Language Learning in Early Childhood

15/05/12 Pedagogia en Ingles Didactics I

Language Learning in Early Childhood

Professor Veronica Leon José Miguel Ávalos
INTRODUCTION

Perhaps thousands of research about Language Learning in Early Childhood have been made, based on some of them, the book of the analysis was created.

Due to the book “Language Learning in Early Childhood”
“As children progress through the discovery of language in their first three years, there are predictable patterns in the emergence and development of many features of the language they are learning. For some language features the patterns that are described in terms of developmental In the first marked developmental stage goes for Developmental Sequences, or “STAGES”.

Briefly explained, the whole text goes for different Stages in Language Learning since each stage children pass through has its specific characteristic, also some theories to explain the first language acquisition since the very beginning of a child’s mind, how he perceives the world surrounded him , different types of childhood bilingualism some language disorders such as deafness, articulacy problems, dyslexia and how important the role of teachers is in this problem.

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DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES

Grammatical Morphemes:

Has to do with how the child acquire some morphemes Due to Roger Brown’s research, fourteen grammatical morphemes are acquired in a similar sequence.

One of the developmental stages is Negation, called like that because children learn the function of negation very early.
This function has 4 Stages:

1st. The word NO is the main word they learn for using functions and expressing themselves and for language learning.
Ex. No wash teeth

2nd. Now comes the sentences with a subject:
Ex. Daddy, no wash teeth!

3rd This particular negative sentence is more well-structured. Including “can’t” and “don’t”
Ex. I can’t tell it. He don’t try it (obviously with some mistakes)

4th Using the negative sentence in the correct form of auxiliary verbs such as “do” and “be”
Ex. I don’t have no more chocolate

Questions

Making questions for the challenge of acquiring a language in a child is so important.
There supposed to be a predictable order of how a simple question in starts.
WH – question for example
The use of Wh questions like WHAT makes huge steps in a child’s mind. Simple things like “what is that” or “what is car?”

After this we can see “Where” and “Who” so they can identify places and people. Probably their relatives, and some prepositions (in the case of places)

Looking for reasons come “WHY” I think this step in a child’s language learning is one of the most famous because everybody has seen when a child start asking “why” to everything (and they know that this question would start a sort of long communication). Everybody who has a little brother, sisters, some children you saw in the street, or if you have any children has probably seen this.
After the child has better understanding of manner and time comes “How” and “When”.

Each one of these mentioned goes in different steps an one is followed by the other there are 6 Stages and all regard Questions.

FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Some people say that one of the first things that should strike any half observant parent is the speed and apparent accuracy in which a child proceeds to learn his or her own language. This remarkably rapid development seems to fly in the face of many known facts about the nature of language much so that it has become widely accepted in the scientific community to think of language and its acquisition as one of many utterly unexplainable mysteries that beset us in our daily lives. Even the most clever of scientists today do not know where to begin with trying to unravel the range of complexities that all of language brings. Even so, the child moves ever onward, seemingly with little deference to this so-called mystery and proceeds with little effort to crack the sacred code nonetheless. How could this be? Firstly, parents provide very little in the way of language instruction to the child contrary to what might be believed, parents do not teach their children to speak. Most parents wouldn’t even have the means in which to explain language overtly to a child even if they wanted). In fact, parents spend the majority of time correcting falsehoods (those little white lies) rather than correcting erroneous grammars. On the mere face of it, one would think children grow-up being little lawyers seeking out truths rather than little linguists seeking out correct hypotheses to their language. Thank God, the latter indeed prevails. Children will continue to lie in order to take-on an advantage, while, without exception, by-and-by acquiring their mother language. By the time a child enters pre-school, she has more-or-less mastered much of her target language. However, in light of these remarkable achievements, children do seem to go through varying degrees of stages along the way to their full mastery. It is this notion of stages of acquisition that has interested the developmental linguists most.

LANGUAGE DISORDERS

We can not deny that there are certain group of disorders that involve problems in communication. Speech disorders refer to difficulties producing speech sounds or problems with voice quality. Language disorders refer to impairment in the ability to understand and/or use words in context, either verbally, nonverbally, or both. These disorders range in severity from sound substitutions to the inability to comprehend or use language.
The child or adolescent with language disorders and learning problems will often present to the Speech Language Pathologist with a range of clinical problems in language that are contributing to the learning disorder.

The types of language problems experienced by children with ADHD are varied and can cover all the modalities of language. Typically problems are seen in:

Syntax:
Disorders of syntax (oral and written grammar) are difficulties using and/or comprehending the structural components of sentences.

Semantics:
Semantic difficulties in language involve problems with word meanings and organization. School problems include difficulties comprehending written and spoken language, poor vocabulary, word-finding difficulties and difficulties using context to help with the comprehension of reading.

Metalinguistics:
This is the ability to reflect on language objectively - to know and understand that language is a rule-bound code - e.g. humour, multimeaning in words, ambiguity, figurative language (metaphors etc), ability to segment words into syllables or phonemes (sounds).

Metacognition: This is the ability to think about thinking in general. To know what you know and to understand what you need to know in order to learn effectively. Students with difficulties in this area cannot easily deal with the strategies involved in problem solving.

CHILDHOOD BILINGUALISM

No doubts that t childhood bilingualism is a significant experience that has the power to influence the course and efficiency of children’s development. The most surprising thing is that these influences are not confined to the linguistic domain, where such influence would be expected, but extend as well to nonverbal cognitive abilities. In most cases, the child’s degree of involvement with a second language, defined as the difference between bilingualism and second-language acquisition, is an important variable that determines both the degree and type of influence that is found. Three patterns of influence were noted in these studies. One outcome is that bilingualism makes no difference, and monolingual and bilingual children develop in the same way and at the same rate. This was found for cognitive problems such as memory- span development and language problems such as phonological awareness.

The second is that bilingualism disadvantages children in some way. The primary example of this is in the development of vocabulary in each language. The third pattern, and the most prevalent in our studies, is that bilingualism is a positive force that enhances children’s cognitive and linguistic development, improving access to literacy if the two writing systems correspond and development of general executive processes for all bilingual children solving a wide range of non-verbal problems requiring attention and control. These executive control abilities are at the centre of intelligent thought

CONCLUSION

Most of the babies behave the same way when their first language acquisition takes place without care if we are talking about a Chinese baby or a Chilean one. Beginning with the simple and involuntary crying of a baby (which is their first vocalization), when their parents hear the cooing and gurgling sounds. There is even an experiment done by Pete Eimas in 1971 which demonstrates that a baby of just some weeks born are able to hear differences between sound like “pa” and “ba” and even before their first vocalization. When the babies are over one year old they can understand many words and sounds that are being listened and frequently repeated. For instance; they rush to the kitchen when “juice and cookies” are mentioned.
It’s amazing how by the year of two, children can produce around fifty words and some-others even more. The following acquisition is that they start using these words in different combine words into simple sentences like “mommy juice”. Which are called Telegraphic because they don’t have any article, preposition, or an auxiliary verb. The first three years analyzes different resources trying to describe how are the firsts years of a child’s language learning passing trough until the child is ready to start going to school.

Every teachr should manage these theories and understand the whole process that a child has.