Language Acquisition and Development

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

A foundational aspect of all children’s learning is oral language. Communication orally entails the ability to include four components of spoken language to incorporate, and build on, a child’s vocabulary and grammar. These four elements consist of the phonological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic components. Development of a child’s language skills should form together resulting in literacy success later in life. In order to master the teaching of oral language, three strategies are used. These include, the use of open –ended questions, talking about sophisticated words and incorporating sociodramatic play in to lessons, which in the end, enhance expressive and receptive oral language skills. Fellowes & Oakley and numerous other literature sources explore the significance of oral language in the child’s development.

Nature and nurture both play various roles in children’s language development. Nature is a child’s inherited genetics and characteristics. Nurture is the persuasive influence a child develops from their environmental surroundings. The two have created many debates on whether one has more influence on a child’s language development than the other. In this essay I will discuss, the roles nature and nurture play in children’s language development, how they structure communication and the theoretical debate of their impact.

Nature and nurture both play a significant role in language development. Language development refers to how children understand, organise, speak and use words in order to communicate at an effective, age-appropriate level (Karen Kearns, 2013, P.105). For centuries, theorists have been debating the roles of nature versus nurture. Although, each child’s language will develop at their own pace and there will be many individual differences based on culture, ethnicity, health and ability. As well as physical, social, emotional and cognitive development in which will contribute to a child’s language development.

The communication with your child starts way before the youngster can speak. From their cry, smile, and the responses they give you to help you understand his or her needs. Language developments have different stages that children pass through to assist them in the development of speech and languages. There are a plethora of factors which can inhabitants’ a child language development. However, these are amongst the top causes for language development such as a child’s inborn ability to learn language and the language the child hears.

The debate between many researchers is the argument of whether nature or nurture play a more important role in development. In this essay I will be looking into both aspects of nature and nurture focusing specifically on their influence towards language development in children. A main controversial question I will be looking into is the question of whether are we born already equipped with mechanisms which help us to learn language, or is language learned throughout a child’s environment by, for example, imitation and repetition? Studies done by some opposing researchers claim to show that nature and nurture promote language development

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

Numerous theories try to explain the process of language acquisition. These theories fall into one of two camps. The environmentalist (or connectionist) theory of language acquisition asserts that language is acquired through environmental factors (Halvaei et al. 811). Theorists in this camp believe that a child learns language by gaining information from the outside world and then forming associations between words and objects. The nativist (or rationalist) approach, on the other hand, asserts that it is innate factors that determine language acquisition. Noam Chomsky, often described as “the father of modern linguistics”, falls into this camp as he believes that speech is the result of hidden rules of language that are hidden somewhere in the brain (Rahmani and Abdolmanafi 2111). Steven Pinker, a colleague of Chomsky, is a renowned psychologist, cognitive scientist and linguist who discusses his own theories on language acquisition in his book Words and Rules.

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.

In the field of child development, many psychologists, sociologists, and behaviorists contributed and came up with different theories that helped to form our current education system. One of those is B.F. Skinner’s theory of behaviorism, which had a great impact on many strategies we use today for teaching and training. In his theory, operant conditioning is the most famous and influential idea that helped people to understand the behaviors of children and even adults. Skinner focused on how the environments, in the form of reinforcement and punishments, influence behaviors. Thus, his theory cannot explain the higher cognitive functions such as problem solving and critical thinking. Despite his theory’s critiques, Skinner stood strong on his ideas and theories.

Children acquire language since they were born. They communicate with their parents. Furthermore, children and parents interact with each other using a language that we often call the first language or mother tongue. At an early age, children are only learning one language that is the mother tongue. By age and speech development, children improve to acquire a second language from the school or the environment around them. In terms of speed of langgauge acquisition, children are factorized by both the child and the child’s learning environment. Therefore, it is important to understand how children acquire second language. This paper is provided

This term paper aims at reviewing various stages of language development in human being early life in regards to language development. The paper also analyzes various theoretical issues and hypothesis that contributes to change of speech and how human beings corporate the changes in their daily development as far as language is concerned. Adult language and child language are quite different especially because adults have more exposure to the society norms than the children. It will also take in to consideration various processes of learning, how children acquire linguistic inputs such as forms meanings and word use during their talking processes. This term paper will focus on the child development in terms of language and gender. It is a paper on how children under the age of 10, learn language adaptation to their first language during their early developmental stages. It will identify theories for learning of a language, childhood development as well as look into the societal norms of gender socialization.

In concern to English language acquisition, there are several methods for the most effective way English Language Learners (ELLs) understand and retain new information. The two main camps concerning language acquisition are the sociocultural perspective and the cognitive perspective. From there, there have been many frameworks and theories that have stemmed from these two perspectives: The Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP), Krashen’s input (comprehension) and monitor approach, Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development. Teachers need to understand the many layers into which the students have to understand the English language, not just socially but academically. This process can take five to seven years for an ELL to fully

* 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