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HOW DO CHILDREN COMMUNICATE? SMALL BABIES END OF FIRST YEAR 18 MONTHS 3 YEARS SCHOOL AGE
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3. 18 months: their vocabulary in terms of words has increased and are beginning to use 2 word 3 word utterances (telegraphic utterances) 4. 3 years: Children can comprehend an incredible quantity of linguistic input, they chatter nonstop. 5. School age: Children start to internalize increasingly complex structures, expand their vocabulary and sharpen their communication skills and they also learn the social functions of their language.
Behavioristic Position
Individuals are born without built-in mental content and their knowledge comes from experience and perception(tabula rasa). Assumes a learner is essentially passive, responding to environmental stimuli. Behavior is shaped through positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement. Consider effective language behavior to be the production of correct responses to stimuli. If a particular response is reinforced, it then becomes habitual, or conditioned. Video
Nativist
We have an innate predisposition to learn language, and learning is in our genetics. According to Chomsky, this innate knowledge is embodied in a little black box of sorts, a language acquisition device (LAD). All human beings are genetically equipped with the ability that enables them to acquire language. (a system of universal linguistic rules or Universal Grammar)
Nativist
The childs language at any stage is systematic in that the child is constantly forming hypotheses con the basis of the input received and then testing those hypothesis in speech and comprehension. The early grammars of child language were referred to as pivot grammar. The parallel Distributed Processing: a childs linguistic performance may be the consequence of many levels of simultaneous neural interconnections rather that a serial process of one rule being applied, then another, then another and so forth.
Functional Approaches
Two emphases emerged 1. Researchers began to realize that language was a cognitive and affective ability to communicate with all the things including the self. 2. They dealt with the forms of language, not the deeper functional levels.
Functional Approaches
Cognition and Language Development Bloom found three possible underlying relationships: agent-action, agent-object, and possessor-possessed. In addition, he concluded that children learn underlying structures, not superficial word order. Piaget insisted that what children learn about language is determined by what they already know about the world. Dan Slobin demonstrated that semantic learning depends on cognitive development.
Functional Approaches
Social Interaction and Language Development Social constructivist emphasized on the function of language in discourse. Discourse has a special meaning in that language is used for interactive communication.
In Conclusion
In order to understand why it s not easy to learn a second language in spite of the first language acquisition, we should understand the nature of initial acquisition process.