EDU10002-Assignment 2 PDF

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EDU10002 Understanding Literacy and Language Assignment 2: Essay Student Name： Swinburne Online University Student Number : Date： 19/12/2019

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Topic: Explain how children’s language development can be understood by drawing on the theories of the early stages of language acquisition and development (nativist theory, behaviourist theory and interactionist theory)

Language is the most important media that people communicate with each other. It is rather complex to understand children’s language development. The professionals have done numerous researches and developed many theories on understanding children’s language development. This essay will be explaining three main theories in language acquisition: The Nativist theory, the Behaviourist (or ‘learning’) theory and the Interactionist theory. In this essay, the meaning of each theory and how they were developed in the first stage in early childhood will be discussed. Examples of children’s developmental milestone in language will also be provided to support each theory which will help early childhood educators understand children’s language acquisition.

The Nativist theory states that people all born with language acquisition which relates to nature instead of nurture (Fellowes & Oakley, 2014). Noam Chomsky (1959), who found the Nativist theory, believed that a Universal Grammar was built into our brain when we were born. Academy (2017) also indicated that people were all born with the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) by which we are able to learn language and understand the rules of grammar. According to Noam Chomsky’s theory, LAD only works during birth to eight years old. This is called the ‘critical period’ and it is much easier to learn a language during this period (Khan Academy, 2017). The Nativist theory believes that it is possible to learn a language as most languages in the world have similar language structure rules, such as verbs and nouns. As grammar is part of our genetic structure, the rules can be shared in most languages (Khan Academy, 2017). Children are able to use grammatical rules when they were little supported by LAD. But for more complex words or irregular words, children learn in the ‘critical period’ while constantly listening to what adults say. For example, children start to form short sentences between the age of one to two like, ‘I tell daddy’, ‘I fall over’. Children say these without being taught as they started to talk naturally. It is acknowledged that some of the language rules come naturally. Young children listen to what the adults have said and will repeat new words in their own sentences. Adults will have to correct the error by responding positively. By hearing ‘I fall over’, adult could answer ‘It is actually I fell over’, would you please repeat it for me?’ By doing this, the children will gain more understanding of their native language. This will also support the developmental milestones for children around the age of 2 to 3 as they started to understand the past tense.

According to the behaviourist or learning philosophy, children learn and interact with their environment by imitation, repetition and positive reinforcement. This theory indicates that children pay attention to the adults around them (parents, educators and caregivers) and mimic or copy what they say, then receive positive Z1031

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reinforcement when they correctly use words, phrases or pronunciations (Fellows and Oakley, 2014). Skinner (1957) states that by imitation of sounds and words they get from environment and receiving positive reinforcement, children began to learn and understand language. For example, when a baby first time say ‘ma’, the mummy will be very excited and smile, cuddle the baby and say ‘yes, mama’. Baby could make the ‘ma’ sound because they have imitated the continuous repetition of his/her parents or siblings using the word in the past. The response of the mother is positive reinforcement, and this will encourage the baby for this behaviour. By this time the child may have a better understanding of the word and link it to an object or action (Fellowes and Oakley, 2014). In this case the baby links the word ‘mama’ to the person because he/she has been heard the word lots of times and is able to connect the word with the person, and this is known as ‘classical conditioning’ (Fellowes and Oakley, 2014). For example, a toddler copes parents waving hands while asking the child ‘let’s wave bye- bye’, ‘can you wave bye- bye?’ ‘say bye- bye.’ Then the child may able to link the waving action to the word ‘bye- bye’. This matches the development milestone for the children aged between 12 to 24 months as they are able to imitate others’ sounds, actions and words at this stage (Community Child Care Co-operative Ltd NSW, 2015). As believed by the Behaviourist theory, a positive environment enables children to learn language better.

The third theory is Social Interactionist. The interactionist theory advises children to learn and develop language through communication and social interaction within their environment, including parents, educators and caregivers (Fellowes and Oakley, 2014). This theory emphasis that children were all born with the desire to communicate and social with others and this is the main reason they learn language (Fellowes and Oakley, 2014). This perspective explains that children’s language understanding and developing are based on communicating and social interaction with the people around like parents, caregivers, educators and siblings as well. The most representative theorist of the Interactionist theory is Jean Vygotsky. The two main concepts included in Vygotsky’s theory are Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and Scaffolding (Rathus, 2017). Vygotsky use the term of ZPD to describe children solve problems with the help from people who is more knowledgeable or more competent in a certain area, for example, parent or an educator (Fellowes and Oakley, 2007). Vygotsky indicates that challenging tasks will promote children’s learning more than those they could already solve independently. The reason is that children will put more effort in challenging tasks which will promote their cognitive growth (Duchnesne and McMaugh, 2016, p.219). For example, children always feel curious when hearing a new word or seeing new thing from an adult and they learn new words through this way. The term of ‘scaffolding’ refers to that when children solve problems independently using the skills that they have been taught before (Rathus, 2017). For example, an educator teaches a 3 -year-old child to complete a simple puzzle. The educator may ask the child what the child can see in each pieces and what shapes they are. Questions that may help them finish the puzzle could also be asked. Children ages around 3 or 4meet this developmental milestones as they

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are able to answer simple questions and communicate with educators or parents (Community Child Care Co-operative Ltd NSW, 2015).

In conclusion, the three theories discussed above, the Nativist, the Behaviourist and the interactionist theory, covered the characteristic of children’s language acquisition and development in early stage although they are a bit different and none of them can fully explain children’s language acquisition. The examples provided for each theory will help educators and parents understand how to encourage and support children’s language development within the knowledge of children’s developmental milestone.

References:

Chomsky, Noam. 1959. Verbal behavior. Edited by B. F. Skinner. Language 35.1: 26–58. Community Child Care Co-operative Ltd NSW. (2015). Early Years Learning Framework Practice Based Resources – Developmental Milestones. Retrieved from: https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/05_2015/developmentalmilestones.pdf Duchesne, S., McMaugh, A. (2016). Cognitive Development. In Educational Psychology. For learning and teaching (5th Edition). Cengage Learning. Australia. (Chapter 3, p76-125)

Fellowes, J., Oakley, G. (2014). Language, Literacy and Early Childhood Education, 2nd edition. Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press

Khan Acacemy. (2017). Theories of the early stages of language acquisition. Retrieved from: https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat/processing-theenvironment/language/a/theories-of-the-early-stages-of-language-acquisition

Rathus, S.A. (2017). Childhood and Adolescence: Voyages in Development, 6th Edition. Cengage Brain Bookshelf. Retrieved from: https://cengagebrain.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781305856370/

Skinner, B. F. (1957). Verbal behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

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