Operants are classes of responses. Crying, sitting down, walking, and batting a baseball are operants. They are sets of responses that are emitted

Skinner believed that, in keeping with the above principle, punish­ment "works to the disadvantage of both the punished organism and the punishing agency" (1953). Punishment can be either the withdrawal of a positive reinforcer or the presentation of an aversive stimulus. More com­monly we think of punishment as the latter—a spanking, a harsh repri­mand—but the removal of certain positive reinforcers, such as a privilege, can also be considered a form of punishment. Skinner felt that in the long run, punishment does not actually eliminate behavior, but that mild punish­ment may be necessary for temporary suppression of an undesired response, although no punishment of such a kind should be meted out without positively reinforcing alternate responses.

The best method of extinction, said Skinner, is the absence of any rein­forcement; however, the active reinforcement of alternative responses has­tens that extinction. So if a parent wishes the children would not kick a football in the living room, Skinner would maintain that instead of pun­ishing them adversely for such behavior when it occurs, the parent should refrain from any negative reaction and should instead provide positive rein­forcement for kicking footballs outside; in this way the undesired behavior will be effectively extinguished. Such a procedure is, of course, easier said than done, especially if the children break your best table lamp in the absence of any punishment!

Skinner was extremely methodical and empirical in his theory of learning, to the point of being preoccupied with scientific controls. While many of his experiments were performed on lower animals, his theories had an impact on our understanding of human learning and on education. His book The Technology of Teaching (1968) was a classic in the field of programmed instruction. Following Skinner's model, one is led to believe that virtually any subject matter can be taught effectively and successfully by a carefully designed program of step-by-step reinforcement. Programmed instruction had its impact on foreign language teaching, though language is such complex behavior, penetrating so deeply into both cognitive and affective domains, that programmed instruction in languages was limited to very specialized subsets of language.

The impact of Skinnerian psychology on foreign language teaching extended well beyond programmed instruction. Skinner's Verbal Behavior (1957) described language as a system of verbal operants, and his under­standing of the role of conditioning led to a whole new era in language teaching around the middle of the twentieth century. A Skinnerian view of both language and language learning dominated foreign language teaching methodology for several decades, leading to a heavy reliance in the class­room on the controlled practice of verbal operants under carefully designed schedules of reinforcement. The popular Audiolingual Method was a prime example of Skinner's impact on American language teaching practices in the decades of the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s.

There is no doubt that behavioristic learning theories have had a lasting impact on our understanding of the process of human learning. There is much in the theory that is true and valuable. There is another side to the coin, however. We have looked at the side that claims that human behavior can be predicted and controlled and scientifically studied and val­idated. We have not looked at the side that views human behavior as essen­tially abstract in nature, as being composed of such a complex of variables that behavior, except in its extreme abnormality, simply cannot be pre­dicted or easily controlled. We turn next to two representatives of this side of the coin—David Ausubel's meaningful learning theory and Carl Rogers's humanistic psychology.