Neobehaviorism and Second Language Acquisition

Abstract

Behaviorism dominated the field of SLA until the end of the 1960s and found its most visible application in contrastive analysis and the audiolingual method (Johnson, 2004, p. 10). In this tradition, the focus was on the learner’s external environment. By now it is consensus that a mature psychology will contain a level of intermediate theory which bridges the divide between physiology and behavior, but there is disagreement over the best way to do that (Reisman, 2003). Now behaviorism is like a cube of sugar dissolved in tea; it has no major, distinct existence but it is everywhere (Harzem, 2004).