Theories About The Nature Of Language And Language Learning

In the video titled The Four Stages of Acquiring Language, in which I observed. The first stage is “Babbling” one syllable sounds. I observed an infant at 4 months of age babbling. According to the CDC, at 4 months of age infants begin babbling, they can babble with expression and copy sounds he/she hears. Infants at this age can cry in different ways to express hunger, pain or being tired.

Students who are more introverted may observe and listen to others until they are more confident of what to say. Teachers need to understand that the outgoing student may not be as fluent as he or she seems to be and that the more introverted student may be more proficient in their second language than they appear to be. Although it will take time, both types of students will learn to speak their second language proficiently. While these students are learning, they will make mistakes. The article states that if teachers correct the mistakes directly, it may discourage students from trying out their new language skills. Modeling the correct language is a much better way of correcting mistakes then using direct correction.

The biological maturation theory of language presupposes that the origin of a language problem is because certain regions of the brain are impaired at processing information for the use of language. This is based upon the belief that these macrostructures and microstructures of the brain are influenced by the genetic code and the environmental factors. If one of these influences is limiting the brain’s functioning during specific windows of opportunity, then these areas of the brain intended for language may not develop functionally. While the interaction of these factors (i.e., genes and the environment) can strengthen the brain processes, it can also limit these fundamental processes that are being developed according to the timing outline. Therefore, the child is presenting with a language problem due to the fact that specific regions, as well as more general cognitive areas, of the brain are not processing information needed for the acquisition of language.

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.

What is First Language Acquisition? First Language Acquisition studies how children acquire their native language. Up to this day, there are many theories that theorist came up with to explain how children acquire their language. The main theories that people believe for how children acquire language are Innateness Hypothesis, Imitation Theory, Reinforcement Theory, Active Construction of a Grammar Theory and last but not least, Social Interaction Theory. These theories have many similar characteristics as well as many differences.

Early language development predicts the amount of vocabulary knowledge as the child develops and is a key factor that is linked with later academic achievement (Pungello et al., 2009; Weisleder & Fernald, 2013). Also, background factors must be analyzed and assessed, in order to understand how language growth differs from one child to the next. Exposure to speech is very important and helps influence early development of language and the processing speed (Fernald, Marchman, & Wielder, 2013 as cited by Weisleder & Fernald, 2009). A study done by Kwon et al., (2013), found that play has a significant effect on the language complexity for children’s language use pertaining to the structure of play or activity setting (free play), however the gender of the parent did not influence the language growth for the child. Furthermore, children are able to identify familiar words when speech is directed towards the child and not over heard, facilitated vocabulary learning at the age of 24 months (Weislder & Fernald, 2013). For example, over hearing adult conversation is not as beneficial towards the child’s vocabulary learning.

It goes without question that the degree of involvement and kind of relationship developed between a parent and a child is of great influence and may benefit the child’s cognitive and behavioral development. The kind of parent-child rapport obtained can also hinder these developments if the relationship fails to fulfill the common day-to-day necessities of a child while he or she goes through developmental changes. After much deliberation, reading and research it is to no surprise that the kind of relationship established between a parent and a child serves as the foundation as well as the building blocks for children to grow into well rounded, successful adults. Factors such as amount of income, degree of involvement, play time, parent

Language learning has many misconceptions. One specific misconception is that second language learning is simpler for young children, but in all actuality language learning is difficult and complex for people of all ages (Ovando and Combs, 2012). The timeframe for acquiring a second language can be lengthy and varying greatly depending on the individual learner (Ovando et al., 2012). Teaching an ELL student to read English can be perplexing often causing the brain to multitask concurrently (Ovando et al., 2012). When instructing literacy there are five components that work together for literacy success: phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, reading comprehension and fluency.

Over the centuries of human development, initial grunts and hand signs have been replaced by more complicated language structures as a basis of communication. Today, it is not only words and their assigned meanings that make the bulk of communication among people. There are also subtle nuances of meaning and implied meaning that are often misunderstood or misconstrued. Furthermore, elements such as lying and misunderstanding also influence how language is used and perceived among individuals. Because language forms the majority of communication among human beings, it is also true that it is closely connected to cognitive psychology and the way in which human beings ensure their health on various levels, including the mental level. In order to further consider this, concepts such as lexicon, the features of language, and the four levels of language can be usefully examined.

The exact way in which millions of developing children get to the point where they can produce and understand millions of words and make sentences out of it is the subject of a heated debate in the psycholinguistic field. According to Saxton (2010,p.18), the study on how children learn language can be traced back to the German biologist, Tiedermann, in 1787. However, up until the late 1950’s, it is generally agreed that approach to child language research is at best haphazardly organized. Research for example was often limited to a generally informal observations (for example research done by Lukens,1894) or diary

Humans like to speak our minds. And the language in which we speak is unique, when compared to the communication between animals. Human language is a complex communication system consisting of the creation, acquisition, and development of sound patterns using complex motor control. Though how is it that we can do this? What makes humans so different from other animals, even those genetically close to us such as Neanderthals, that we are able to speak and comprehend complex syntax. Turns out, the answer could be more biological than we think: Involving our genes.

As can be seen in Appendix 3, the teacher began the guided talk with context-embedded activities and gradually moved, with dialogue and action, towards less embedded activities, meaning that the children were never left without support, and at the time were being encouraged to move to the new knowledge which was the ability to report instructions for making a fruit salad. This is underpinned by Smyth (2003) who suggests that good planning for concept learning and language development will ensure that all pupils always move from activities with a high degree of contextual support, such as real objects and pictures, to those which are less contextually supported in these ways. At this higher level, activities will be much more dependent on the linguistic cues and the pupils’ own knowledge of language, as well as what they have already learnt.

Language acquisition is the study of how language is learned. There are two different ways to study language acquisition: by observing and describing. There is a clear difference in the way that adults and children speak. "Children do not perfect their native pronunciation for several years, but they establish crucial phonological patterns in the early months that serve them for life" (Herschensohn 29). Phonology is the study of the sound patterns that occur within languages. By studying phonology, you can pinpoint patterns within speech to understand the processes a child uses when speaking.

Hi Tom, there are many theories that try to explain that how children develop their language skills. From my perspective, I believe that early theories have provided a good understanding of children and their progress. In early theories, the environment was said to greatly influence a child’s learning and also played a major role in child language developments. According to Skinner, “children learn language based on behaviorist reinforcement principles by associating words with meanings. Correct utterances are positively reinforced when the child realizes the communicative value of words and phrases. For example, when the child says ‘milk’ and the mother will smile and give her some as a result, the child will find this outcome rewarding, enhancing the child 's language development” (1).

* 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