed to engage 
in speaking and writing activities were described subsequently 
as productive, __5__  listening and reading skills were said 
to be receptive. While certainly an improvement over the 
earlier active/passive representation, the terms “productive” 
and “receptive” fall short of capturing the interactive nature of 
communication.
The inadequacy of a four-skills model of language use is 
now recognized. And the __6__  of audiolingual methodology 
are widely acknowledged. There is general acceptance of the 
complexity and interrelatedness of skills in both __7__  and 
oral communication and of the need for learners to have the 
experience of communication, to participate in the negotiation 
of meaning rather than memorizing and repeating words 
and sentences. Newer, more comprehensive theories of 
language and language behavior have __8__  those that 
looked to American structuralism and behaviorist psychology 
for support. The expanded, interactive view of language 
behavior they offer presents a number of __9__  for teachers. 
Among them, how should form and function be integrated 
in an instructional sequence? What is an appropriate norm 
for learners? How is it determined ?What is an error? And 
what, if anything, should be done when one __10__ ? How is 
language learning success to be measured? Acceptance of 
communicative criteria entails a commitment to address these 
admittedly complex issues.

Questões de Elementos gramaticais