Introduction
Exposing children as early as possible to language is crucial to language acquisition (Atkinson, 1988). Language is many things, it can be a system of communication, a medium for thought, vehicle for literary expression, a matter for political controversy, a catalyst for notion building. (O’ Grady & Dobrovolsky, 1989: 1 in Imansyah, 2008:1) The existence of language can’t be separated from human life. It can be seen from the fact that all related to interaction among people necessitate a language. Language is an important means of communication. Language reflect thinking, obviously we can’t say a sentence until we have first thought of it. Often our thinking gets mixed with emotions and our reasons become loaded with desires,
…show more content…
Speaking more than one language shouldn’t be treated as something out of the ordinary. When it comes to language, infants are pre-wired to learn. They actually form connections and grow new brain cells to process the particular languages they are exposed to. Bilingual children tend to actually have measurably larger brains with denser grey matter than their monolingual peers. This extra brain power has been shown to give these children an advantage later in life in such areas as logic and math. As the child gets older, the brain's ability to restructure itself in this manner diminishes, and by a very early age (between 6 and 9 years old) the window has virtually closed. This is why young children the world over can learn one or more languages almost effortlessly, while older children and adults struggle to learn a second tongue and rarely become fluent or develop good accents. Furthermore, these latecomers experience far fewer of the brain functionality increases that the kids who started early enjoy. It is simply a element of belonging to our global society. When young children are exposed to other languages and cultures at a very young age through books, videos, songs and objects, they will have the opportunity to feel comfortable growing up in a world where languages and cultures intertwine on a daily
Listening to children The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child shows a child’s right to his or her own views in all matters and the right to the freedom of expression. This includes the right to receive and be part of information about themselves. All people around children need to make sure that rights are upheld and matters affecting children are looked after. Children can experience worries at home, at school or with their peers and children need to talk about their issues. Parents, professionals and practitioners need to pay attention not only to what children say, but also what they are saying.
Explain the reasons why children and young people’s development may not follow the expected pattern: The reasons why children and young people’s development may not follow the expected patters is due to them maybe having a disability, emotional influences, physical influences, environmental influences, cultural influences, social influences, learning needs and communication skills. Children with disabilities require a lot more support than those without a disability in order to help them develop their skills and become more independent. Disabilities can affect more than one area of a child’s development depending on what disability they have and what support is available in order to help improve the child’s needs etc. Emotionally children are affected due to them maybe having signs of depression where they are quiet than the rest of the children and they shy away from joining in with different activities and getting involved with other children.
Confident Relationships Built on Language Wouldn’t it be exciting to grow up learning more than one language? Imagine being in Japan for a week on vacation with a group of friends, and one day decided to go to the oldest zoo in Japan, Ueno Zoo. To get to Ueno Zoo, riding the bullet train was a necessity, except knowing which line was the correct line, when to get off the bullet train, or even which ticket to buy was a daunting task. Nobody in your group has the confidence to ask the workers for help since they don’t have the knowledge of Japanese to help them.
If students begin their bilingual education as early as kindergarten, they are more likely to successfully acquire a second language. Children are like sponges and soak up information easily. Research conducted by Dr. Patricia Kuhl at the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington shows that by 8-12 months, if babies are exposed to a second language, they retain the ability to distinguish those foreign sounds. Moreover, through the age of 7 or 8, children are able to learn to speak a second language with fluent grammar and without an accent.
However, if you’re not a bilingual family, then you need to bear in mind that the more you expose your child to different types of communities, where different languages are spoken, the better are the chances that your baby will acquire both languages equally. Kids also need to understand that they need to learn the language from different people with different languages addressing them. In this way, children will naturally find their way to understand and acquire different
Children must mature to a certain point before they can gain some skills. For example, the brain of a six-month-old has not matured enough to allow the child to talk. A six-month-old will babble and coo. However, by three years of age, with the help of others, the child will be able to say and understand many words. This is how cognitive development occurs from simple tasks to more complex tasks.
On the one hand, some argue that language constructs our thoughts. From this perspective, Deborah Tannen, from the language constructs thought community, states that “This is how language works. It invisibly molds our way of thinking about people, actions, and the world around us” (Tannen 14). On the other hand, however, others such as Richard Selzer, might say that language is used to represent our thoughts, but it can fall short. One of his view’s main proponents are, “these extremes of sensation remain beyond the power of language to express” (Selzer 28).
From the earlier stages of development, children learn to understand other people by tone, facial expressions, and gestures. Although these are important aspects to communication if a child is only using gestures to communicate and not words, then there might be a difficulty in language development. On average “Children will typically be able to say 50 words by the time they reach 2 years. At this age, they will start to put short two-word sentences together. Language learning increases dramatically and by three years children are using three to four-word sentences and can be easily understood by familiar adults.
The children learning a second language for develop skills that will help create opportunities in the future and ability to communicate with others in different situations. It will most certainly In addition to the language skills of children with learning a second language, and learning the cultural differences helps. Includes a variety of educational and career opportunities as well. However, children learning a second language in the early teens It can learn faster and learn the lesson faster also. But it does not mean if passed, then a teenager.
The worries articulated by parents and educators relate to the children’s ability to differentiate the linguistic system, the possibility of significant delay in the rate of acquisition, and possible deviations from developmental paths observed in monolingual acquisition. Volterra and Taeschner (1978) proposed a three stage model of bilingual language development. They argued that initially the child is unable to distinguish two different systems .According to this model a child begins with a single linguistic system, which is gradually separated into two. • In the first stage of the model, the child’s system consists of a single lexical system which includes words from both languages .This
This is a theory that suggests humans acquire language substantially easier during a critical period of biological development, which is from infancy to puberty. (Hoff,2005). One case study carried out focused on a girl named Genie. Genie was locked in isolation in her home and was not discovered by authorities until she was at the age of 14. Throughout her life of confinement, Genie was not exposed to a substantial amount of language.
Abstract The importance of language skills and the ability to communicate and interact with the surrounding environment is critical in the early stages of development in a child. Communication and social skills, along with learning and expressing themselves in order to interact, is highly important during the developmental period in a child’s life. These critical issues have induced the interest and concerns by both parents and researchers to explore and study the effects of bilingualism. In this paper, we will take a look at the most common myths and misunderstandings about bilingualism.
Children learn language skills by interacting with the immediate environment and training or simple structural changes can improve language skills of children (Bouchard & Gilles, 2011). The early education given in early childhood shapes foundation of the life and helps mental and academic development of child. Throughout the play and education, children learn social skills along with how to deal with others and develop their own values (Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2010). Therefore, this paper, with the purpose of developing the children’s future, discusses why it is very essential to recognize the importance of early childhood education, how it effects to person 's life and how it can be developed. 2.Disscussion of findings 2.1.
Studies have shown that people begin to lose the ability to reproduce new sounds by the ages of 8 to 12 so that they would never be able to mimic exactly some of the sounds and accents of other languages. Learning the language younger can avoid this issue and allow children to sound just as good as native speakers when speaking a language. Now instead of talking about when you should learn another language, so let 's talk about why you should learn another language. There are plenty of good reasons for why you should learn a second language. One of the most common reasons is to be able to visit foreign cultures and understand them.
The development of literacy and language is a continual progress within a person. This development is one that starts from the moment a child is born (Hurst and Joseph, 2000). This development is promoted within the home environment and is extended within the early years’ classroom domain. Literacy and language development is comprised of four strands, which are listening, speaking, reading & writing. These four factors are in constant interaction together and are constantly developing within the person (Saffran, Senghas and Trueswell, 2001).