Abstract

Three decades thereabouts when Skinner proposed his behaviorist theory in the context of L1 acquisition exploiting sociolinguistic approach specifically. Subsequently, there have been dearth of studies conducted validating the claims of behaviorism in the field of applied linguistics. Thus, RQ1 highlights the principles of behaviorism towards L2 competence with tantamount research assumption. Taking into account the data presented, it reveals that there practically are features of behaviorism which contributed to the successful L2 acquisition by the L2 learners. This involves reward, habit formation as well stimulus-response linguistic processes leading to the acceptance of the first assumption. Reward fosters positive attitude to further explore the unknown. It leads to an affirmative language attitude necessary to discover the full details of the L2 learning. RQ2 delineates the possible linguistic factors that are contributory to the collective L2 performance during the investigation time frame. Primary linguistic factors could have been the minimal L2 exposure of the students to the target language due to transition phase which forced the students to switch codes occasionally to complete the cycle of communication. This study is valuable to the learners and teachers of ESL/EFL worldwide as it offers some pedagogical implications necessary to understand the learning pace, lexical index, comprehensible input (CI), and language attitude of L2 learners. EFL teachers could likewise provide appropriate teaching materials and communicative activities to bring the students to a high level of competence by degrees.