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SLAT2001

INTRODUCTION TO SL LEARNING ANDTEACHING

WEEK 2

CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

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TUTORIAL Group - go to the group you signed up Go to the same tute every week.

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ASSESSMENT #1 (REFLECTIVE ESSAY 25%)Task

Give an account of your personal experience of learning a language other than your first language. Tryto describe how you were encouraged to learn it andhow successful or otherwise this was. There is a list of suggestions which you might like to use in your accountin the guideline. DO NOT try to cover all the itemsmentioned but use them as a guide for your ideas. Notethis is an account of how you DID learn, not how oneSHOULD learn.

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OUTLINE1. Quiz and Brainstorm

2. Childrens language acquisition development

3. Theories of first language acquisition Behaviourist

Innatist

Interactionist

4. Cross cultural research

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QUIZ - CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

1. Do children learn their first language by imitatingadults speech? Why?

a. Yes

b. No2. Approximately how many words do 5 year old

children learn per day?

a. 5b. 10

c. 20

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(CONTD)

3. What is the most commonly uttered first Word? Whatis your justification for your choice of the word?

a. Dada

b. Daddyc. Mama

d. Dade. Mummy

f. Mumg. Cat

h. No

i. Dog

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4. Can a child develop his/her language if he/she is leftalone in the forest for first 5 years his/her life?

a. Yes

b. No

5. The child whose parents are not native speakers of

English learns to speak with accent of their parentsmother tongue.

a. Agree

b. Disagree 7

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BRAINSTORMING1. How do children develop their first language?

2. What are the factors which may impact onchildrens language development?

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RECEPTIVE LANGUAGE- FIRST 12 MONTHS

1. 0-3 months Loud noise wake babies, and they cry if there is

unexpected noise. Recognise familiar voice turning face to you

2. 4-6 months Start responding to word no. Responsive to changes of tone of voice and sounds

other than speech (toy, music etc)3. 7-12 months Recognises the names of familiar objects and people

and begins to respond to request. 9

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BEFORE SCHOOL (1-5 YEARS OLD)1. 1-2 years

Point to the pictures in a book, a few body parts Follow simple commands and understand simple questions. Listen to and understand simple stories.

2. 2-3 years Understand and respond two stage commands (Get your socks and

put them in the basket). Respond to telephone or doorbell ringing.

3. 3-4 years Understand simple Wh questions.

4. 4-5 years Understand nearly everything that is said to them at home, or other

familiar surroundings.

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PRODUCTIVE LANGUAGE- SUMMARY

Stage Typical age Description Babbling 6-8 months Repetitive

One-word stage(better one-morpheme orone-unit) or holophrasticstage

9-18 months Single open-class words or wordstems

Two-word stage 18-24 months "mini-sentences" with simplesemantic relations

Telegraphic stage

or early multiword stage(better multi-morpheme)

24-30 months "Telegraphic" sentence structures

of lexical rather than functional orgrammatical morphemes

Later multiword stage 30+ months Grammatical or functionalstructures emerge

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1. Before 6 months Cooing cries accompanied by producing some

soundshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obqiv1ch2FM

2. 6-8 months Babbling http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kuOt4kZUn0

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obqiv1ch2FMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kuOt4kZUn0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kuOt4kZUn0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kuOt4kZUn0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kuOt4kZUn0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kuOt4kZUn0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kuOt4kZUn0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obqiv1ch2FM

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3. 9-18 months one word, the pholophrastic stage Linked with a childs own action or desire for action -

Bye bye

Used to convey emotions no Naming functions doggy

4. 18-24 months - Two word utterances

Lack of morphological and syntactic markers Word order mummy sock where ball?

5. 24-30 months - Telegraphic stage

"Car going? Pig say oink 1 3

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CHARACTERISTICS OF CHILD LANGUAGEDEVELOPMENT

High degree of similarity in the early language of children all over the world

The stages of language development are related tochildrens cognitive development.

Temporal adverbs (e.g., yesterday) will not emergeuntil children understand time.

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GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES

Morpheme = the smallest unit of linguistic meaning(ing , .s, ed)

Browns (1973) longitudinal study & J. And P. de

Villiers (1973) cross-sectional studyLongitudinal observation of a few children overtime

Cross-sectional observe a larger number of childrenat one time and compare them according to thevariables such as age, gender, family background etc.

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SPECIFIC ORDER OF MORPHEMEACQUISITION

present progressive -ing (runn ing ) plural s (two book s) irregular past forms (baby went) possessive s (Daddy s hat) copula (Annie is happy) articles ( the and a ) regular past ed (She walk ed ) third person singular simples present (She run s) auxiliary be (He is coming)

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The Wug Test

Jean Berko-Gleason (1958)This is a wug.

Here is another one. Nowthere are two of them. There

are two ______.

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(CONTD)

Here is the man who knows how to bod. Yesterday hedid the same thing.

He ---------

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWEiqVGfPmA

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWEiqVGfPmAhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWEiqVGfPmA

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NEGATION

1. Add nono heavy no singing song no want milk

2. Add no/dont/cant inside sentence He no bite you I no taste them

He dont want it

Gradually increasing in complexity 1 9

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QUESTIONS

Developmental order

what?

where? and who?

why?

how? And when?

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(CONTD) Stage 1 and 2

Intonation milk? (Stage 1) I ride train? (Stage 2),sit chair? + chunks (whats that?) (Stage 1)

Stage 3

Tack on a question word at front of sentence =fronting what he wants?, what he can ridein? Is the teddy is tired?

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Stage 4

changing word order Are you going to play with me? add Aux - Do dogs like icecream ?

Stage 5 and 6Increased variety in auxilliary use be, have, do, must

Embedded questions

Ask him why cant he go out.

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AROUND THE PRESCHOOL YEARS(3-5 YRS OLD)

Increased vocabulary learning (5-7 words/day) Words are undergeneralised

dog = family pet only and not all dogs Words are overgeneralised

daddy = all men

Language is used in a widening environmentMetalinguistic awareness

drink the chair cake the eat

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AROUND THE SCHOOL YEARS1. Reading

2. Vocabulary increases and becomes more abstract

3. Children learn to use different registers Difference between written and spoken

languages

Appropriateness of the language according to thecontext (e.g., playground, strangers)

4. Language varieties/ Standard Australian English(SAE)

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THEORIES OF FIRST LANGUAGEACQUISITION

1. Behaviourist

2. Innatist3. Interactionist

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BEHAVIOURIST (B.F.SKINNER1950S) Imitation (Stimulus)

Response

Positive reinforcement (praise, or successfulcommunication)

Continued practice

Language Acquisition

Environmental Factors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ctJqjlrHA 2 6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ctJqjlrHAhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ctJqjlrHA

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MAIN POINTS Language learning habit formation Quality and quantity of the language the child areexposed and the consistency of the reinforcement in

the environment are the decisive factor of childrenslanguage development. Imitation and practice primary processes inlanguage development

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UNDERLINED PRINCIPLES:

Behavior that is positively reinforced willreoccur; intermittent reinforcement isparticularly effective

Information should be presented in smallamounts so that responses can be reinforced("shaping")

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EXAMPLES

Imitation: word for word repetition of all or part of someones utterance

Mother: Shall we play with dolls?Lucy: Play with dollsMother: Great. Which doll shall we play with?

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QUESTIONS Do children imitate adults speech and develop

their language? Is childrens brain blank beforethey are exposed to any input?

Can you think about second language teachingmethodology based on behaviourist view of

language learning?

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IMMITATION

Child: My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we pattedthem.

Adult: Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits?

Child: Yes.

Adult: What did you say she did?

Child: She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them.

Adult: Did you say she held them tightly?

Child: No, she holded them loosely.

Cazden, C. Child language and Evaluation 3 1

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PROBLEMS WITH BEHAVIOURISTTHEORY Children do not produce more grammatically correct

sentences even when modeled. Children produce more creative sentences than they

would hear cat stand up table Parents expose children to conflicting and irregular

reinforcement her curl my hair Parents rarely correct childrens grammatical

mistakes.

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(CONTD)

Imitation cannot account for non-randommistakes the boys goed home, the mousesrunned

Can children learn only what they hear? adult

speech is full of false starts, repetitions, slips of the tongue. Behaviourist theory assumes that childrens mind

is blank. Children are able to produce

sophisticated language regardless of thelanguage they are exposed to. The logical problem of language acquisition

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INNATIST THEORYNOAM CHOMSKY (1950S 1970S)

Children are born with a specific innate ability todiscover for themselves the underlying rules of alanguage system (Universal Grammar) on the basis of the samples of a language they are exposed.

http://www.chomsky.info/

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http://www.chomsky.info/http://www.chomsky.info/

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THREE MAIN POINTS

1. Poverty-of-the-stimulus

Logical problem of language acquisition

Ungrammatical and incomplete input Grammatically acceptable output

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(CONTD)

Children hear only a finite number of sentences.

Abstract the rules and principle of the language.

Produce infinite number of sentences.

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(CONTD) 2. Constrains and principles cannot be learned.

Children are very young when learning L1. Single words appear around age 1.

Basic grammar is learned around age 6. At age 6 no one has cognitive ability to understand

the principles of grammar as a system. Because of innate capacity, children are able to use it.

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(CONTD)

3. Patterns of development are universal. Children learn various aspects of language in a

similar order. If children learned only what they were taught, the

order of what they learned would vary in differentlearning environments.

Morpheme acquisition (Brown, 1973)

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(CONTD)

LAD = Language acquisition device

Function of the brain that is specially for learninglanguage

Innate = just like learning to walk

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(CONTD)

Universal Grammar (UG)- The form of the humanlanguage that can be acquired unconsciously,without instruction, in the early years of life; basic

linguistic principles shared by all languages

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EXAMPLES OF GRAMMATICAL KNOWLEDGE

Grammatical knowledge is in place before childrenlearn to read.

1. Making grammatical judgments does not depend on

having heard the sentence before:

e.g., Enormous crickets in pink socks were dancingat the ball.

2. Nor does it have to be meaningful:

e.g., Colourless green ideas sleep furiously

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(CONTD)

3. Ungrammatical sentences sound funny:

*Furiously sleep ideas green colourless.

*Milk the crumpled verb a.4. You may understand ungrammatical sequences

even if they are not well formed and the wordorder is irregular:

*The boy quickly in the house the ball found.

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(CONTD) 5. On the other hand they may have no meaning but stillfollow the rules and be enjoyable:

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe

(Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll) 6. Ungrammatical sentences are not amusing:

*Toves slithy the and brillig twas

Wabe the in gimble and gyre did

Your understanding of UG learnt as a child permits you tomake grammatical judgments.

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SUPPORT FOR INNATISTS VIEW based on the early age at which children show

competency in their native grammars, as well as theways in which they do (and do not) make errors.

Infants are born able to distinguish betweenphonemes in minimal pairs, distinguishing betweenbah and pah , for example.

They do not, however, say things like 'want my' or 'Icookie,' statements that would break the syntacticstructure of the principle, a component of universalgrammar.

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CRITICAL PERIOD HYPOTHESIS (CPH)The period between early childhood and pubertyduring which a child can acquire language withoutinstruction.

Wild children of India Amala /Kamala (1920s) Victor France (1799) Genie USA. A child confined to a small room with

physical restraints. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWzO8DtRd-

s&feature=related

No language input 4 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWzO8DtRd-s&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWzO8DtRd-s&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWzO8DtRd-s&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWzO8DtRd-s&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWzO8DtRd-s&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWzO8DtRd-s&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWzO8DtRd-s&feature=related

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MORE SUPPORT FOR INNATISTS THEORYDeaf population of Nicaragua

Until 1986, no formalised sign language for thedeaf in Nicaraga.

Deaf children in Nicaragua developed their ownsing language with its own rules of signphonology and syntax.

Healthy adults who had never acquiredlanguage were not capable of learninglanguage.

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QUESTION How might innatist theory of language learning

apply to second language learning/teaching?

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CRITICISMS OF INNATIST THEORY Too much emphasis on the final state (i.e.,

what is presented in adult native speakers -competence)

Abstract knowledge of language rather thanwhat children produce (focus on what is

presented in childrens brain, but not interestedin performance.)

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3. Interactionist Theory

Cognitive(innatist)

Environment(behaviourist)

Interactionist Theory

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INTERACTIONIST THEORY

Jean Piaget (1951/1946):childrens cognitive development

Lev Vygotsky (1978):social interaction ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development = interaction +

1) week 5

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CROSS-CULTURAL RESEARCH Child rearing patterns differ across cultures

Child directed speech higher pitch, slower, shorter,repetition, simple syntax (baby talk), childsimmediate environment (here and now)

Child socialisation differs across cultures

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ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ

1. Do children learn their first language by imitatingadults speech? 2. Approximately how many words do 5 year old children

learn per day?

3. What is the most commonly uttered first Word? Whatis your justification for your choice of the word?

4. Can a child develop his/her language if he/she is leftalone in the forest for first 5 years his/her life?

5. The child whose parents are not native speakers of English learns to speak with accent of their parentsmother tongue.

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WEEK 3 Applications to SLA

Chapter 2 Explaining Second Language Learning inLightbown and Spada (2006)

Lecturer Shirin Jarmarmani

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