Children, Families & Learning to Talk

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  "Big Ideas" of course

  • Why Big Ideas (theories)
    • provide an understanding for phenomena (what, how and why)
    • allows predictions (what will happen if I . . .)
    • suggest ways to solve problems (e.g., children with difficulty processing sounds of language)

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    Evolution
    • Basic Darwinian lesson
      • human language as biologial adaptation (like hearts and lungs)
      • children are prepared by evolution to speak and understand language ("born to talk")
      • children are not prepared by evolution to read and write (lots of variation)
    • Extended Darwinian lesson
      • all development and learning as forms of within-organism variation and selection
      • trial and error
      • learning from mistakes
      • importance of interaction and context
      • sensitive period for language acquisition: the earlier the better (for first and second languages)
      • development and learning as climbing a ladder
        • must match difficulty level of activity to child
        • rungs can't be too far apart
        • child must have a reason to climb ladder
          • innate reasons (to interact with people)
          • "artificial" reasons (to get points, stars, rewards, etc.)
      • language comprehension as the creation of meaning via variation and selection
        • need interaction and feedback
        • negotiation of meaning

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    Language as puposeful behavior
    • language as a tool to achieve other ends; not usually an end it itself
    • language as functional and goal-directed
    • language as a form of behavior used to control perceptions

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    Born to talk
    • see Basic Darwinian lesson

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    Language knowledge as implicit
    • we don't know what we know about language
    • parents don't teach grammar to children
    • procedural vs. declarative knowledge
      • we can't necessarily explain what we can do
      • we can't necessarily do what we can explain
    • language not acquired by learning explicit formal rules
    • acquisition vs. learning (Krashen)

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    Question: Are these "big ideas" different from what you have learned in other courses?
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  "Highlights of Wells chaps. 1 - 3

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    1. The Children and Their Families

    • Choosing the Children
      • 6 of 32 children studied from age 1 to last year of primary schoool in Bristol, England
    • Fragmentary, yet comprehensible
      • 017.1 * "Most conversations involving young children . . . are rooted in the here and now of perception, intention, and action and so can be inexplicit and even fragmentary, yet still be successful for the purpose at hand."
        • Why is this "here and now" aspect of conversations with young children important for both the child and adult?
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    2. Learning to Talk: The Pattern of Development

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      *Mark's misunderstanding of "dirty" as applied to towels
      • Transcript
        • Mark: All right. [_Command_] You dry hands.
        • Mother: I've dried my hands now.
        • Mark: Put towel in there. [_He wants her to put the towel in the basket._]
        • Mother: No, it's not dirty.
        • Mark: It is.
        • Mother: No, it isn't.
        • Mark: 'Tis.
          Mummy, play. Play, Mummy.
      • What are Mark and his mummy disagreeing about?
      • What will be the result of this disagreement?

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      Stages of Language Development

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        Stage I
        • first three functions are call, ostension, and want
        • single word or operator + object ("bird bread"; birds eating bread)
          • also referred to as "pivot" or "pivot-open" grammar

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        Stage II
        • questions
        • "Wassat?"
        • "an insatiable concern with naming and classification"
        • grammatical structure "A man dig down there."

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        Stage III
        • 027.2 lots of questions, but still signalled only by rising intonation
        • 027.3 use of "do", "can", "will"
        • 027.4 complements to psychological verbs such as know
          

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        Stage IV
        • 029.2 "integration of the auxiliary verb into the structure of the clause, thus allowing the production of both interrogative and negative sentences."
        • 029.2 use of indirect question, requesting permission, explanation, request for explanation

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        Stage V
        • 031.1 use of conditional or hypothetical statements
        • 031.2 tense and aspect move beyond the here and now
        • 031.4 more cohesion in speaking
          
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    3. Learning to Talk: The Construction of Language

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      Language as a code to be cracked.
      • 033.1 * "Language may be thought of as a code to be cracked, but before the child attempts that task he or she has already become familiar with the code in use. It has been encountered in meaningful interactions that also involve the more "natural channels of sight, sound, touch, and smell.^2"

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      Sense-making is goal-directed.
      • 034.1 "Their sense-making also seems from the beginning to be goal-directed. Everybody is familiar with the older infant who drops toys from his or her highchair or crib in order to get somebody to come and pick them up. But this sort of purposeful exploration and manipulation of the environment can be shown to be present very much earlier--for example, experiments have shown that babies discover that they can bring about changes (switching on lights, bringing pictures into focus) by turning their head or sucking on a dummy (pacifier)."

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      Almost all early utterances are functional.
      • 036.4 "Almost all researchers who have studied this stage of development (which {037.1} occurs around the end of the first year) have noted that the child's earliest utterances are functional.^9 In our own study, as noted in the previous chapter, we found that almost all the utterances in the first observations could be described as either calling for attention, expressing a want, indicating something of interest, or expressing feeling (pleasure, surprise, etc.)."

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      Context makes it possible to crack the code:
      • 038.4 "What makes this very difficult task possible is the context. A very high proportion of the utterances that people address to children are about what they can see and hear--about what is going on."
        • 93/11/03 But does the context actually "tell" the child the meaning of the utterance? No. Guessing needed.
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      Negative feedback and parent's expansions:
      • 049.3 Anthony: There ninny car.
        
        Mother: Mini car? Yes.
        
        Anthony: Mini gone.
        
        Mother: Mini car's gone.
        
        Anthony: Daddy gone.
        
        Mother: Yes. Daddy's gone.
        • 040.2 "Frequently, however, their attempts are not successful, and their conversational partners d not understand them. However, this too can be helpful, even if only by giving children negative feedback about the adequcy of their utterancs. Quite often, though, the partner will probe further offerin alteranative interpretations in an attempt to discover what the child means, often in the form of expansions that, as it were, present in full what the chlid has been trying to say him- or herself. Such negotiotions about intended meaning are likely to be particulary informative, as they provide children with evidence about the language at the very moment when they are most disposed to make use of it. Here is an example from Anthony:"+

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      Summary of how how and why children learn language; learning from mistakes:
      • 043.6 "At each successive stage, therefore, they are capable of dealing with new evidence of a certain degree of complexity, and they are able to incorporate it into their developing language system. But using that system as a resource for interaction with other people leads to the making of errors and to the recognition of inconsistencies. This, in turn, leads eventually to modifications of the prevailing hypotheses and to some reorganization of the language system."
        • in other words, better grammars "evolve" as a result of trial and error elimination

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      Interacting With Children:
      

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        Importance of extended conversations:
        • 047.3 * "As both these examples show very clearly, a really satisfying conversation needs to go beyond a single exchange. And it is in enabling this to happen that an adult can make perhaps the most important contribution to the child's development. As already emphasized, conversation involves the cumulative and collaborative construction of meaning, in which the linguistic links betwen utterances are like the mortar which holds together the bricks in a wall."

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        Conversing with child like playing ball with child:
        • 050.4 "Talking with young children is thus very much like playing ball with them. What the adult has to do for this game to be successful is, first, to ensure that the child is ready, with arms cupped, to catch the ball. Then the ball must be thrown gently and accurately so that it lands squarely in the child's arms. When it is the child's turn to throw, the adult must be prepared to run wherever it goes and bring it back to where the child really intended it to go. Such is the collaboration required in conversation, the adult doing a great deal of supportive work to enable to the ball to be kept in play."

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        Roger Brown to parents on talking to children: Concentrate on communication:
        • 051.2 * Brown: ""Believe that your child can understand more than he or she can say, and seek, above all, to communicate. To understand and be understood. To keep your minds fixed on the same target. There is no set of rules of how to talk to a child that can even approach what you unconsciously know. If you concentrate on communicating, everything else will follow.""

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        Children must learn that language can be used to understand and control their environment:
        • 051.3 * "Above all, chldren need to feel that conversation is enjoyable and worthwhile and that it enables them to be effective in controlling and understanding their environment."

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        Advice for interacting with children:
        • 050.5 "encourage them to initiate conversation, and make it easy and enjoyable for them to sustain it. The following more specific suggestions should help in achieving this result.:
          • When the child appears to be trying to communicate, assume he or she has something important to say and treat the attempt accordingly.
          • Because the child's utterances are often unclear or ambiguous, be sure you have understood the intended meaning before responding.
          • When you reply, take the child's meaning as the basis of what you say next--confirming the intention and extending the topic or inviting the child to do so him- or herself.
          • Select and phrase your contributions so that they are at or just beyond the child's ability to comprehend."

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  "Small-group discussion: cracking the code

  • Can you learn a new foreign language from a monolingual teacher
    • 1. Using a one-way telephone so you can hear him but he cannot hear you?
      T -> a -> S
    • 2. Using a normal telephone (two-way audio)?
      T <-> a <-> S
    • 3. Using normal telephone as above (two-way audio) plus you can see Teacher on live TV?
      T -> v -> S; T <-> a <-> S
    • 4. Using normal telephone plus live two-way video (video and audio both ways).
      T <-> a+v <-> S
    • 5. Teacher and you in the same room in total darkness?
      T <-> a <-> S
  • What are the implications of your answers for childern learning their first language?