# Learning languages and controlling their use

Separates developmental evidence, acquisition histories and control during language use; avoids a generic cognitive-advantage promise.

1. [Lec 6: Stages of development; Behaviorism](https://nptel.ac.in/courses/109103753)
   Begin with stages of language development as a set of questions about change, rather than a diagnostic timetable.
   Task: Choose one developmental question and state the behaviour a researcher could observe without a verbal explanation from the child.

2. [Lec 7: Behaviorism; Nativism](https://nptel.ac.in/courses/109103753)
   Compare accounts of learning only after establishing the phenomenon they aim to explain.
   Task: Write one prediction that would differ between two acquisition explanations. Avoid treating a theory name as its evidence.

3. [Lec 10: Methods of studying language acquisition](https://nptel.ac.in/courses/109103753)
   The methods lecture asks how an observation can support an inference when participants cannot describe their knowledge.
   Task: Sketch an infant discrimination study. Identify the response, comparison condition and one alternative explanation; propose no testing of a real child.

4. [Lec 4: Bilingual acquisition among children: simultaneous bilingualism](https://nptel.ac.in/courses/109103198)
   Move into bilingual acquisition by considering how more than one language enters a learning history.
   Task: Create two fictional learning histories that differ in age and setting of exposure. List the differences that a comparison should record.

5. [Lec 5: Successive Bilingualism](https://nptel.ac.in/courses/109103198)
   The continuation deepens the acquisition account before turning to current control during use.
   Task: Distinguish the languages encountered, the opportunities to use them and the task chosen to measure performance.

6. [Language Control in Bi/Multilinguals I](https://nptel.ac.in/courses/109104398)
   The first language-control lecture changes the question from learning history to managing language use in a specific task.
   Task: Define a switch trial and a repeat trial. State what is held constant when comparing their responses.

7. [Language Control in Bi/Multilinguals II](https://nptel.ac.in/courses/109104398)
   Follow the second control lecture to extend the same question instead of jumping straight from a task difference to a general benefit.
   Task: List two possible explanations for a switching cost. Describe the separate non-language evidence needed for a broader executive-function claim.

8. [Lec 9: Bilingual brain: neural representation of languages](https://nptel.ac.in/courses/109103198)
   Finally, connect the behavioural questions with a course treatment of bilingual brain representation.
   Task: For one proposed brain comparison, specify the language task and behavioural match. Explain why a difference between images would not, alone, establish a general advantage.

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