INTAKE AS THE LOCUS OF EQUILIBRATION IN LANGUAGE LEARNING*

Abstract

Equilibration between assimilatory (organism‐inward) and accommodatory (organism‐outward) processes has been described as a necessary condition of both development and learning. The difference between the two, however, is that in the case of learning, equilibration often has to be pedagogically implemented, whereas this is not true of development.Intake, the notoriously impenetrable interval between input and output, was identified as the locus of equilibration in language learning when the learners (French‐speaking EFL beginners), faced with having to construct a new utterance, demonstrated minimal conceptualization through tentative expression (assimilation) and sufficient preliminary familiarity with the correct expression in a model sentence for this expression to confirm its relevance (accommodation). A dialectic interaction that resulted in adjustment was generated by this encounter of the learner's intended meaning in search of a form that had remained unanalyzed when first received.It is suggested that equilibration in intake is indicative of a cognitive similarity between the learning of a foreign language – whether institutional or naturalistic – and the learning of other subjects.