Today's session is about language learning theories. The speaker discusses different theories of learning, such as behaviorism, universal grammar, Krashen's monitor, cognitive theory, conversation theory, and Schumann's acculturation theory. The speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding these theories in order to apply them in educational practice.
Hello and welcome. Welcome to today's session. My name is Nellie Deutsch and I'm going to be talking about language learning. If you could add in the chat box where you're from and anything else, feel free to use the chat box. I see Philip has started. He's from Germany. Feel free to use the chat box for questions, for comments, and to chat in general. I use the chat because it helps me stay focused. I kind of talk to everybody.
It's a social kind of environment that keeps me on my toes when I listen to somebody else speak. I find it a lot easier to use the chat than to listen to a video, watch a video, or listen to audio where I can't, you know, constantly add my comments. So, hello Guadalupe from Mexico. Great. All right. So, and we've got Venezuela, Thomas. Excellent. All right. So, today's session is about theories. We're going to focus on theories.
Later on, in the next weeks to come, we'll be discussing approaches to language learning and specifically approaches to teaching English as a foreign, and in some cases, second language. We'll talk about methods, and at the end, we'll discuss class management. It doesn't matter whether it's online or face-to-face. There is a need for class management. So, today we're going to focus on theories of learning, and we'll start with learning. What is learning? Okay, I think that's the huge question, and our thoughts and opinions on learning generally determine how we teach.
So, what we think about learning is really important. You may find that your ideas about learning change when you start teaching online, and when you start teaching in general, you'll find that as the years go by, you may find that your ideas change. All right. So, Philip's got acquiring knowledge. Hello, Brenda from Paraguay. Good to see you. Okay, don't be shy. Feel free to use the chat. I'm looking, and I'm not seeing everybody responding to where they're from.
All right. It is acquiring knowledge. It's everything that you say that it is, okay, because that's what you think learning is. But there's a great book that I don't think it's too expensive. It's called Applying the Science of Learning, and it's by Richard E. Meyer, who is a proponent of using technology. The book is very thin. I don't know if you can see it. It's very thin. So, it's a very, very user-friendly book, especially for most of us who don't have much time for, you know, it has a lot of really clear ideas, lots of tables and graphs, and really a wonderful modern way of approaching learning as a science.
Okay. So, it's called Applying the Science of Learning by Richard E. Meyer. I've mentioned his name before. That's true, Guadalupe. Everyone learns in different ways. The question is, how does the brain, you know, we all have the same brains. So, you know, scientifically, what happens in our brain? Of course, there are different variables that influence it, but what happens in the brain? And if you think about learning, the idea is change. We change when we learn.
Okay, that's the idea. There was no need for change. And when you think about the science of learning and the idea of the Newton way of learning, which says that there are laws and you have to follow those laws, then what is science? And then there's the quantum theory of changes and unpredictable. Can we predict the change that will happen when we learn? Okay. So, it's not that simple. So, language learning by Richard E. Meyer is called Applying the Science of Learning.
And you can apply this to any kind of learning. And he focuses on how people learn. And think about it. That's right, according to neurology, right? And psychologists, don't forget, they all have a say in that too. How do people learn? Okay, that's the first question that he focuses on. The second question is, how can we help people learn? What can we do as teachers? Because our goal is to help people learn. What can we do to make this happen? And the third aspect is, how do we determine what people know? In other words, assessing.
So, the first question is, we need to know a little bit about how people learn. And then how can we help them? And finally, how do we know what they learned? Right, we need to analyze. Very good, Philip. That's right. We need to assess. So, today we're going to discuss learning theories. And the question is, it's great to have theories, but how do they apply to our educational practice? So, one connects with the other. Our learning theories have to connect with how we teach.
Otherwise, what's the point? Yeah, there are lots of articles. Thank you, Thomas, by Richard Meier. In fact, if you go to YouTube, you'll find Richard Meier there too. I find Richard Meier very, very practical. You know, he talks about theories, but he has a very practical way and he believes, well, you'll read about it, but he's got all the theories there and then his ideas. Okay, so from theories, we're going to go into practice. So, we're not going to stay with the theories, but we do have to know a little bit about the theories to know what we're doing.
And there are three aspects. There's instruction, there's the learning and assessment. Now, what comes first? Well, as teachers, we hope that by instructing students by our instruction, or whatever that is going to be in the classroom, there will be learning. And we will have to find out what learning took place by assessing it. And this is all based on Meier's. So, there are six learning theories for languages. Theories. There are other approaches and there are different methods, but there are six theories.
And some of them you will recognize. The first one is a behaviorist theory. How many of you have heard of behaviorism? Well, if you look at the word behave, that's a critical aspect of the theory. All right, very good. Good to see you. Haven't seen you in a while. Okay, so it's how we behave. Okay, so it's based on behavior. The next one is universal grammar. Most of you are probably familiar with Noam. Well, professor, right? Noam Chomsky, or Chomsky.
Okay. Have you heard of him? Well, he developed something called universal grammar, which means that we all have. We all have the ability to learn a language. And the grammar that we have is innate. We are born with a certain kind of grammar in our brains. And then depending on the language, doesn't matter what language we are born into. There is a universal grammar that allows us to learn languages. Okay, and that's what Chomsky developed. And it was very revolutionary because the idea was very transformational.
It meant that if you go deep into the brain, you will find that we're all born with this. Of course, you can't really prove this. Okay, we're talking about theories. Can't remember. These are only theories. Next is Krashen's monitor. And you must have heard of Krashen. Most of us probably learned English through this theory. And the idea is that you practice a language that is acquired. So the key here is acquiring a language, you don't learn a language, you acquire it in a natural way, the same way that you acquire your first language.
We don't learn we don't go to school. From the age of one when we were born to learn a language, we have the ability, as Chomsky said, and Krashen went a bit further to say that we all learn a second language or a third language, the way we learn a first language. Behavior by the word behavior, you mean change. And then there's the cognitive theory. The cognitive theory of language learning is very similar to the behaviorist.
They're very similar. The only difference is that with a cognitive, you measure knowledge, not behavior. In other words, in the behaviorist, it's how you behave as a language learner. And with a cognitive, it's the knowledge that you have. Okay, so that's the cognitive. And then there's the conversation theory. Conversation means that you learn through conversation. Hello, Halima, through discussions and conversations. And that's how you pick up or acquire language. Very similar to the idea that it's natural to learn a second language.
And you do it through listening to conversations, but not only listening, but actually conducting conversations yourself. How many of you learned English through conversations? If you could just put your thumbs up or learned another foreign language, if English is your native language, if you learned a foreign language through conversations. Now, that's a good point, Philip. Okay, we're not saying whether these are wrong or right. These are theories. And theories are theories. Okay, you can accept them, use them or not accept them.
They're just theories. Spanish, Brenda, you use through conversation. Halima, you never learned the language through conversation. You must you must be thinking of Latin. Okay, how do you teach language today? Do you teach it through conversation? Later? Okay. So I think Halima, you teach English through conversation. Exactly. Okay, so this is a theory of it's a social theory. It's interacting. Okay, the idea behind the conversation is interacting with the other students and the students interact with the teacher through conversations and dialogue.
Right. And then there's the Schumann's acculturation. Have any of you heard of Schumann's, John Schumann's acculturation theory of language learning? Give me a thumbs up if you have. No, not at all. Yeah. John Schumann did a study and he came up with a theory that people who come to countries, we're talking about immigrants to different countries, have no choice. So they learn the language because they want to be part of the culture. So you learn a language in order to be part of the culture.
Hello. Hello, Halima. There are many theories, but we're talking about theories. I don't know if you came at the beginning. We're talking about theories, not methods and not approaches, even though conversation does seem like an approach. Alright, so these are the six theories that we're going to look at. Are there any questions before we get started talking about the theories? At the end, you will have a chance to decide which of these theories suits you as a teacher.
Yeah, you don't teach culture. The idea is that you learn a language because you want to be part of the culture. It's not really, acculturation means becoming part of the social, of the society that you're in. So if an immigrant goes from, say, Poland to the United States, they have a need to learn English because they want to be part of the American way of life. Okay, so that's what it's based on. If you're interested, you can find all of these theories by Googling them.
If you Google Schumann's acculturation, even on Wikipedia, you'll find it there. So you'll have a chance to do this. Of course, don't forget to join the course. Okay, because you'll have a chance to share this in the course. And I'll tell you what, you also have, don't forget, I'm an active learning believer. So you'll have some tasks to do during the week until next week. Alright, so we're going to start with the behavior. Don't forget that learning is about change.
Okay, if we look at the slide, I think it was the previous slide here, slide number three, learning is about change. Okay, and it's about, okay, using learning practices for educational purposes. Okay, so behaviorism, we want to change our students' behavior. I know that sounds terrible, but that's what we do. Okay, the idea every teacher is in the classroom, whether it's a physical classroom or a virtual classroom, every teacher wants the students to change, because learning means changing.
And you want to change their behavior. So let's say your students say, I go home now. Okay, that's a wonderful change. They couldn't say anything before, and now they can say, I go home now. Okay. But you want them to go through a change. So how are you going to get them to go from saying, I go home now, to saying, I am going home now? How are you going to get them from one place to the other? Well, you're going to change their behavior.
How will you change their behavior? In the behaviorist way. Okay, so how will you do it? Okay, any ideas? You want to change their behavior. Well, you're going to tolerate. What are you going to do? You have to change their situation, right? You want to change the way they're saying it. They're making a mistake. They're making a grammar mistake. How are you going to get them to change? Well, you might make them repeat it. And every time they say, you're going to say, I'm going home now.
Oh, I'm going home now. And then they will say, oh, yes, I'm going home now. And then they'll repeat it. Next day, they'll come to school and say, bye, teacher, I go home now. Boom. So what are you going to do? You're going to have to reinforce and give them rewards. Okay, and that's how it's done. Through rewards and correction. Thank you, Fabiana. But rewarding, don't forget, you're going to correct them and reward. Correct them and reward.
You're going to do this over and over and over again until they get it. Until it becomes automatic. Are you going to explain things? You're not going to explain. You're just going to make them automatic. No explanations for behaviorists. Okay, now how many of you use a behaviorist approach or how many of you have learned a language through a behaviorist approach? With lots of repetitions, maybe repeating together. Okay, everybody, together. I am going home now. Very good.
Okay, think about it. How many of you? Okay, give me a thumbs up if you have either taught or have gone through a behaviorist way of learning a language. Okay, that's how we learn. Okay, and then you think of Pavlov and you say, oh no, oh no, oh no. Because Pavlov and the whole theory of behaviorism sounds terrible, right? But we use it. We use it to this day. Okay, so let's not be afraid. We're using it.
Okay. All right, so the behaviorists, we want the environment to show us that the behavior of the learner has changed. So we do everything in the environment so that we see learner behavior change. We look for behavior and we focus on behavior. Yeah, we're not talking about methods, Fabiana. We're talking about theories. We'll talk about methods. I mentioned this in the first slide, but we're going to be talking about theories, approaches, methods, and class management. Today, we're talking about theories, not about approaches.
Okay, just theories. Okay, so I'm going back to, okay, the behaviorist theory. So we're trying to change behavior. Universal grammar. Again, who came up with this brilliant idea? Transformational. Who came up? Do you remember? I mentioned at the beginning. Let's see if you remember the guy's name. That's right. Very good, Thomas. Chomsky. That's right. Chomp. Chomsky. And sometimes it's called Chomskonian. It's called deep grammar, underlying grammar. There are lots of names for it. I don't know how many of you studied it deeply.
I did. And I liked it. It was really, really fun to learn it. It's a theory. Okay, and the theory says that we are all born. We have what's called innate grammar. Innate grammar means that we're all born with certain grammar parts in our brain. That's what we're born with. Okay. So Chomsky's inborn, or innate, universal grammar theory. That means that everybody, if you're born in China, or you're born in the States, or in Russia, or in Poland, or in Paraguay, or in Germany, who else do we have here? Or in Venezuela, or in Mexico, or in, let's see, other countries that we have here.
Give me countries. Argentina. Iceland. I didn't know you were in Iceland. Fabiana, I had no idea you were born in Iceland. Do you live there? Wow. Egypt. Excellent. You're in Argentina, but you were born in Iceland. Wow. Any other countries? India. Excellent. All right. So we've got, did I miss a country? So no matter where you were born, okay, no matter where you were born, you were born with this innate, universal grammar, so that you are able, oh, that's right.
Uzbekistan. That's right. We've got Uzbekistan as well. You were born with the ability to learn a language because you have the grammar. In other words, you're born with these grammar rules in your brain. How many of you like this theory? Chomsky became very famous with this idea. You like it. Okay. I loved it in the 1970s, I don't know, when it was very popular. And I thought it was brilliant. It was called transformational grammar. We had to do exercises, transformational grammar.
We had to do all kinds of exercises. And it was a lot of fun, as I said. With trees, he had trees, these trees, you know, and these graphs and everything. Okay, that's the Chomsky idea. And then there's Krashen. Everybody is crazy about Krashen. Krashen is very, very popular. He developed this in the 80s. Right now, Krashen, you can find him, lots of YouTube videos with Krashen. And it's called Krashen's Monitor. And the idea here is about natural language.
And that is that you learn your second, third, fourth, foreign, and so on language, the same way that you learn the first. Now, it's interesting, because before Krashen came up with this idea, I was using it in school. Because it seemed natural to me, too. As a young English teacher, I was still a student, I felt that this was the best way to learn. And I believed in it. I really did. And that's what I practiced.
Okay, so I based my approach to English language learning through, well, before Krashen was around, because his theory came later. I started teaching before. But I based it on the fact that first and second language were, are learned in the same way. Now, there are a lot of disagreements about this theory. How is it possible to learn a first, a second language when you're over the age of 12, the same way that you learned the first one? First one.
Yeah, so it wasn't accepted. Not everybody accepted it. I know when I was using it, not everybody accepted it. But when Krashen came up with his theory, everybody started saying, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay? So we acquire a foreign language the same as we acquire the first. So think how you acquire the first. In your house, we hear the language, lots of exposure to the language, your mother's language, your first tongue, whatever you want to call it.
You hear your parents, you hear your brothers, your sisters, your surroundings. You go to school, you hear the language, and that's how you pick it up. You pick it up naturally. Because of Chomsky's universal grammar, okay? And that's how you pick up your foreign language. How many of you agree with that? How many of you have learned a language when you were older, a foreign language? Do you find, was it natural for you to learn it? Okay, most adults, exactly, Thomas.
Most adult learners say, no, it's not natural at all. It's very, very artificial. It's very difficult. I have to know the grammar. If I don't know the grammar, I can't do it. In other words, there's a lot of opposition from adults and even from kids about this natural way of learning a foreign language. Okay? So it's a theory. And of course, the cognitive theory. The cognitive cognition means knowledge. Okay? So it's based on change in knowledge.
If you, you are zero today. And if you learn something, you become one. Now you know one. You are nothing, and then you learn something. So the change is your knowledge. The question is, what do you do with your knowledge? Okay, next I'm going to talk about constructivism and connectivism and other approaches to language learning. But cognition means that you know something. And grammar is cognition. If you know grammar rules, okay, in a foreign language, that means that you know.
The question is, what do you do with it? Okay, so maybe a combination of cognitive and behaviorism. You know something, and then you behave. And you use it correctly, that might be good. But cognition is only change in knowledge. You have change in knowledge, and that's your behavior. It doesn't mean that you're going to behave that way. So just knowing is a change. So from nothing, and now you know something. So parts of speech, you didn't know parts of speech, you teach your students the parts of speech, they know the parts of speech, that's cognition.
Can they use it in real language? No, or maybe yes. Okay, so that's cognition. Exactly, knowing, you know, just because you know about English doesn't mean that you can speak it, or you write it, or understand what you're reading. Or, you know, so producing doesn't mean anything. So behavior is producing. Cognition is just knowing. Conversation. Alright, this is a relatively new theory, and it means exactly what it says. It means that you learn a language through conversation.
So I'm sure you've, maybe with a combination of behaviorism, but it's through talking. So you talk, talk, talk, and you get better. First you need the vocabulary, of course, to be able to talk. But you learn the vocabulary and the grammar through conversation. That's a good point, Tom. It's just because you speak English, that's why you have no cognition. You might not know anything about the language until you start teaching it, which happened to most of us.
Most native speakers of English knew nothing about the English language until they started teaching it. Exactly, Helena. That's the idea. The idea is to learn through conversation. Remember, this is not teaching. We're talking about language learning. How is language learned? These are theories of language learning. They are not theories of language teaching. Those are approaches. We'll talk about approaches and methods of teaching. Right now we're just talking about language learning. And that's why it's theories, because teaching is practical.
Theories are just theories. The question is, what do you do with the theories? Yeah, I disappeared for a minute because I wanted to fix my glasses. Alright, my students do not learn grammar. Okay, that's an approach. Helena, we're talking about theories of language learning. Okay, so let's keep that in mind. Language through conversation. Language learning through conversation means that you base everything on meaning. So if you say, hello everyone, it's not only the words that you use, it's your body language.
Hi, or bye bye. Okay, so you're using meaning. Collocations, that's right. You're using meaning. And that's how knowledge is constructed. So the brain, we're talking about language learning theory, the brain processes the information from the meaning that it gets. So body language, okay, it's really important to have body language. So you need to see the teacher. You need to see the person in front of you. And you need to see a lot of language speakers. Okay, you need to see them.
A lot of nonverbal, that's right. A lot of emotions. Okay, Helena, I think you're going to love this. So language learning through conversation has a lot of feelings and emotions in it because that's where you get meaning. You construct meaning from what you get, the interactions through the conversation. So if your teacher smiles, you know she's saying something nice. Like she says, hello. So you might not get the hello. It may be good morning or good afternoon or good night.
But at least you know that it's something pleasant. The teacher is conversing with you in a pleasant way. Alright, so that's learning, language learning theory through conversation. And then there is the final one, which is acculturation. What is acculturation? Okay, this is John Schuman's. Okay, John Schuman's idea was that you learn not a foreign language necessarily, but a second language. When you go to a country, that's where you learn the language. And the reason you learn the language is that you want to be part of the culture.
And you know what, this might be a foreign language. Why are people motivated to learn English in most parts of the world? Why? Why does everybody want to learn English? English is a huge business. Why? Because people want to be part of the culture. It could be, that's right, linguists. Maybe it's the American culture. Maybe it's the British culture. Maybe, well I'm not going to say Canadian because there's no such thing as a Canadian culture. American culture, British, maybe Australian, if there is such a thing.
But it's mostly American and British, I would say. And maybe globalization. But you know, it's being part, you want to be part of some organization. In this case, it's a country. It's a culture. So if you want to be part of a culture, you have to behave, you have to change your behavior. Otherwise, you cannot be identified as part of that culture. So it's identifying with a culture. So when you speak English, do you identify with a certain culture? I know that's a tough question.
If you do, see as a Canadian, I have a problem because Canadians have no identity. They have nothing. It's an immigrant country. So it's not, you're never a Canadian. It's what's your parents, where do you come from? It's your, you know, your family culture. So we're talking about when you speak English. So Helena says USA. So you feel like you're part of this culture. Okay. So that's the idea. Your students probably pick it up too. Okay.
So that's the idea. The idea is to orient yourself with a culture. And that's how you learn the language. Okay. And you do this through social interactions. So acculturation is actually socialization. Do any of you know anything about sociology? Because this is a sociology idea. That's right, global English, you can take it there. But you're talking about approaches and methods of language teaching. You're not talking about theories. Okay. We're talking about sociology. Sociology has acculturation. So if you've ever studied sociology, acculturation, or if you're interested in the idea of acculturation, acculturation means that you take part in social interactions, participation.
That's right. And don't forget we're talking about theories of learning. I'm going to repeat this. Okay. Theories of learning. All right. And now for your part. I finished my part. Okay. I talked enough. Now this is your part. Okay. And this is a course. How many of you have joined the course? If not, there it is again. It's called Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. This course is for anybody who wants to teach English. You don't have to be an English teacher.
You can be anyone with a passion for teaching English. And notice acculturation is not about culture. It's about becoming part of a group. Okay. So language learning theories. What does? You're going to blog or wiki. Up to you. Blog or wiki about this. Okay. It's up to you whether you want to blog or wiki. By the way, what do you prefer? Blog or wiki? I think I prefer to wiki, but I blog most of the time.
I like wikis better. And I prefer wiki educator to any other wiki. I'm so glad, Fabiana. Okay. But the only way to learn is or to sustain learning is to do something with it. Because if you don't do anything with it, you lose it. If you don't use it, you lose it. Okay. So it's really important to continue and do something with it. So the questions are, and you will get the link to the PowerPoint presentation.
It's in the course. Where? In the course. What does each language theory emphasize? Next question. How will each language learning theory contribute to your teaching? Next question is, what language theory did your teachers use to teach a foreign language? By the way, those of you who do the task will get a certificate at the end of the course signed by myself. And I think that's worth something. What language theory did your teachers use to teach a foreign language? Hello, Neves.
Good to see you. Sorry you're late, but you can get the PowerPoint presentation in the course, Neves. So I hope you join the course. There it is. Everything is there, including the recording. And next question is, what language theory do you prefer and why? And the final question, will you use one or multiple language theories? Will you use one or multiple? In other words, which ones are you going to use and why? As I said before, reflecting on what you learn is a way to sustain learning.
Otherwise, you're going to lose it. So blog or wiki about each of the six language theories by responding to the questions in the previous slide. These questions. And then share the link to your blog or wiki in the course feed of the course. And here is the link to the course. Are there any questions? Can you share? What if you don't blog, Mariella? You can wiki or you can create a document and share the document. It could be a Word document, a PDF, a PowerPoint.
It doesn't have to be, Mariella, it doesn't have to be a blog. Okay, so that's okay. It doesn't have to be a blog. I'm sorry if you think it's only a blog. It could be any document. Okay, so the document again could be PDF, Word, Word document. What else? And you can do this on WizIQ and you can share it with me. WizIQ now has the option where you can share these with the rest of us in the course.
Okay, Word document and PowerPoint. If you want to do a PowerPoint presentation, you can do that too. Uploading. And where do you send the document? You send it to the course. If you go to the course, you upload it to your account, Niamh. And then when you upload it to your account, you can share it with the course. So the way you do it, I don't know if I'm able to, let me see if I can screen share.
I wasn't yesterday because I upgraded my system and I couldn't screen share. So let's see if I can do it now. Nope, I can't screen share. Alright, I'm not able to screen share, but if you go into, let me take you through it. If you go to your account on WizIQ, it doesn't matter if you're a teacher or a student. You go to your account. Okay, you go to Home. On Home, in your account on WizIQ, you can write this down as we go.
I'm screen sharing it. You go to Home. And then on the left, it says Upload Content. So you click on Upload Content. And then it has Browse. So you browse, you get your content up. And then it has courses that you're in. So you can add, and you will add it to this course. This course is called, and if you join the course, you will be part of the course. So the course is called Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.
Okay, so if you join the course, you'll find the course, and then you simply add it to the course. Or you can add it to WizIQ, get the link, like I did before. Let me get the link for you again. And then you can share that link. Okay, so let me go into the course and share the link. Okay, so you go to the course. The course is called Teaching. I don't see the course. Here it is.
Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. You go to the courseware. In the courseware, if you scroll down to the very bottom, it will say Language Theories. You see it's a PowerPoint presentation. Everything that you upload to WizIQ, everything that you upload to WizIQ has a link. So you can share the link in the course feed. Okay, but the first thing you have to do is you have to make sure that you are in the course.
Okay, so let me see if everybody is in the course. Can you add everybody? Please add the link to the course so I know that you know what I'm talking about. Hello, David. Okay, so add the link to the course. I see some of you came in late, but that's okay. If you go to the course, you'll be able to get all the information there. Okay, so let's see. Add the link to the course. Oh, that's not the link, Thomas.
This is the link. I mean, that's the link too, Thomas. It's just a long one. Okay, who's up? So if you copy mine, it's shorter. Okay, that's the link to the course. Very good. Helena's got it. Excellent. Okay, I suggest you copy, before the end of the session, copy the chat and then you can add that to your blog. You can add the chat to your blog or wiki or documents of any kind. Okay, now for questions.
We talked about language learning theories, not approaches. Notice, we did not talk about methods or approaches. We did not talk about, we only talked about language learning theories, not approaches and not methods of teaching. Only theories of learning. Okay, that's what we talked about. Okay, and there were six. Behaviorist, universal, grammar. That's Noam Chomsky. Crash and monitor, which is that you learn a second language like you learn a first language in a natural way. Cognitive, which is similar to behaviorist.
Behaviorist is repeating and making sure that you get the behavior that you want from your students. That's how they learn. They change their behavior. Cognitive means that they learn new things, but it doesn't mean that their behavior changes. They gain new knowledge. And then conversation means that, the theory is that you learn through conversation. You watch people's body language and that's how you pick up the language. Through observation and through taking part in conversation. And then there's the Schumann's, John Schumann's acculturation.
Acculturation means that you become part of a social environment. Thank you Neves, you got it. Alright, and these are the six language learning theories. Alright, so questions. When one is enrolled in a course and opens a page, the link changes to a long... Yes, exactly. That's right. It never happened in the past, it's something new. WizIQ is going to have some new changes. The reason I get... I have two accounts. That's how I get the short one, Thomas.
That's the trick. It's very annoying. I've told WizIQ that it's annoying and that they should go back to the old system. But they're making changes. I said in October there should be some changes. I hope that that will be part of it. I see, David, that you're going back and forth. I hope you're not having problems. If anyone's having problems with WizIQ, I suggest, Thomas, that you do it too. Just contact support. Tell them what you don't like and what's difficult and what you would like.
Make all your suggestions to support at wiziq.com. They do write them down and they make changes. The changes come every couple of months. Oh, I'm sorry, David, the connection is weak in Lima. But I'm glad to have you here with us. Oh, very good, Niamh. Any questions? Okay, I think you may copy the chat. And maybe you'd like to use your mic to ask your questions. There's a question by John. You're a teacher. You are not enrolled in the course, so you see the short link.
Oh, really? And if you're a student, you see the long one? No, I think they messed up and they need to fix it. Whichever way. Yeah, it's confusing. Yes, it does sound straight. No, it's something that they were working on. I think they'll get it back. Any questions about the language learning series? Anything that we talked about today? All right, feel free to use the course feed for questions. Course feed is actually discussions. Okay, I believe I started something.
Feel free to start a discussion. The more we discuss, conversation. The more we discuss, the more we talk. It'll be a lot. Deadline, dead. A line, right? After that line, you're dead. Well, you should do it during the week. Okay, I don't know about you, but if I don't do things, either I do them right away or I do them at the last minute. Okay, so you're right, it is a deadline. But you can do it by the end, before next session.
Okay, next session. But it's nice to have it during the week so we can discuss it together. Very good, Neves. I like that. Okay, so go over the recording. The same link to the recording is the same link to the session as the recording. So the recording is in the courseware. The PowerPoint presentation is in the courseware. The course feed is for the discussions. That's right, sharing is caring. So share so we can learn together. Thank you.
It's you who make it. The energy in these live virtual classes is amazing, amazing. I love the energy. Something that you can't get in a face-to-face class. There's a lot more focus, I think, in these live online sessions. So thank you, everyone. Have a wonderful week and see you next week. Bye for now. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
