LANGUAGE LEARNING IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

LANGUAGE LEARNING IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

1. First language acquisition

   • One of the most impressive and fascinanting aspects of human development.
     • The first three years:Milestones and developmental sequences.
       • The earliest vocalizations are simply the involuntary crying that babies do when they are hungry or comfortable.
       • They distinguish the voice of their mothers and other speakers, and seem to recognize the language that was spoken aorund their mother before the
       • Babies are capable to hear the difference between sounds as similar as ‘pa’ and ‘ba’. They will continue to respond to these differences for a longer period when they hear more than one languages.
       • Stages in Grammar Morphemes
         • Negation
         • Questions
       • The-pre school years
         • At the age of four, most children have aquired the basic strucures of the language.
           • Children (3-4 year olds) begin to learn vocabulary at the rate of several words a day.
             • They develop their ability in using the language in a widening social environment and variety of situations.
               • Children also begin to develop metalinguistic awareness.
         • The school years
           • Children develop their language as they grow up.
             • Reading gives a major boost to metalinguistic awareness.
               • Metalinguistic awareness also includes the discovery of such things as ambiguity
                 • In the school years, children also develop vocabularies.
           • Explaining Fist Language Acquisition
             • The behaviorist perspective
               • The innatist perspective
                 • Interactionist/ developmental perspectives
             • Childhood bilingualism
               • Children’s acquisition of languages start from the first moment of their childhood and add to its variety during school and develop multifacets of personal, social, and economic opportunities.
                 • There is no evidence that learning a 2nd language has negative effects on developments.