Summary

 600 years ago, Copernicus helped change the world by proposing that astronomers change their viewpoint. 40 years ago, Wiener suggested an alternative way of looking at human behavior. Copernicus did not change reality, he only helped us change our viewpoint of it. But that change of viewpoint lead to modern physics, modern science and our modern world. Cybernetic feedback theory has created a "scientific revolution" in the philosophy of science. It has reintroduced the concept of a final cause or teleology as a legitimate scientific explanation. It has not changed reality, only our viewpoint of it. This is creating ripple effects in a number of scientific disciplines. Specifically, it is reintroducing the concept of purpose in human behavior as a legitimate concept. It does this by integrating time in a behavioral act through the concept of feedback. This shifts the determinism of behavior from the environment to the individual.
 Basically cybernetic feedback theory sees the individual as a selforganizing feedback control system which generates its own activity in order to control its own perceptions. In terms of motor activities, this means that the individual has its own perceptual mappings which are used to guide the activities of the individual through a feedback testing of the perceptual realities with the perceptual mappings already existing in the brain. Applying the principle of feedback to language usage, we discover that speaking as an overt public behavior is controlled by an a priori internally private listening capacity. With listening capacity, the transfer to the public performance of speaking, though not automatic is highly enhanced. Without that listening capacity, spontaneous speech, internally generated does not occur.
 The practical effects of shifting one's viewpoint to the cybernetic feedback position are significant. In the prior position, which focused upon behavior as an indicator of learning, the teacher must push the student to perform publicly. The student's behavior is controlled by the teacher's control of the environment. This approach emphasizes speaking by the student so that the teacher can judge the students learning progress. The teacher then provides the student with the feedback of whether his speech was correct or not. The teacher is the judge of good speaking, not the student.
 The new viewpoint sees the internal language structure pulling out the performance based upon built-in expectancies within the language structure learned through listening guidance. This is done by the student when he feels ready. The student is in control of his own behavior. The student like a rope is more easily pulled, than pushed. Since the speech is controlled by listening feedback, the student is the best judge of his own speech. From the teachers point of view, consistent errors indicated in spontaneous speech indicate weaknesses in the listening capacity. The errors of speech are thus not corrected directly, but noted for further training in careful listening. In other words, if a teacher accepts the second position, that all performances are perceptually controlled, then all learning is perceptual learning, and the task of the teacher is to enhance the student's perceptual capacity.
 The viewpoint is new. It is not yet, "common sense". Nevertheless, it seems that cybernetic feedback theory has great potential for the future in foreign language teaching as well as in the various scientific disciplines. It seems premature to dismiss it as another fad, it seems more advisable to understand it better. This paper was presented in the belief that this new point of view could indeed create a "Copernican Revolution" in foreign language teaching.

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