I also suspect that different learning theories work on different learners at different times in their lives. If one learns a language as a toddler, then does not use that language, it becomes extinguished to a great degree. But learning that language again as an adult is easier than if the learner never had learned it at all.
I used to teach English to high school juniors. I was especially annoyed by the writing error of “a lot” being written without a space. So I invented the “A Lot Cheer” as a way in incorporate physical and musical intelligences into extinguishing this error. I taught the cheer at the beginning of the school year. Every time I caught a student making that error, he or she had to lead the class in the cheer. I had hoped that this punishment would be sufficient to make them aware of their mistakes and stop repeating them. During the semester, I began to notice self-editing where students would write a lot without the space (which my computer keeps correcting); later they would draw a line through it and spell it correctly. On the semester final, I asked them in multiple choice questions which words were misspelled. Almost all of the students identified that the “alot” was a misspelling, but about one fourth of them misspelled it in their essay test. I suspect that composing comes from one part of the brain, and editing comes from another, something that Behaviorism does not take into consideration.
