What Is The Role Of Talk In Children's Learning

“Oral language is a skill that is acquired naturally by the young. The importance of its development in early childhood cannot be overemphasised. It underpins the whole scope of learning and is employed to question, to seek information and to proffer ideas. A child who has a well – grounded ability in oral language will usually be nicely poised to cope with reading and writing. Anyone who lacks this will be at a disadvantage.” (J.Fellowes & G.Oakley, 2010, pp4) It is a vital component of every human beings life as it is a means of communication and interaction with their family, friends and

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

Applying Vygotsky’s theory, educators are able to scaffold the children according to their different levels of needs (Berk, 2010). Children will be encouraged to use dialogue as a necessary tool to enhance their thinking and problem solving skills (Santrock, 2014). One such tool is the private speech whereby the children will use it to plan, guide and monitor their behaviours. Besides that, the educators will be able to assess the children by using the zone of proximal development (ZPD) and prepare activities that cater to the children’s

1) 1.1 Effective communication is important in developing positive relationships with children, young people and adults in all walks of life and at any age whether it be with relatives, friends, neighbours, colleagues, associates or even total strangers. Also, effective language skills are essential for children to access the curriculum. In the classroom, spoken language is the main way that teachers teach and children learn. Therefore if the skill of communicating in an effective manner isn’t learned or grasped at an early age then it could lead to various complications in terms of interacting with other people, be it in the home or

From a social constructivist perspective, parents and carers are key in child development. Vygotsky theorized that cognitive development was achieved through social interaction. He stated that without the support of a ‘more knowledgeable other’ (MKO) children were unable to build upon their knowledge of a particular subject. The MKO may refer to a parent, teacher or peer. (Atherton

The English Curriculum (2014) values the position speaking, listening, reading and writing have as independent lessons. However, all four sectors combined are recognised as a positive developmental factor in the intellectual growth of students. It is expressed within the English curriculum how significant spoken language is; in relation to child development and also in terms of student’s progression throughout the wider curriculum. Researchers such as Owen and Burnett (2014) state that spoken language reinforces other key expertise such as reading and writing. Therefore, teachers must encourage continual development of student’s capabilities and confidence in relation to verbal language. This section of the assignment shall focus significantly

Talking and listening are essential life skills. The ability to talk in order to communicate and exchange ideas and information, to negotiate with others, to express feelings and emotions, allows human beings to function well in the world and to be full and active members of society. Communication, to be effective, requires the ability to listen, to understand and to make sense of what is heard. On the personal level, when we listen, we give attention to the other person in such a way as to allow them to feel heard, understood and therefore respected. In that way, listening is more than

Although Jim did learn speech it became noticeably odd to others around him as he had developed his own, unique grammatical characteristics and his poor articulation meant he didn’t acquire normal language skills (Sachs et al 1981). Bruner suggests that this was due to lack of social interaction in his learning of speech, which again highlights the importance of nurture in promoting a child’s language development.

Talk is an essential element in teaching and learning within the classroom as it is used to communicate our feelings, opinions and ideas. The use of talk in the classroom can help students become a functioning member of society, as they will be able to form relationships with others, starting with peers and teachers (Department for Education, 2013). This implies that the role of effective talk can provide children with a variety of opportunities that will help them achieve more from their education. Mercer’s cumulative talk highlights how children can form bonds with others through talk, as pupils are discussing and collating their ideas through communication. This also shows how children’s opinions can be

(Miller, 2003 & Roffey, 2002 as cited by Porter, 2008). There are different strategies teachers can use to maintain effective communication with parents and build strong relationships once they have made communication. Keeping a parents trust is important in maintaining open lines of communication so they can discuss concerns relating to the child and solve issues promptly. Teachers can gain parents confidence by always respecting confidentiality and avoiding rumours. If a parent finds out that their child’s teacher breached confidentiality or is a known gossip, parents will find it difficult to confide in them with an issue regarding their child, particularly if it is of a personal nature. Parents are also more likely to approach their child’s teacher if they know they can discuss issues and reach a mutual agreement (Bender, 2005). Teacher-parent communication is all about showing trust and comfort with each other. Frequent communication between these two parties creates less tension, when an issue arises, allowing a constructive discussion to take place and reaching an agreement sooner without hostility.

Children rely heavily on the input of their surrounding environments to develop these skills further (Eileen Allen & Marotz, 2003). The communication strategy used by children over the first year of life is predominately non-verbal before development progresses to include verbal communication (Rodnick & Wood, 1973). McDevitt and Ormrod (2010) suggest social emotional, physical and cognitive development is facilitated by the experiences children have in their “family, school and community” (p. 5). This raises the idea that the level of communicative development may differ greatly between children depending on experiential exposure. Rodnick and Wood (1973) expand on this further suggesting children will actually develop a level of grammatical and language understanding which is essential to communication, long before they commence schooling. In research conducted by Rodnick and Wood (1973) it was noted in their findings that the children subject to their research demonstrated a lower level of communication than expected at around the age of seven and suggest it may be due to environmental factors. This then draws some attention to the educator and their ability to teach a developing child not only the importance of communication, but also the skills of appropriate and effective communication.

Interactions between teachers and students in regards to teacher talk is one of the most important learning tools used in the classroom. Talk moves are tools for building an environment that serves a range of productive interactional, social and intellectual learning functions in the classroom (Edwards-Groves, 2014). They are enabled and constrained by the “sayings, doings and relatings present in classrooms” and prompt responses from students (Edwards-Groves, 2014, p1). Teacher talk is a large part of how students learn, through models such as ‘Initiate, Respond, Evaluate’ (IRE). The IRE model involved the teacher asking questions and giving appropriate feedback to the student’s response to help them understand the reasons behind their response. The Scaffolding Interaction Cycle (SIC) is another important tool, which involved teachers scaffolding a students’ response to engage higher learning functions. It is important to consider Bull and Anstey’s three-style model, consisting of pedagogy of school, pedagogy of literacy lessons and pedagogy of literacy learning (Anstey and Bull, 1996). Pedagogy of school involves the teacher and the student conversing in a Q&A like manner, or a ‘guess-what’s-in-my-head’ approach taken by the teacher. The pedagogy of literacy lessons involves the students carrying out the teacher’s instructions but not making the connection to what they are learning. There is a time where these styles may be useful, but

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.

Based on my own experience I would like to dive into my position on the issue of childhood communication that directly affects a child’s development and education. Communication is essential to human life. We learn how to communicate first and foremost from our parents, or those who raise us. These people whom we depend on are who determine how we learn to communicate with and understand others. When children are growing up communication is crucial to their innate human nature, and the way they develop as adolescents is a building block to the kinds of relationships they form later in life. Childhood growth and development are indefinitely affected by different environmental and cultural situations in which a child is subject to. When acknowledging the undeniable gaps in maturity between children many factors come into account; money and environment. More importantly my standpoint on this issue would be the idea that children who grow up in a relatively less affluent household/area are more likely to face much more problematic issues with learning and communicating. I argue that the more impoverished an area is the less advanced the communication is between parents and children, but I also believe that there is a disparity between the children who grow up in an affluent setting.

Scaffolding is defined by Educational Psychology, 8th edition as: “Support for learning and problem solving; might include clues, reminders, encouragement, breaking the problem down into steps, providing an example, or anything else that allows the student to grow in independence as a learner (45).” The key concepts of scaffolding in the zone of proximal development is how Vygotsky believed the most learning can take place as the students are amongst peers whose “private speech” can be discussed among one another to come to new conclusions. (aka learning.) private speech Children 's self-talk, which guides their thinking and action; eventually internalized as silent inner speech. For example, a teacher could introduce a concept requiring prompting,