Oral Language Development and Awareness

ORAL LANGUAGE COMPONENTS

 Phonology

Phonology covers the organization or system of sounds within a language. Once the
phonological system has been acquired for basic listening and speaking, children begin
to develop phonological awareness—the awareness of words in sentences or syllables
in words. Other aspects of phonological awareness include rhyme, alliteration, onset
rime (word families), blending, segmenting, and manipulating sounds. At the most
complex level is phonemic awareness (blending, segmenting, and manipulating words
at the individual sound— or phoneme—level).

 Vocabulary/Meaning (Semantics)

The development of vocabulary focuses both on expressive and receptive vocabulary.

Expressive vocabulary represents the words a student actively uses when talking,
writing, or otherwise communicating. Receptive vocabulary represents the words that a
student understands—based on context and background experiences—but may not
necessarily use when speaking or writing.

Morphology

Sometimes considered to be a subset of syntax and sometimes considered as part of

vocabulary (semantics), morphology is focused on the smallest units of meaning within
a word, as well as the rules about how those words are formed.

For example, if we were to examine the word “cats,” a basic analysis would show there
are four phonemes: /k/, /a/, /t/, and /s/. However, the word only has two morphemes
(meaningful word parts): “Cat” is a feline animal, and “s” tells us that there is more than
one cat. Morphology can also include the study of structural analysis— how words are
joined together and build vocabulary by analyzing the morphological structure of the
word (prefix, root, and suffix)—which then helps build upon the child’s foundation in
vocabulary.

 Grammar (Syntax)

As children develop their oral language skills, they also develop an understanding of
grammar—the set of structural rules that govern the combination of words and phrases
into sentences, as well as how sentences are combined into paragraphs. Knowledge of
these rules helps children understand the relationship among words and apply
vocabulary and abstract thinking to their comprehension of oral language.

 Pragmatics
Considered by some reading experts as the “hidden curriculum” in a classroom,
pragmatics requires the understanding of the social use of language. This includes
social norms regarding conversational turn-taking, personal space, and appropriate
behavior with peers and authority figures in a variety of common social situations. In
some classroom settings, students lacking background experience—which can be
attributable to cultural differences in some instances—don’t understand group dynamics
and expectations regarding behavior. Understanding a variety of situations prepares
students for more successful comprehension at later stages, including both listening
and reading

 Discourse

Oral and written communication, also known as discourse, is a critical skill. For
example, narrative storytelling follows a very specific format: Stories typically have a
beginning, middle, and end. They describe the main characters and the setting in which
they live, the conflict, and the resolution. An understanding of story structure is essential
in order to read, understand, and write narrative. In contrast, consider the structure of
expository, or informational text. These forms of writing also follow certain structures,
such as: persuasive, cause and effect, compare and contrast, and procedural. It is
critically important that students understand these structures through listening
comprehension before they even begin to focus on reading comprehension. Before they
can begin to write these kinds of stories, they first need to be able to understand and tell
stories in those formats.

Ways of developing oral language

Stages of L1 Development

L1 refers to a person's first language. It's the language most prevalent in the home as
learners are growing up and the first language used for communication. There are
several stages in the development of L1 that virtually all children will go through as they
learn to use the language.

These stages include:

 Cooing (2-4 months of age), ➢involves the simple act of making sounds and
noises. Toward the end of this stage, children will develop the ability to laugh.
 Pre-linguistic, also known as babbling (6-8 months of age), ➢creation of simple
sounds, but children are more able to control the sounds they make. They're
learning to make sounds they choose to make and when they choose to make
them.
  Holophrastic (9-18 months of age), ➢the stage when children are able to utter
one-word responses, although they can understand more. They learn to
communicate this way and are able to explain wants and needs using one-word
utterances.
 Two-word production (18-24 months of age) ➢a child begin using two-word
utterances and even simple sentences. They're able to use these simple
sentences to convey meaning. An example might be, ''More milk'' or ''Mama, up.'
 Telegraphic (24-30 months of age) ➢involves children creating sentences that
involve more than just a couple of words. Sentences convey meaning, but lack
proper use of grammar or other basic language rules. Because these sentences
often appear broken in nature, they are likened to messages sent via telegraph:
for example, ''Me want eat'' or ''Mama go bed.''
 And lastly, the multi-word stage (after 30 months of age) ➢the development of
language begins to grow exponentially. The final stage in development has
children putting together multi-word sentences for the sake of communication.
As they grow, their sentences will begin to follow proper rules of grammar and
syntax and will become increasingly complex.

Stages of L2 Development

L2 refers to a second language. This is a language that's learned after and in addition to
L1. Just like with L1, L2 develops in stages, including:

 Pre-production ➢also called the silent stage, where there is more

understanding of the language than actual use. Comprehension is still minimal
and there's a lot of use of gestures and other forms of nonverbal communication.
This stage can last up to six months.
 Early production ➢in which comprehension is still limited, but a learner is able
to use one- and two-word utterances to convey meaning. Present tense use is
most common. This stage can last from six months up to a full year.
 Speech emergence ➢which happens from the first through third years of L2
acquisition. During this stage, learners are beginning to comprehend more and
are able to use small sentences for the sake of communication. Grammar errors
are still common, however, as are inconsistencies with pronunciation.
 Intermediate fluency ➢which takes place from the third through fifth years of L2
acquisition. Comprehension is good, and oral use of the language is also much
improved. Grammar errors occur less often, and pronunciation is more fine-
tuned. Errors are still common in writing, however.
  Advanced fluency ➢where learners have a good handle on their L2 language.
They understand well, speak with very few errors, and even possess a strong L2
vocabulary.

Lessons on Grammatical Structure

 In English grammar, sentence structure is the arrangement of words, phrases,

and clauses in a sentence. The grammatical function or meaning of a sentence is
dependent on this structural organization, which is also called syntax or syntactic
structure.
 In traditional grammar, the four basic types of sentence structures are the simple
sentence, the compound sentence, the complex sentence, and the compound-
complex sentence.
 The most common word order in English sentences is Subject-Verb-Object
(SVO). When reading a sentence, we generally expect the first noun to be the
subject and the second noun to be the object. This expectation (which isn't
always fulfilled) is known in linguistics as the"canonical sentence strategy."

Using a story as a springboard in a grammar lesson

Grammar Springboards is a series designed to help teachers teach grammar with

confidence and make vocabulary, grammar and punctuation a stimulating and fun
learning experience for all learners. It comprises three books with CDs covering; Nouns,
Pronouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs, Sentences and Punctuation. The activities in the
books are differentiated, to enable learners of all abilities to practice and achieve at their
own level. The CDs include stand-alone worksheets together with lesson and teacher
resources, such as flash cards, posters, word searches, templates and badges, as well
as Assessment and Record charts to use during the lessons.

Explicit instruction in a Grammar Lesson

Explicit Approach

What are the main findings from research on second language acquisition for the
teaching of grammar in a second language class? Norris and Ortega (2000) conducted
a meta-analysis of various research studies (published from 1980 to 1998) focused on
determining the effectiveness of grammar teaching.

The following questions come from the Norris & Ortega article. Rank them in terms of
how important they are in determining the main features of a pedagogical approach to
teach grammar.

1.Is an implicit or an explicit approach more effective for L2 instruction?

2.Can raising learners' metalinguistic awareness of specific L2 forms facilitate
acquisition?

3.Is attention to forms in meaning-focused lessons more effective than an exclusive

focus on meaning and content?

4.Is negative feedback beneficial for L2 development?

5.Is comprehension practice as effective as production practice?

6.Explicit instructionis a well-researched, highly effective instructional strategy. It can be

beneficial to both students and educators.

7.It makes higher-order thinking and inquiry-based learning easier. Explicit instruction
gives students who are typically left out of inquiry-based learning the information and
skills they need to engage.

Designing a Grammar

References

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https://www.scribd.com/document/690930808/ORAL-LANGUAGE-DEVELOPMENT-
AND-GRAMMAR-AWARENESS?
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