ANALYSIS OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT, ACQUISITION OF THE SECOND LANGUAGE AND TEACHING/LEARNING STRATEGIES IN EARLY CHILDHOOD MA Raimonda Sadauskienė| /04-12, Crete

INTRODUCTION LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY CHILDHOOD ACQUISITION OF THE SECOND LANGUAGE EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING STRATEGIES 2

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French language 129 mln. „Bonjour“ Malasian language 159 mln. „Selamat pagi“ Portugese language 191 mln. „Ola“

Bengali [beŋˈgɔ:lɪ] language mln. “Ei Je” Arabic language 246 mln. „Al salaam a’alaykum“. Russian language 277 mln. „Здравствуйте”.

Spanish language 392 mln. “Hola” Hindu language 492 mln. “Namaste” English language 508 mln. “Hello” 6

Chinese language more than billion „Ni hao“ The question: Which language is the easiest to learn?

You think English is easy? The bandage was wound around the wound. The farm was used to produce produce. We must polish the Polish furniture. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert. Since there is no time like present, he thought it was time to present the present. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes. The insurance was invalid for the invalid. Let’s face it – English is a crasy language. Why? There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. Why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught?, etc.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible…

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY CHILDHOOD What is language? Language is a human universal. Language is systematic. No language is wholly regular. All languages enable speakers to create new utterances. Language is both creative and functional. Language change. Human beings have an innate capacity to learn language. Language can be nonverbal as well as verbal. Language and culture are closely related. Language and thought are closely related. (Ashworth and Wakefield, 2004)

ACQUISITION OF THE FIRST LANGUAGE Behaviorists believe that children learn by imitating what they have heard and that parental modeling and reinforcement are the major promoters of language acquisition. This theory, however, does not explain how children create new sentences that they have never heard before. Nativists believe that innate, biological mechanisms are responsible for language acquisition and that children just naturally acquire language with minor feedback from the social environment. Interactionists acknowledge both child’s role and that of the caretaker in the social environment and consider communication in social interactions to be essential to language acquisition – children learn language as it occurs around them. Parents, teachers, and others shape its development by the way they respond to the language learner. Each individual makes the decision about when to use language, what to use it for, how he or she will use it, and what results will be.

Tabors (1997) identifies five pieces of a complex puzzle that children must internalize when they begin to form words and sentences: phonology, or the sounds of the language; vocabulary, or the words of the language; grammar, or how the words are put together to make sentences in the language; discourse, or how sentences are put together to tell stories, make an argument, or explain how smth. works; pragmatics, or the rules about how to use the language.

Children learn their first language in the context of social interaction within their families: As early as one month after birth, babies can distinguish among and respond to many kinds of sounds around them; Around one year of age, caregivers are able to distinguish a few meaningful words amid the many sounds babies make; At approximately two years of age, children’s ability to use language suddenly increases rapidly; By the time children enter preschool, they have become experienced talkers and are engaged in an extended oral language development.

From the point of view of a child, language is first of all communication and specifically communication of meanings. What children have learned while learning their first language is: the sound system; the rules for combining sounds into syllables, morphemes, and words; the communicative functions languages serve; how each one of the above is to be realized in different contexts; rules for participating in conversation.

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In summary, language develops very efficiently for the great majority of children. The optimal interaction that best promotes language development is one in which the adult lets the child decide what to talk about, expands on that topic, works hard to figure out what the child means, suggests new activities, and pays more attention to what the child wants to say than whether it is being said correctly. Language teaching is most useful to young children when it is presented in the context of their own activities and attempts at expression. 16

ACQUISITION OF THE SECOND LANGUAGE Similarities to first language Behaviorists believe that second language is learned through a “drill and practice” approach of imitation, repetition, and reinforcement of grammatical structures. Nativists believe that if you hear new languages, you will learn them without direct instruction. The listener receives comprehensive input (starting with easy structures and progressing to more complex) until proficiency is acquired. Interactionists also believe that comprehensible input is important, but maintain that the communicative give - and – take of natural conversations between native and non – native speakers is the crucial element in the process. Non – native speakers learn by asking for repetitions, indicating that they do not understand, or responding in a way that shows that they did not understand. 17

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Simultaneous versus Sequential Acquisition Simultaneous acquisition occurs when children are exposed to both languages from a very early age – sometimes as a result of each parent speaking a separate language with the child or both parents speaking one language and a caregiver speaking another language with a child. If a child learns two languages simultaneously, and if the two languages are developed equally during childhood, then the language – development process should be the same in both languages-”home – bilingualism”(Piper, 1998). Sequential acquisition occurs when a child begins to learn a second language after the first language is at last partly established, e.g., when a child enters a preschool setting in which her home language is not the language used in the classroom. 19

Factors that make the two processes different: Children already have some knowledge of how language works so they are not learning how language works in general but how the new language works and how it differs from the first language. The acquisition of the second language can take place at any age. (While it may seem that younger children learn new languages more easily than adults or older children, it is because they use language in a less complicated way. Young children also make use of their capability to produce more sounds than are needed in their first language and thus have advantages in developing the sound system of the second language, whereas for older children and adults articulation is already restricted to the sound system of the first language). The acquisition of the second language may be more dependent on individual characteristics such as aptitude, personality (whether social or not), and psychological factors such as wanting to be like others.

Four factors that strongly influence the process of learning a second language: MOTIVATION AGE EXPOSUREPERSONALITY

Developmental Sequence for the Acquisition of the Second Language Home – language – use phase Nonverbal period Going public with the new language Productive language use in the new language Silent/receptive or preproduction stage Speech emergence stage Advanced language proficiency stage

PROBLEMS WITH LEARNING NEW LANGUAGES IN THE SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT Problems with how the second language is used in school versus how it is used at home (Piper, 1998): Teachers speak too much and do not allow children to speak enough. The proportion of questions directed by the adult to a child is 7 times greater at home than at school and teachers get much more than 50% of the classroom time for speaking. The language used in school is often disembodied from the context, manipulative, and/or intimidating. School talk is homogenous, with a sameness in what is discussed or the kinds of language used.

Ashworth and Wakefield (2004) reminds the teachers that the focus should not be first on acquiring the new language but on developing in children a sense of self- esteem and promoting a warm and caring environment where these children can make friends. Children learn a second language in order to use it with their new friends. They are not interested in language as anything but means of communication. 24

WORKING CENTERS Block center Art center Dramatic play center Sand and water center Library Writing center Science center Table toys Music center 25

STRATEGIES FOR TEACHERS Start with what children know Start slowly Repetition Here and now Expanding and extending Pushing gently Rephrasing Combining techniques 26

KINDS OF ACTIVITIES THAT CAN BE USED FOR SPEECH DEVELOPMENT Phonetic exercises: Listening to sounds, differentiation Sound imitation Rhyming words Distinguishing between sounds at the start of words, etc. Development of vocabulary: Putting together pictures cut into pieces What is in the package? Locate and name an object by feeling Guessing a word according to the first syllable What is missing on the table? Marking the opposites Description of the position of an object (practicing prepositions) 27

Development of fluent expression: Description of a picture Unfinished sentences Analogues What is it? Where is it? What is it like? What does it do? Making sentences according to the pictures Collective discussion when viewing pictures Brain – teasers Lining up pictures according to the sequence of events Completion of a story Painted reading What am I thinking about?, etc. 28

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION 29