When I first read about Piaget’s processes or “functions” called
assimilation and accommodation I wondered how students learning a foreign
language use these processes to learn. However,
I quickly realized that English cognates are one of the most powerful schemes students
can access. Although this skill requires some literacy, even students in 2nd
grade can use assimilation to decode a word such as “carro”. Direct instruction
isn’t even necessary to teach students this skill. I simply ask students to
conference with each other to come up with an answer. Students can triple their
vocabulary once they use assimilation to look for an English word inside a
Spanish word.
“False” cognates cause disequilibrium and require students to use accommodation
to re-wire their existing English scheme. For example, the word
"dice" in Spanish means "he/she says" (its pronunciaton is
"DEE-say"). This causes disequilibrium on two levels – one for its
meaning and the other for the way that it is pronounced. In this case, I do not
want students to use assimilation since this will negatively influence the
Spanish word I want them to learn. If I call attention to the fact that it
looks like the word for game playing cubes in English, students will have to
hurdle over the English scheme to get to the Spanish meaning every time they
encounter the word. Using visual aids help remind them of the meaning, and I
must use a lot of repetition with these types of words in order to “replace”
their existing scheme until they simply don’t see or hear the English word nor
form a mental image of “dice” in English.
Yet, I sometimes make the mistake of using a cognate with the
assumption that students already have schemes in place for that word. This can
cause disequilibrium among some students. For example, when presented
with the word “burrito” most students exclaimed “Oh, a burrito!” But what of
the students who didn’t have any mental image? When I think about the sentence
from the perspective of one of these students, I get this: "He eats [a
burr?, a burp?, a butterfly?]”. Even showing students a visual may not enable
them to connect with this word if they don’t have a scheme in place. This lack
of scheme both for the extracting the English cognate as well as lacking a
mental model affects students’ comprehension, as well as their assessment.
Importantly, unless I know that they are experiencing a disequilibrium for
burrito, I won’t know the real reason for their low achievement.
Disequilibrium and equilibrium feel like a pendulum between
frustration and joy, something all people experience daily. Just today, I
experienced disequilibrium when I came across this clue in the New York Times
Sunday Crossword: “British terminals”. Airport terminals? Computer terminals? Batteries?
Nope. Equiibrium (and delight) emerged when I discovered the answer to be…“zeds”.
References:
Ormrod,
J. E. (2012). Human learning (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson
Education, Inc.
Britt, M, “The Psych Files” podcast, Retrieved from: www.thepsychfiles.com/2009/01/episode-84-how-to-make-learning-fun-again-part-1-piaget/
