Language Development and Linguistic Diversity

1. Language Development and Linguistic Diversity Kathryn Oswood, Linda Jodock, Star Miller

2. Personal Outcomes • To understand how children learn language • To investigate the positive and negative impacts of second-language learning • To better serve students with language disorders

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4. Biological Foundations • Language is predominantly associated with the left hemisphere of the brain. • Wernicke’s Area • Affects comprehension in speech that is heard and text that is read. • Broca’s Area • Affects the production of language through speaking or writing. • Individual differences in language ability are due to genetics. • Critical Periods for Language Development • Speed of Acquisition Relative to the Amount of Input for Language Development

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6. Language Acquisition • Comprehension and production of language involves a variety of skills. • Speech Perception • Speech Production and Phonological Development • Lexical Development • Semantic Development • Grammatical and Syntactical Development • Pragmatic Development • Metalinguistic Development

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8. Language Acquisition Bilingual Language Development Bilingual Language Development - very similar to first language development. Critical periods for second-language learners: • Strong correlation between age at immigration and syntactical competence in English. Still unclear if critical period is: • First 5 years, • First 12 years, • Or even first 20 years or so of life. Earlier acquisition predicts more likelihood of attainment of native speaker competence.

9. Prelinguistic Development • Speech Perception • Phonemes • See Table 7.1 for vowel and consonant phonemes in English • Speech Production • Babbling

10. Prelinguistic Development: Speech Perception and Production • Children develop a sensitivity to phonemes in their language community • By the end of the first year of life, they have difficulty distinguishing between phonemes from another language.

11. Phonological Impairment • Children have difficulty expressing words in their native language. • Speech errors are extreme. • They are likely to experience problems with phonemic awareness that can negatively impact their ability to learn to read.

12. Language Development: Deafness • Babbling • Children that are exposed to sigh language use manual babbling – their hands babble • Gestures • Most common gesture is pointing. • Deaf children develop vocabulary sooner than most hearing-normal infants

13. Semantic Development • Referential Style • One-word utterances that refer to objects • Expressive Style • One-word expressions of emotion, feeling, and action • Vocabulary Growth • Fast Mapping • A child understands a word in one exposure • Extended Mapping • A child understands a word after multiple exposures

14. Semantic DevelopmentBilingual • One-word stage: child uses words from both languages and sometimes blends them together. • Separate lexicons or a common store for both, with each somehow tagged for which language? • Semantic vocabulary correlates with academic achievement.

15. Semantic Development Language Impaired • Children have less extensive vocabularies • Word retrieval is slow which correlates with poor reading comprehension • Interventions for word retrieval • Developing fuller understandings of word meanings • Increasing student’s strategies for retrieving words they know

16. Syntactic Development • Morphemes • Small units of language that convey meaning. • Unbound morphemes • Words that can stand alone • Dog, fire, tractor • Bound morphemes • Cannot stand alone • Prefixes, suffixes • MLU • Mean Length of Utterance • The length of a child’s utterances calculated in morphemes. • See Figure 7.2, page 196

17. Syntactic Development • Stage 1 • Telegraphic Speech • “Doggie run” • Stage 2 • Overregularization • “”goed” instead of “went” • Stage 3 • Use of negatives • “I not eating” • Stage 4 and 5 • Compound and complex sentences and passive constructions • “The teddy and the doll are going to play.” • “You bettern’t do that.”

18. Syntactic Development Bilingual • For bilinguals, adherence to word-order conventions seems to be more rigid than for monolinguals • Children tend not to “transfer syntactic rules and conventions that occur in only one of the languages they are learning to the other language.” • Differing gender markers are not confused • Tenses occurring in only one language are not confused, nor are particular rules for asking questions.

19. Syntactic DevelopmentLanguage Impaired • Syntactic rules are developed at a much slower rate. • Sentences are less syntactically complex. • Grammatical errors are higher in both speaking and writing. • Intervention • Direct teaching of syntax • Enrich child's naturalistic experiences with language

20. Pragmatic Development • The ability to understand the perspective of others contributes to the ability to communicate with others in dialogue. msnbcmedia4.msn.com/i/msnbc/Components/Photos

21. Pragmatic Development Language Impaired • Have difficulties: • initiating conversations • changing topics in conversations • responding to questions from other children • being assertive in conversations

22. Metalinguistic Awareness • Metasyntax • Discrimination of syntactically correct sentences from incorrect ones • Metalexical / Metasemantic • Understanding the nature of a word • Metaphonological • Awareness that words are composed of separable sounds • Alphabetic Principle • Understanding that letters represent sounds

23. Metalinguistic Awareness Bilingual • “Bilingual children are more aware of language than monolingual children”. • They understand that words and things have arbitrary relationships. • They can single out words in contexts like sentences more easily than monolinguals. • “Bilingual children know more about syntax than monolinguals.” • Bilingual children can translate from one language to another early in life. • They use language “appropriately as a function of speaker and context.”

24. Bilingualism and Cognitive Development In a study in Montreal by Peal and Lambert in 1962, they found: • Bilingual children outperformed the monolinguals on intelligence tests, both for verbal and nonverbal intelligence. • Their cognitive ability was clearly superior. • Bilinguals had a better understanding of concepts. Knowing two names for a concept seems to stimulate more reflection on it. • More recent studies point to a more flexible intelligence in bilinguals than in monolinguals. • More evidence in favor of rather than against bilingualism in its positive effects on intelligence and creativity.

25. Nature and Effects on Bilinguals Educators are looking for ways to combat underachievement by non-English speakers. Additive programs • Goal - add a second language without eliminating the first. • Additive programs teach students in the target (new) language for several years before being taught in both the new and the first language. • These programs tend to improve the attitudes of participants toward members of the other language group. Subtractive programs • Goal – assimilation into majority culture • Replace students’ native language with the majority language • Dubbed “submersion programs” because child has to sink or swim • Majority culture is implicitly and explicitly praised • Emotionally traumatic for the students

26. Social Consequences of Education In the majority language for bilinguals: • Students bring the majority language home with them. • Students’ skills in the minority language seems to decline. • Relations with parents and other family members are negatively affected due to communication difficulties. • Families become concerned about • losing their cultural and ethnic values in the next generation.

27. Effective Classroom Practices • Good teacher – student communication; teachers monitor and clarify. • Class works in small, collaborative groups. • Instruction organized around thematic units with student input. • Students’ home culture incorporated into classroom and instruction. • High student engagement, teacher intervention for difficulties. • Both languages used to instruct at lower grade levels; English prevailing as they progress. Use of either as needed. • High expectations communicated to students; teachers committed and convinced that their students will do well. • Parent involvement at school.

28. Cognitive Differences in Deaf and Hearing-Normal Individuals • Deaf children perform below hearing-normal children on assessments of: • general intelligence (including nonverbal measures) • conservation task • Deaf children have difficulties in school with reading and writing

29. Connection to Learning Theory:Stages versus Continuous Development • Childhood probably a critical period for language development. • Stage progression suggested by Roger Brown for syntax sensible • Data on accents in bilinguals suggests a sensitive period for acquiring ability to pronounce competently.

30. Connection to Learning Theory:Nature versus Nurture • Language depends on and is determined by nature. • Experience matters too. • Sounds children can produce depend on what they hear in the first few years of life. • Both nature and nurture affect language development

31. Connection to Learning Theory:Lasting versus Transient • Lack of exposure to language of any kind, oral or sign, will negatively impact language development. Early exposure is essential.

32. Conclusions • We need to have differentiation in the classroom due to the significant differences in language acquisition.

33. Recommendations: Speech and Language PathologistCheryl Mercer • Reinforce prepositions – under, above • Reinforce quantitative words few, many • Abstract concepts need to be taught often • Make sure students are looking at you • Give one direction at a time

34. Recommendations: ELLFrancy Hale • WASL • Language biases need to removed from standardized tests. • ELL programs need to have a high school model for delivery and instruction.

35. References • Pressley, Michael, and McCormick, Christine B. (2007). Child and Adolescent Development for Educators. New York, NY: Guilford Publications, Inc. • Lightbown, P.M. and Spada, N. (2006). How Languages are Learned. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. • Krashen, Stephen D. (2003). Explorations in Language Acquisition. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

36. Discussion Questions • What implications does this have for your classroom? • What strategies could you implement in your classroom to differentiate your instruction? ELL? Language Impaired?