Development Of Instructional Model Research Articles

The Development of Instructional Models in Second Language Education

In an influential paper published in the late seventies, H. H. Stern distinguished between learning a language through a process of conscious study and practice (i.e., formally), or through use in the environment (i.e., functionally). According to Stern (1981), this aspect of language behavior can be characterized as a psycholinguistic/pedagogic continuum, or ‘P-scale.’ There is nothing inherently good or bad about activities at either end of the scale, and in organized language teaching one often finds an interplay between formal and functional approaches.