Lecture 1
How languages are learned?
1. Popular views about language learning. 2. How children learn their first language: a) the behaviorist position; b) the annalist position; c) the “critical” period hypothesis; d) the interactionist position.
Every few years new foreign language teaching methods arrive on the scene. New textbooks appear far more frequently. New methods and textbooks may reflect current developments in linguistic/applied linguistic theory or recent pedagogical trends. Sometimes they are said to be based on recent developments in language learning theory and research. For example, one approach to teaching may emphasize the value of having students to imitate and practice a set of correct sentences
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According to this view, the quality and quantity of the language which the child hears should have an affect on the child’s success in language learning. The behaviorists consider imitation and practice as primary processes in language development. To clarify what is meant by these two terms, consider the following determinations and examples. Imitation: Word for word reception of all or part of someone else’s utterance. For example: Mother: Would you like some bread and peanut butter? Child: Some bread and peanut butter.
Practice: Repetitive manipulation of form. Child: I can handle it, Hannah can handle it, we can handle it.
Children imitate, but it must be stressed that very few children imitate much, the rate of imitation of some children may be less than ten per cent. Unlike a parrot that imitates the familiar and continues to repeat the same things again and again, children’s imitation is selective and based on what they are currently learning. But imitation and practice do not account for how children learn all aspects of their native language. The behaviourist explanations for language acquisition offer a reasonable way of understanding how children learn some of the regular and routine aspects of language. However, their acquisition of the more complex grammatical structures of the language requires a different sort of explanation and we shall consider some of the
There are 4 theoretical perspectives. The different theoretical perspectives vary in their focus on the role of nature and nurture as well as the emphasis on one or more of the five aspects of language knowledge. Throughout this chapter, the focus will be on recognizing how nature and nurture interact and can be related. It provides a framework for understanding the complex ways children develop language as they interact with people and objects in their environment, school and home
They consider a child’s daily routine and activities highly influence an important role in their language development. Their theories focus on exploring how children socially interact within environments. They explain how children start to explore how language and communication works by inevitably adapting themselves to environments (Orfano F, 2015). This process confirms children are socially persuaded to be pragmatic. Depending on the context of the situation children listen to sounds and look at symbols movements and expressions from things around them. It acknowledges the importance of the environment in that it purports that children learn language as a result of communicative needs, in social contexts, and with social support. This evidence persuades them to deem nurture as the dominant
First, children¡¯s acquisition of language is an innate mechanism that enables a child to analyze language and extract the basic rules of grammar, granted by Chomsky. It basically states that humans are born with a language acquisition device that, the ability to learn a language rapidly as children. However, there is one important controversy in language acquisition concerns how we acquire language; since Chomsky fails to adequately explain individual differences. From the behaviorists¡¯ perspectives, the language is learned like other learned behaviors. It is learned through operant
The word “emulate” is defined in the dictionary as, to try to equal or surpass somebody or something, especially by imitation.
“I mimicked his eyebrow thing.”(72) Connotative- copied Denotative- to imitate in a servile or unthinking way
Just as for the reason that no two people are exactly the same, children may mimic
She is able to form sentences and express emotions, that isn’t imitating. If she was imitating it wouldn’t be put together in different orders to communicate different things. Imitating is repetitive and for the most part in the same order, Koko doesn’t do that. Koko can comprehend when she is being spoken to and be able to give a logical in return.
Once in a life, we have been imitating a fashion and a behavior of an idol or someone. What if imitation is always occurring in everyday life to individuals? In the essay, “Strange Creatures” wrote by Susan Blackmore, she believes that whatever the way individuals act or think is claimed to be imitation. She claimed, to be imitating is what makes us different from animals or other living species. The reason for mimic is because this is privilege of being human nature. Then she gives an example of whenever someone smiles, other smiles back, but animals cannot. What animals can do is to show positive emotions like whipping a tail or actively move around. This phenomenon is called “meme”. The meme is like a copy machine or gene in Blackmore’s
Deferred imitation is the being able to remember and copy a behavior at a later time, than when the behavior originally occurred (Berk, 2014). One example would be a toddler witnessing
However, it can be argued with (Bruner 1964) that social interaction doesn’t explain all the complexities of language acquisition. Almost every day the language we hear is often incorrect, poorly defined, incomplete and full of hesitations, mispronunciations and other errors, and yet despite this we still learn to talk following the correct grammatical rules. Again this indicates the idea of Chomsky’s (1968) LAD model that children are born ‘hard-wired’ with the innate knowledge of linguistic rules and so these rules help the baby make estimations and presumptions about the language it is hearing. From these estimations and presumption the child can work out grammatical sets of rules and when more language is exposed to them, the more their language develops. Even within Chomsky’s (1968) LAD theory, undoubtedly he believed the role and promotion of the ‘nature’ aspect is the core foundation on which language can develop. But his theory also requires the role of nurture
Therefore, from the behaviourist approach, language acquisition can be seen as a stimulus-response process. Children learn language by immitation and analogy. The roles of imitation, repetition, reinforcement, and motivation are essential in learning the language. The First Language Acquisition is thus the result of nature which based on practicing.
In the other hand, behaviorists view language as complex and leaned skill, much like playing piano and dancing. B.F. Skinner argued that language represents nothing more than chains of responses acquired through reinforcement. Putting differently, children learn though process of reinforcement. For example, baby babbles “mama” the mother happily reward the baby with a hug and kisses and eventually will push the baby to say “mama” more and more; due to these reward children are motivated to repeat the behavior, thereby shaping their language and ensuring their development. Children’s language is being built up, this describe a way in which children environmental experiences influence and improve their language skills. Also that’s why parents
From a baby 's first word to their first complete sentence, there 's a lot to debate with their language development. The average child has a vocabulary of up to six-thousand words by the time they turn five years old (Brighthubcom, 2016). Language development is one of the most critical roles for an educator in both early childhood and primary settings. It is this ability of language development that is particularly interesting in the nature vs nurture debate. In order for educators to provide effective communication, it is important that they have the knowledge and understanding of the four key concepts of language, such as phonological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic development and the underlying theoretical perspectives that explain the processes of language acquisition and development.
According to Zukowski (2013), language development refers to the process of learning in early life where infants acquire various forms, meaning and word usage. In addition, language refers to the different utterances in regards to linguistic input. Language development in childhood focuses on major arguments in
* In the educational field, the teaching learning cycle is a model used in contemporary teaching in both school and adult educational settings. Rothery (1996 in Derewianka & Jones 2012, pg 43) who originally developed the model used this to aim at disadvantaged children for teaching literacy and writing in the KLA (Key learning areas) who were from socially disadvantaged areas. Over time the model has been phased across other areas of the English language such as listening, speaking, reading as well as writing. The key involvement of the teacher also known as ‘expert other’ in the teaching learning cycle is guiding the learner to understand key concepts in academic literacy through use of scaffolding strategies to transform students