One has to build on prior knowledge for learning to be meaningful and effective. My position on the activities of educating and instructing is that these need to be applicable and well thought out so that the learners can relate and engage fully. The teaching and learning has to meet and accommodate the specific needs of the different learners because when it is related and holistic, the learners can find meaning in the activities that they do. The teacher, therefore, needs to consolidate the teaching and learning process. The process of teaching and learning has the same value as the product, therefore how the children learn has the same significance as what they learn.
This process has been the subject of study of linguists, philosophers and psychologists throughout the history trying to understand and explain how a child makes the use of a language so spontaneously and how they learn it so accurately without any overt instruction. The question is how can children acquire a language and be able to use it in a so astonishing way? For the purposes of this essay I will focus on the process of language acquisition and the importance and influence of the environment as well as how Nature and nurture interact to support its complexity and elaboration throughout a human’s life. Language acquisition starts at birth. The child is exposed to a spoken language and the Phonological system starts working.
It is crucial to understand Piaget’s theory of learning; he believes that this is as a dynamic development as information is formed from the individuals themselves. Kamii (1974) emphasizes on the idea argued by Piaget which is that intellectual development is that children must be allowed to do their own learning (Halpenny and Pettersen, 2014, p. 152). To substantiate, Anne Marie Halpenny and Jan Pettersen (2014, p. 153) supports this statement in how educators can acquire and assimilate the concepts in educator’s pedagogy by claiming, that ‘active learning’ within allowing children to explore the environment is is the greatest approach for children to acquire knowledge. This suggest, that the responsibility of educators is to construct certain methodologies within their pedagogy to be able to adapt and develop aspects of Piaget’s theory to offer a learning situation where children are offered to cogitate and consequent to having children have the ability to develop as themselves. In addition to this, using Piaget’s theory in the approach of understanding that primary children from year 3 to year 6 would be distinguished as concrete operational individuals.
According to Vygotsky (1978), knowledge is social in nature and is constructed through a process of interaction and communication among learners in social settings. He made a strong argument that students need to demonstrate their knowledge by creating explanations and interpreting their work for others. Each student has a base level of knowledge, but they can increase it by practicing what they know well and adding onto it. Therefore, the social interaction between the student, teacher and other students reinforces their increase of knowledge. Classes where students have opportunities to communicate with each other help students effectively construct their knowledge (Brooks, 1993).
So, in order to be successful in learning, we have to understand and know the target culture. The aim of this article is to give necessary information about relationship between language and culture in learning the second language by given examples. Key Words: Culture, Teaching Second Language, Cultural Awareness Introduction In learning second language, the first thing which comes to our minds is structural or linguistics forms of the language. We start learning by rules, syntax, and
Introduction If teaching is all about helping others to learn, then teachers ought to understand the process of learning of adults. Adults do not learn like children. As a matter of fact, adults have shown the capability to learn easily just like small children. They are therefore more discerning in whatever they are willing to learn, more resentful as well as questioning. They thus need to see more clearly how the questions they are asked to learn will benefit them.
First language acquisition consist of children learning how to properly develop their oral skills to communicate in their native language. From birth, the child begins to acquire language by hearing adults speaking, although the child cannot fully understand the language, subconsciously the child is acquiring the language. As a child gets older they began to become knowledgeable of the grammatical rules in writing and begin to expand their vocabulary. Second language acquisition consist of child learning another language beside their native language. In some occasions a child is exposed to two languages simultaneously, causing the child to combine some aspects of the language.
When acquiring or learning a language, everyone can store and map information in their minds differently, all depending on a number of factors. This essay will explore how we best store language knowledge in our minds, and discuss differences in who can store, or acquire a language more easily, adults or children. Language knowledge is best stored and recalled from our minds because of a number of many comprehensive theories: from our neurobiological connections; behaviorally; our innate capacity to learn or acquire a language; the debated concepts of nature versus nurture; our environment; and our social interactions. Hundreds of studies of how the brain develops, processes, organizes, connects, stores and retrieves language have
Social constructivists focus on the social nature of the learning process, as well as the reality that is constructed as a result of social interactions. Several research studies have concluded that the teacher’s attitude plays an important part in an overall learning process (O’Bien, 2007). Each day teachers are engaged in social interactions inherent in instruction, and these interactions will affect the attitudes of teachers. Measuring these attitudes as they are created is one of the objectives of this study. Adherents of social constructivism feel most meaningful learning occurs when individuals are engaged in social activities with other human beings (McMahon, 1997 as cited by O’Bien, 2007).
In other words, these interactions serve as support to the process of language acquisition allowing the child to strengthen their linguistic systems. Pinker asserts that in reality, language is not fully developed through