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Conditions for Natural Language Learning
• Cambourne (1987), a researcher at the Center
for Studies in Literacy at the University of Wollongong, Australia, has studied the conditions under which children acquire oral language with the intent of applying those same conditions to aid them in acquiring written language. He has identified seven conditions under which children learn to talk. Immersion • Immersion: From birth, children are inundated with the sounds, the rhythm, and the words of their native tongue. For most of the time they are awake, children are surrounded with language as the people in their world are either talking with them or talking around them. This language is meaningful, purposeful, whole, and occurs in natural contexts. Demonstration • Demonstration: While learning to talk, children are provided with many meaningful and functional examples or demonstration of spoken language. The users of language provide many models of the spoken words as they go about their daily activates and as they interact with young children. In this way young children are provided with many demonstrations of the purposefulness and effectiveness of oral language. In the curse of a day, young children see and hear many examples of the cause-and-effect relationship between spoken language and the world around them. For example, each time the telephone rings, someone picks it up and says, “Hello,” or if the children say, “Baa-baa,” someone gives them something to drink. Without demonstrations, learning will not occur. Expectation • Expectation: Expectations exert a powerful influence on learning and behavior. Research indicates that the expectations of others do influence the behavior of learners (Good and Brophy, 1986). Young children receive clear messages that they are expected to do so. Parents of newborns eagerly await the day of baby’s first word. They have no doubt whatsoever that their baby will learn to speak. In fact, when parents were asked if they expected their baby to talk, the reply was always an unqualified positive response. Parents never questioned whether their young ones would be able to talk. However, the same unqualified expectation is not their when it comes to literacy acquisition. Parents hope their children will learn to read and write. Children tend to assume their parents’ expectations and attitudes (or those of any significant others with whom they form a bond) as they grow up. This is carried over to both achievement and conduct (Good and Brosphy, 1986) and from the home to the school. Responsibility • Responsibility: Cambourne discovered that children learn to speak their native language by varied means along an uneven continuum. Yet by age 5 or 6, they are about equally proficient when allowed to learn naturally without any formal instruction. Whereas all children do master their native tongue, all children do not learn identical conventions, at the same time. The order in which they learn language is left up to the children. They take responsibility for which set of conventions to master at a particular time. Approximation • Approximation: Young children are not expected to sound like experienced adults. Parents recall at least one memorable utterance by their children that resembled an actual word. Parents of young children expect and reward approximations in their speech. Parents trust that learning to speak will occur and really enjoy their children’s early attempts at communicating. This willingness on the part of parents to accept – and cherish – approximations is necessary for learning language. It allows children to use the hypothesis-test-modification cycle that is characteristics of all natural learning. Without this acceptance of approximations, this cycle could not occur and neither could learning. Employment or Use This condition actually means practice time – and a considerable amount of it. Young children chatter continuously once they begin to speak. They talk to themselves while lying in their cribs, they talk to their lives. Young children need the time and the opportunity to use their developing ability. Feedback or Response Positive, reaffirming language from older siblings, parents, and other adults in a child’s environment constitutes the final ingredient to foster language learning. This condition is closely related to expectation. Body language and actual verbal responses must give the positive message to the learner that “I like what you’re doing”. The feedback provided to young learners is regular, constructive, and supportive of language growth. Functions of Language The purposes include the following (Halliday, 1975). • Instrumental: Language is a tool allowing the speaker to get something done and to satisfy needs (e.g. notes, business letters, and conversations). • Regulatory: Language that is used to control or regulate the behavior of others (e.g., demands, instructions, rules, and directions). • Heuristic: Language that is used for the purpose of finding out things, asking questions, explaining facts, and for learning (e.g., webs, research, and learning logs). • Interactional: Language that is used for establishing and maintaining social relationships (e.g. conversations, friendly letters, and discussions). • Personal: Language that is used for the purpose of exploring and communicating the speaker’s feelings and point of view (e.g. journals, literature responses, and show and tell). • Imaginative: Language that is used imaginatively and creatively (e.g., storytelling, Reader’s Theater, and poetry). • Informative: Language that is used to inform others and convey information (e.g., oral and written reports, newspaper writing). Functions of Language According to Mussen, Conger, Kagan and Huston, (1990). • Language facilities the communication of ideas • Language promotes an understanding of culture and society • Language enhances social relationship • Language aids in the classification of events and assisting in reasoning • Through language, people discover, examine, reflect on, and refine their ideas • Language is a means of organising and representing knowledge • Language is a vehicle for learning and facilitates the process for all learners