Post on 15-Nov-2014
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The cognitive basis of language: how children learn language.
The nature vs. nurture debate: behaviorism or an innate capacity for
acquisition?
How do children develop?What is Language?How do children acquire Language?
3 domains occurs in development
Language is code that we learn to use in order to communicate ideas and express our wants and needs. Reading, writing, speaking, and some gesture system are all forms of language
Language is the systematic and conventional use of sounds (or signs or written symbols) for the purpose of communication or self-expression
Speech is the spoken form of language
Children learn language and speech by listening to the language around them and practicing what they hear. In this way, they figure out the rules of the language code. It is not learned all at once but in stages over time.
Harvey Daniels in “Nine Ideas About Language” says:
“ Children learn their native language swiftly, efficiently, and largely
without instruction
There are numerous theories about language acquisition, and they include 2 main schools
of thought
These theorists propose that
we are pre-wired forlanguage learning. It
is partof our human “nature
These theorists propose
that language is anentirely learned
behavior
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
INNATE
NATIVIST
LEARNED
EMPIRICIST
Knowledge originates in human nature
Plato and KantChomsky
Language is innate, and that our brains contain a dedicated special purpose learning device that has evolved for language alone
Language Acquisition Device (LAD)Receive primary linguistic input in the form of sentences of the language heard by the child,
and produces, as output, grammatical sentences of the language
Children are not predisposed to learn any particular language; all are born with the same facility and will develop as native speakers of
the language of the community into which they are born. The child has innate knowledge of
universal principles that govern the structure of language
UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR
Language is essentially the same experience for all human beings, no matter what
language they speak, where they are or how they interact with their model
Some forms of languages is common to almost all human beings.
Language is an ability human process, not by virtue of specific learning or teaching,
but by virtue of their humaness
Behaviorism & associationism Knowledge originates in the
environment, and comes in through the senses
Children are ‘conditioned” to learn language by a stimulus-response pattern
Aristotle Skinner
There are no limits to what a human being can become, given time, opportunity and the application of very general laws of learning
Constructivist & EmergentistRecognizes that many factors
influence language developmentOutcomes can arise for reasons that
are not obvious or predictable from any of the individual inputs to the problem
There are three well known theories:
1.Development cognitive theory (Jean Piaget)
2.Information processing model3.Social interaction (Lev Vgotsky)
Children construct their own knowledge in response to their experiences
Children learn many things on their own without the intervention of older children or adults
Children are intrinsically motivated to learn and do not need rewards from adults to motivate learning
Four major development stages in children that describe how a child learns
How the brain processes information and draws comparisons between the brain and a computer
Social interaction plays an important role in the learning process
Zone of Proximal Development describes the differences between what a child will do on his/her own or with guidance