Preschool World Language

When an educator walks into her classroom for the first time, she needs to be prepared to encounter students that come from a variety of backgrounds. The children will be in different stages of language development, and the educator must accommodate for each of these students. Magruder, Hayslip, Espinosa, and Matera (2013) state, “The US Census Bureau projects that by the 2030s, children whose home language is other than English will increase from roughly 22 percent to 40 percent of the school-age population” (p. 9). This increase in second language learners will cause the educator to accommodate for those needs. Second language learners “need teachers who welcome them and recognize their unique abilities, what they know, and what they need to learn” (Magruder, Hayslip, Espinosa, and Matera, 2013, p. 10).

It is common in the United States to see DLL preschoolers who attend English dominant ECE programs tend to quickly show a preference towards English and tend to use their home language less and less (Espinosa, 2015, p. 46). Young language learners often experience first language loss, which is when DLLs become more proficient in the English language while their exposure to their native language takes a back seat. It is imperative that attention must be given to both English language development along-side the native language in order to facilitate the cognitive, social, and linguistic benefits of early bilingualism, while encouraging learning readiness goals (p. 46). Learning a second language during early childhood within the United States should not disable the development of the native

Language is a system in which sequences of sounds make up words to signify a person, place, idea, or object and eventually becomes a tool through which we communicate. Language development starts at birth with crying. Infants cry to communicate their needs are not being met. At around six months infants begin to form consonant- vowel chains; this is the start of babbling, an essential pre-linguistic skill and milestone in language development. Around the age of eleven months the child will say begin to say their first words, and language continues to develop throughout life. Like many other areas of development language development is influenced by the culture the infant grows up in.

To understand children’s language learning we have to go beyond language classrooms. Regarding the child as a language learner we have

In the beginning I talked about wanting to understand how when newborns develop their cognitive learning development of two different languages as they got older for example attending a bilingual Preschool, would they be able to continue with their development of learning both English and Spanish and be able to grow and become experienced in both languages and be able to transition from their first language they may use at home and their second language they may use at school. Now that we got to take a look at two studies that wanted to know if children from low income families either attending a bilingual preschool or a stay at home, are able to grow in both English and Spanish language. In those two studies they had many things in common

367 families who seem to adopt similar sorts of strategies (e.g., OPOL, or One Parent

When students enter into the kindergarten classroom, they are greeted with a plethora of new knowledge that they may have previously not had exposure, such as phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. Within these, vocabulary is often a major struggle for many children in kindergarten. Young children are often exposed to vocabulary through conversations, but not in a manner of teaching it explicitly. Through this literature review it was my goal as a researcher to find primary studies that focused on high quality instruction in the field of emergent vocabulary, especially in the kindergarten classroom. This topic came into fruition through wanting to understand literacy practices in kindergarten classrooms, since the implementation of Common Core State Standards.

Child language development is essentially about exposure. The level of exposure tends to correlate directly to the level of language ability as it corresponds to the minority language. However, it isn't just a pure numbers game. Generally speaking, more exposure is better... but the law of diminishing returns does begin to raise it's ugly head. Language development in bilingual education isn't quite as simple as pure exposure. A lot of the right kind of exposure is key. That's where fathers come in.

According to a study by the University of Phoenix Research Institute, “demand for American workers who speak foreign languages- particularly Spanish and Chinese- will rise over the next decade”(“Rising Demand for Bilingual Workers among Employers”). As the United States continues to diversify, being bilingual or multilingual is becoming a key part to be successful in life. A student’s school education, beginning at the first day of kindergarten, is supposed to build and prepare a student for the future, so why is properly learning a new language not a priority from the start? The teaching of a foreign language should begin elementary school because learning at an earlier age is optimum for an easier and effective learning process and provides significant benefits that can last a lifetime.

After working in the child care field for 25 years, I feel that I have learned the basics. However, I am always open to learn a new idea or a new approach to something. After taking this class there have been a few ideas that I have learned and things that I have to keep in mind while working with children. Some of the ideas I want to try to implement in the center I work in or things that I need to keep in mind every day is the letter link idea, how important language development is, and how significant the little things are.

I must commend you on a very well put together analysis. It took me a while to get the hang of APA formatting which I still have not perfected, but I would refrain from referring to a reference as “the article” when paraphrasing; I would refer to the author or sources, not the type of source.

They begin to learn languages by how things sound and by hearing their parents speaking to them, sound is very important to little children because that is how they begin learning the languages that their parents now how to speak. The monolingual baby learns there native language much better than a bilingual baby because of how they distinguish the sounds and because the monolingual is only learning one language the have to 10,000 words already learned by grade school. On the other hand the bilingual baby learn there language a lot slower because they are trying to learn two languages which is more than monolingual babies learn. The babies learn their language at a faster pace than an adult because of how they understand what a word means

We must engage with the children and help create interesting and enjoyable experiences in which they can learn from.

At 18 months, the virtual child had over 50 words at her command that she was able to use to make two-word sentences such as “Mama up” and “Doggie outside.” In their effort to further encourage the child’s development of her language skills, the parents applied B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning theory (Berk, 2012). They would respond, using slightly longer sentences such as “Yes, the doggie is outside” before introducing descriptive and useful new words. The parents would encourage imitation and respond with positive reinforcement, which would further enthuse the child to develop her language skills (Berk, 2012). When the child was 2 years old, the parents would converse with the child at any given opportunity and would read books of her choice which further influenced her language development. Research has found that when mothers are more responsive during the first few years of a child’s life enable their children to achieve language development milestones at an earlier stage than children whose mothers were less responsive (Leigh, Nathans & Nievar, 2011). The mother had a more influential role in the virtual child’s language development as she would allow the child to explore the surrounding environment through daily walks and teach the child new words as they did. It was due to parental involvement and an encouraging, safe environment, the virtual child developed her language skills not only due to influence but to a desire to learn new

With the powerful influence of globalization transforming every aspect of our world humans must adapt to the new cultural environment being created. One major change is that of language evolution. English is the third most spoken language worldwide after Chinese and Spanish, but it is the most popular second language overall (Haviland, Prins, Walrath, & McBride, 2014). The English language is taking over, so what, you may ask, is the point of putting in the energy to learn a second language? Why should you enrol your child in a language immersion school program? Well, as an English Canadian, learning a second language through an immersion program comes with a collection of cognitive benefits that can influence a variety of things, including mental health, academic performance, and employability, not to mentions that it plays a vital part in preserving the many cultures in our country, all while promoting acceptance diversity.