Monitor Hypothesis
The monitor hypothesis asserts that a learner's learned system acts as a monitor to what they are producing. In other words, while only the acquired system is able to produce spontaneous speech, the learned system is used to check what is being spoken.
Before the learner produces an utterance, he or she internally scans it for errors, and uses the learned system to make corrections. Self-correction occurs when the learner uses the Monitor to correct a sentence after it is uttered. According to the hypothesis, such self-monitoring and self-correction are the only functions of conscious language learning.
The Monitor model then predicts faster initial progress by adults than children, as adults use this ‘monitor’ when producing L2 (target language) utterances before having acquired the ability for natural performance, and adult learners will input more into conversations earlier than children.
Read more about this topic: Input Hypothesis
Famous quotes containing the words monitor and/or hypothesis:
“It is indeed typical that you Earth people refuse to believe in the superiority of any world but your own. Children looking into a magnifying glass, imagining the image you see is the image of your true size.”
—Franklin Coen. Joseph Newman. The Monitor (Douglas Spencer)
“The great tragedy of science—the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)