Chapter 4 teaches us about language and vocabulary development. Opening the chapter with an excerpt from the poem The Walrus and the Carpenter, helps us as the readers to jump right into this wonderfully intriguing topic. The theories on language acquisition and development, being the back bone to the actually teaching methods, is where I have decided to focus my attention on.
The behaviorist theory is based on the child's interaction with language involving their guardians; whether that be a positive or negative interaction. If the guardian encourages the child's cooing and babbling the child is more likely to make attempts at speech. Where as if a child is told to be quiet constantly, this child will not be so adventurous. This theory also includes children mimicking the types of language that they hear. The book gave an example of a three-year-old girl singing "My country tis a bee" instead of "My country tis of thee" because 'thee' is a word she had never heard before. (pg 100) I still find myself singing the wrong lyrics to my favorite songs because I miss hear it or put a word in that I feel would make the most sense. This really makes you think about how much your language in the classroom can affect a child for the rest of their life. (scary I know) I guess one large question would be, how do you watch what you say in front of your students as to not completely thwart their language confidence.
I thoroughly disagree with the Nativist Theory. I think it is incredibly unreasonable to think that a child would first "internalize the rules of grammar, then enabling them to produce an infinite amount of sentences." (pg 101) Personally, I learned to speak so early because my parents were constantly talking to me, reading my stories, filming me asking me questions, and so much more. Not because my parents sat me down and told me the correct use of "their, they're and there." How can a child's language possibly grow without the help of their surroundings?
Piagetian and Vygotskian theories really go hand in hand. Piagetian focusing on the experiences and sensory actions of the child. This theory also focuses on the child first talking about them self. This theory makes a lot of sense because I know that when I was young I loved talking about myself and being able to express myself in a vocal way. The Vygoskian theory talks about using social interactions to further language skills. The best way I learned about life and about new words was listening to conversations had between my parents and other adult figures in my life. I was able to watch and listen as to how they used certain phrases or words and figure out what context to use them in myself.
The constructivist theory also speaks more about a child's innate learning capabilities. This theory also involves children speaking in an incorrect manor but being able to correct themselves as being a very important part of the learning process. This theory could also potentially be compared to Halliday's theory where children "learn how to mean" (pg 102). The child alone learns how to use their language through relevance and functionality.
Some final questions I have would be, how can we see how a child is learning language in the best manor? Is it okay for us, as teachers, to let our students mess up and correct themselves for their own benefit? Finally, what is the best way to implement these theories into our daily lesson plans?
I strongly agree with all of the claims made about children learning language and vocabulary best from daily interactions and their surroundings. When I was younger, my social interactions that I had with my parents, peers, and teachers was crucial in my language and vocabulary development. Though I do think trying to instill gramatical rules into children's brains before really engaging in language with them can make things difficult, I often wonder now if it would be beneficial in today's generation. With the amount of slang usage happening now a days, hearing conversations and language that is considered grammatically correct is becoming harder and harder to come by. Because of this, it might not be a bad idea to instill grammatical rules early on before full blown language development begins to take place. As we all know, once habits are formed, they are hard to break. Even people that know how to speak grammatically correct, still choose to speak in slang in their day-to-day talk. Day-to-day talk is what most children base their language development off of. If we incorporate only the theories that highlight more on daily talk being guides to language development in our classrooms, than I would think children would create a very slang based vocabulary. Vocabulary and language becomes a habit that can almost be unbreakable, so I think instilling proper grammar usage in children at a very young age might not be such a bad idea given society's current language structure.
ReplyDeleteThe points you made in this post are both insightful and thought provoking!
ReplyDeleteI liked that you asked questions for the readers to ponder as they read. In relation to the behaviorist theory, I think it's important for us as educators to be mindful of how we act and what we say around children. They tend to model the behaviors and actions of adults, and they spend a good amount of time at school with their teachers. One aspect of the behaviorist theory that I think teachers should focus on is shaping behavior, or "self-correcting". If we noticed that a child is continuously making a specific mistake, we should guide them in the direction to self-correct. Eventually, self-correcting becomes a habit or behavior that students begin to adopt. I think this is a great skill for them to develop.
Your argument about the nativist theory is compelling. It’s crazy to think about how vital it is to engage in conversation with your child as often as possible. Even if your child hasn’t developed language skills, parents should have frequent conversations with them. The vocabulary used as well as just the voice of the parent can help greatly in his or her own language development. A child’s experiences and conversations shape them into the literate adults they’ll become. The more they’re exposed to these kinds of interactions, the more positive and effective literacy experiences they’ll have.
I think the most efficient way to see how a child is learning language skills is through interactions with people.