A schedule of reinforcement is a set of rules or procedures that a teacher during classroom activities follows when delivering reinforcers (Hirst et al., 2019). For instance, a learner can be reinforced after every accurate response to a question based on the protocol set by the teacher. Continuous schedule and intermittent schedule are the two types of reinforcement schedules.
A continuous schedule of reinforcement happens when reinforcement is delivered after every targeted behaviour while an intermittent schedule of reinforcement occurs when reinforcement is delivered after some behaviours or answers but by no means after each one. Additionally, continuous reinforcement schedules are frequently used by teachers when teaching new behaviours, while intermittent reinforcement schedules are commonly used by teachers when maintaining previously learned behaviours (Martin and Pear, 2016).
Nwankwo (2002) says that several schedules of reinforcement affect the learning and final performance level attained. Intermittent reinforcement schedule is resistant to extinction (Weiten, 2007). When teachers of English use intermittent reinforcement schedule, the students can keep making efforts to answer questions and maintain a high level of academic performance (Slavin, 2009).
Okpala (2000) notes that continuous and intermittent reinforcement schedules produce important differences in performance. These differences are most apparent at three stages in learning. First, during the initial development of a response, continuous reinforcement is preferable because it accelerates this early performance and produces high rates of response. The implication of the above in a second language situation is that if a teacher introduces an entirely new topic, he/she should employ continuous schedule to increase the arousal level of the students as it regards internalizing the topic. After students have been introduced to the topic, the teacher goes further to impart the various areas of the topic. He/she uses an intermittent reinforcement schedule for response maintenance because it increases resistance to extinction. Both continuous and intermittent reinforcement schedules play vital roles in learning English as a second language. These findings relate to the present study, which looked at the time second language learners received reinforcement and how it affected their level of performance.