EDEC 4320 Week 1

1. EDEC 4320 Week 1 Oral & written Language development Instructor: Dr. Lydiah Nganga Meeting times- 4-7 p.m Pre-assessment Introduction to course work

2. What is language development? Language acquisition is the process by which language develops in humans. First language acquisition concerns the development of language in children, while second language acquisition focuses on language development in adults as well. Historically, theories and theorists may have emphasized either nature or nurture (see Nature versus nurture) as the most important explanatory factor for acquisition. Most researchers, however, acknowledge the importance of both biology and environment. One hotly debated issue is whether the biological contribution includes language-specific capacities, often described as Universal Grammar.

3. What is oral & written Language development? Definitions Oral- The reception and expression of the pragmatic, semantic, syntactical, morphological, and phonological aspects of language; involves listening and speaking.www.upei.ca/~xliu/measurement/glossary.htm A spoken language is a human language in which the words are uttered through the mouth. Almost all languages are spoken languages. Computer languages are not spoken languages. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_language

4. Definitions continued Oral language comprehension- is the ability to listen and accurately reconstruct what is said on the basis of understanding.assist.educ.msu.edu/ASSIST/modules/6/glossary.php Written Language- Includes the receptive skill, reading, and the expressive skill, writing.www.upei.ca/~xliu/measurement/glossary.htm written communication: communication by means of written symbols wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn A written language is a language that uses a writing system to convey meaning, or more generally the written form of any language that has such written components. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_language

5. When does language development start? language acquisition begins very early in the human lifespan, and begins, logically enough, with the acquisition of a language's sound patterns. The main linguistic accomplishments during the first year of life are control of the speech musculature and sensitivity to the phonetic distinctions used in the parents' language. Interestingly, babies achieve these feats before they produce or understand words, so their learning cannot depend on correlating sound with meaning. learns words and grammar.

6. Continued That is, they cannot be listening for the difference in sound between a word they think means bit and a word they think means beet, because they have learned neither word. They must be sorting the sounds directly, somehow tuning their speech analysis module to deliver the phonemes used in their language (Kuhl, et al., 1992).

7. Continued Shortly before their first birthday, babies begin to understand words, and around that birthday, they start to produce them (see Clark, 1993; Ingram, 1989). Words are usually produced in isolation; this one-word stage can last from two months to a year. Children's first words are similar all over the planet. About half the words are for objects: food (juice, cookie, body parts (eye, nose), clothing (diaper, sock), vehicles (car, boat), toys (doll, block), household items (bottle, light, animals (dog, kitty), and people (dada, baby).

8. Continued There are words for actions, motions, and routines, like (up, off, open, peekaboo, eat, and go, and modifiers, like hot, all gone, more, dirty, and cold. Finally, there are routines used in social interaction, like yes, no, want, bye-bye, and hi -- a few of which, like look at that and what is that, are words in the sense of memorized chunks, though they are not single words for the adult. Children differ in how much they name objects or engage in social interaction using memorized routines, though all children do both.

9. Chapter Morrow- Foundations of oral & written language Pages 2-3- literacy begins in infacy Importance of the home environment Link between school & home Provide rich experiences at school Supportive environments, rich with materials & varied experiences

10. Chapter Morrow- Foundations of oral & written language Meaningful early experiences Systematic & explicit instruction on skills Frequent assessment of progress Tying standards & benchmarks to instruction Age & developmental appropriate Research based programs

11. Important theorist & philosophers 1700-1800�s Rousseau Pestalozzi Frobell 20th century Dewy Skinner Montessori Piaget Vygotsky For each of the following briefly explain their contribution to the area of language development.

12. Whole language vs emergent literacy- page 12-13 What is whole language? What is emergent literacy? How do the two differ? A look at �continuum of children�s development in early reading & writing� � pages 30-23 (Morrow). Practices Thematic instruction Constructivist approach

13. Next week- 9/7 Meet at 5 p.m Family literacy- See readings from syllabus page 4. Due- 3 pages summary of readings (all home work assignments must be typed, font size 12)