Page "Language education" Paragraph 11

There have been two major branches in the field of language learning ; the empirical and theoretical, and these have almost completely separate histories, with each gaining ground over the other at one point in time or another.

Examples of researchers on the empiricist side are Jesperson, Palmer, and Leonard Bloomfield, who promote mimicry and memorization with pattern drills.

These methods follow from the basic empiricist position that language acquisition basically results from habits formed by conditioning and drilling.

In its most extreme form, language learning is seen as basically the same as any other learning in any other species, human language being essentially the same as communication behaviors seen in other species.