Subject of psychology of foreign language teaching.

Lecture 1.

Plan:

1. Subject of psychology.

2. Approaches in psychology.

1. Subject of psychology.

The word psychology comes from two Greek words: " Psyche" mean­ing, " mind" or " soul" and " Logos" meaning " study of'. Therefore, psychology means " study of the mind". There are many modern definitions of the term. One of them belongs to Atkinson, who defined psychology as " the scientific study of behaviour and mental processes". However, psychologists always disagreed not only about the definition of psychol­ogy, but also about what they should study and how they should do it.

The year 1879 is considered to be the start of psychology as a sepa­rate discipline. It was the date when Wilhelm Wundt created the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany. Americans disagree and think that William James was the " founding father of psychology" be­cause in 1875 he started teaching a course on the relationship between physiology and psychology at Harvard University. In 1890 he wrote a book " Principles of psychology" which was a very important step in the history of psychology.

2. Structuralism was the first approach in psychology. It was described by Wundt who thought that the object of psychological investigation should be the conscious mind. According to Wundt, the mind should be studied by introspection (looking at one's own mental experience) in Order to break down into its components such as images, sensations and feelings.

Functionalism was developed by William James who thought that he workings of the mind are functional. The mind works to survive and adapt. So we should investigate what behaviour and thoughts are for.

What is psychology?

At the turn of the 19^th century two powerful approaches appeared. One of them is psychoanalysis developed by Sigmund Freud in Austria. Freud wrote that the proper object of psychological investigation should be the unconscious mind and that our behaviour is determined by processes that we are not aware of.

Behaviourism, introduced by John Watson, was the most important of all approaches that investigated " minds" and proposed that psychology should investigate only observable behaviour if it wanted to be an objective science. This approach dominated experimental psychology until 1950's when a strong interest in the 'mind' developed in the of the cognitive and humanistic approaches. Representatives of the approaches argued that behaviourism ignored all the most important and interesting things that go on in our heads.

Cognitive psychology investigates the mind by using computer in­formation processing ideas to arrive at models of how our brain world and then apply scientific methods to confirm these models. The cognittive approach was successful and is a very dominant one in psychology today.

The Humanistic approach has had less of an impact on psychology because it adapted less scientific view of the human mind. Humanistic psychologists argued that psychology should focus on each individual's conscious experience and aims in life.

The biological approach has advanced evolutionary, physiological and genetic explanation for human behaviour throughout the history of psychology.

Control questions:

1. Where does the word psychology come from?

2. Who developed the functional approach in psychology?

3. What are the functions of brain from the functional point of view?

4. What should psychology investigate from the behaviorist point of view?

5. What did cognitivist and humanistic psychologists criticize in behaviorism?

6. What does cognitive psychology aim to investigate?

7. What did the humanistic psychologists argue for?

8. What did the biological approach contribute to the study of human behaviour?

Recommended literature:

1. Психология обучения неродному языку. И.А.Зимняя, М., 2000

2. Психология обучения иностранным языкам в школе. И.А.Зимняя, М., 1991

3. Психология развития. Грейс Крайг, Санкт-Петербург, 2000