La persona en el contexto formativo

• Behavioural Theory of Language Development (The Learning Perspective)

• The Linguistic Approach to Language Learning (Nativist Perspective)

• The Interactionist Theory of Language Development

• Social Learning Theory

• Brain Research

• Implications of Theories to Reading Skill Development 4.4 Conclusion

4.5 Summary

4.6 Self-Assessment Questions 4.7 Tutor-Marked Assignment 4.8 References/Further Reading 4.1 Introduction

The current knowledge about language development includes a large amount of theory, research, and debate from a variety of fields. These include linguistics, psychology, philosophy, sociology, medicine, computers, biology, neurology, speech and language pathology, and education. However, there are three general theories that have been developed to explain language learning: behavioural, linguistic, and interactional. These theories help us think about language development from different points of view. However, the shortcomings of these theories illustrate that language is not easily explained. This unit explores especially the language development theories that have been of significant implication to the development of reading skills.

4.2 Objectives: At the end of this unit, you should:

a) Describe the different theories of language development in children.

b) Articulate the implications of the theories to language learning and reading development.

4.3 Main Content

BEHAVIOURAL THEORY OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT (THE LEARNING

PERSPECTIVE)

Behavioural theory focuses on environmental influences on language acquisition. The theory, proposed by B. F. Skinner suggests that language (which is primarily spoken) is learned through operant conditioning (association, reinforcement and imitation) and therefore develops as a result of habit formation. To the behaviourists, language

43 learning is a mechanical process leading learners to habit formation whose underlying scheme is the conditioned reflex. It argues that children imitate what they see and hear, and that children learn from punishment and reinforcement. Skinner argued that children learn language based on behaviourist reinforcement principles by associating words with meanings. Correct utterances are positively reinforced when the child realizes the communicative value of words and phrases. For example, when the child says ‘cheese’ and the mother gives her some as a result, the child will find this outcome rewarding, and is motivated to say the word again and again (knowing that a positive response would come from the mother), therefore enhancing the child's language development. When children speak the language of their parents they are rewarded and become more skilful. They grow in their ability to respond in a manner that responds to the environmental stimuli given by his parents. This shapes a child’s language more than knowledge of rules. Further, competence in the rules of language is not as important as the ability to speak it; speaking is what makes language real.

Knowledge (of language) is a mental state and the structure of a language doesn’t make it a language; it is the function of speaking words that makes a language a language.

Behaviourists believe language is something that can be observed and measured. The need to use language is stimulated and language is uttered in response to stimuli.

Also, children learn words by associating sounds with objects, actions, and events.

They also learn words and syntax by imitating others. Adults enable children to learn words and syntax by reinforcing correct speech.

This perspective agrees with the nurture side of the nature-nurture debate. While most would agree that a language-rich environment helps children achieve success in communication, the behaviourists approach has been criticized for not taking into account the many and varied influences on a child’s language learning. Critics of this idea argue that a behaviourist explanation of language development is inadequate.

They maintain several arguments that:

• Imitation and conditioning is known to kill creativity, which is one of the key features of language.

• Stimulus-Response learning cannot account for the rapid rate at which children acquire language.

• There are an infinite number of sentences in a language. All these sentences cannot be learned by imitation.

• Children make errors, such as over-regularizing verbs. For example, a child may say John hurted me, incorrectly adding the usual past tense suffix -ed to hurt.

Errors like these can’t result from imitation, since most adults (unless in second language situation) generally use correct verb forms.

• Children acquire language skills even though adults do not consistently correct their syntax.

44 THE LINGUISTIC APPROACH TO LANGUAGE LEARNING (NATIVIST PERSPECTIVE) Nativists argue that children have an inborn desire to make sense of the world, that is, to gain knowledge. With their natural drive to attend to the spoken word and sort out meanings, children can use language as a way to make sense of their world; hence, language becomes a unique human accomplishment. The main theorist associated with this perspective is Noam Chomsky.

Chomsky proposed that all humans have a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) - a language centre in the brain serving as the source of language or an innate mechanism or process that allows children to acquire and develop language skills. The LAD contains knowledge of grammatical rules common to all languages; that is to say that we are born with a set of rules about language in our heads which he refers to as the 'Universal Grammar'. The Universal Grammar is the basis upon which all human languages build. To him, children do not simply copy the language that they hear around them. They deduce rules from it, which they can then use to produce sentences that they have never heard before. They do not learn a repertoire of phrases and sayings, as the behaviourists believe, but a grammar that generates an infinite number of new sentences. When the child begins to listen to his parents, he will unconsciously recognise which kind of a language he is dealing with - and he will set his grammar to the correct one. He contends that at birth, the child has a certain number of hypotheses, which he or she then matches with what is happening around him. The child knows intuitively that there are some words that behave like verbs, nouns, etc.

and that there is a limited set of possibilities as to their ordering within the phrase.

This set of language learning tools, provided at birth, is referred to by Chomsky as the Language Acquisition Device. The LAD also allows children to understand the rules of whatever language they are listening to.

According to this view, the Universal Grammar makes children receptive to the common features of all languages. Because of this hard-wired background in grammar, children easily pick up a language when they are exposed to its particular grammar. This line of thinking saw language as a structure that was innate or native to a child who held within himself the knowledge of language rules.

Chomsky supported the innate human capacity to acquire language skills from the following observations:

• The stages of language development occur at about the same ages in most children, even though different children experience very different environments.

• Children’s language development follows a similar pattern across cultures.

• There are also similar patterns of development across many languages, e.g., subject-object, word order, etc.

• Children generally acquire language skills quickly and effortlessly.

45

• Deaf children who have not been exposed to a language may make up their own language. These new languages resemble each other in sentence structure, even when they are created in different cultures.

Chomsky’s theory implies that, there is little doubt that the basic structure of language and the principles that determine the form and interpretation of sentences in any human language are in large part innate. He emphasizes that if a child is placed in an impoverished environment, innate abilities simply do not develop, mature and flourish. According to him, a stimulating environment is required to enable natural curiosity, intelligence and creativity to develop and to enable our biological capacities to unfold.

Chomsky also differentiates between competence and performance in language use.

Performance is what people actually say, which is often ungrammatical, whereas competence is what they instinctively know about the syntax of their language - and this is more or less equated with the Universal Grammar. Chomsky concentrates upon this aspect of language (competence) and ignores the things that people actually say (performance). The problem here is that he relies upon people's intuitions as to what is right or wrong - but it is not at all clear that people will all make the same judgements, or that their judgements actually reflect the way people really do use the language.

This is one of the premises upon which Chomsky’s views were later criticized.

Also, Chomsky reduces language to its grammar and regard meaning as secondary.

This is not acceptable to critics as some utterances are found to be grammatically correct but actually meaningless.

In addition, his disregard for meaning, and by implication the social situation in which language is normally produced, renders insignificant the situation in which the child learns his first language. Some aspects of children’s grammatical language development take years, and therefore appear to be largely dependent on interaction with the environment. Also, differing language environments have effects on development.

THE INTERACTIONIST THEORY OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Proposed by Lev Vygotsky, Social interactionist theory is an explanation of language development emphasizing the role of social interaction between the developing child and linguistically knowledgeable adults. This approach is a compromise between the behaviourist and linguistic approaches; contending that language development is both biological and social. While researchers who see language development through this lens also agree that language has structure, they believe the environment plays an important role in shaping that structure. Proponents of the theory argue that children need more than a desire to speak, more than an inborn LAD, and more than a model to imitate but in addition, the need to interact with others; in other words, language

46 learning is influenced by the desire of children to communicate with others. Language also goes beyond verbal utterances but includes the non-verbal actions that exhibit an understanding of meaning. Such non-verbal social behaviours often achieve the same effect as words. For example, a look or tone of voice can extract a reaction that is the same as when language alone is used.

Vygotsky is best known for being an educational psychologist with a sociocultural theory. This theory suggests that social interaction leads to continuous step-by-step changes in children's thought and behaviour that can vary greatly from culture to culture (Vygotsky, 1979). He suggests that children’s development depends on interaction with people and the tools that the culture provides to help form their own view of the world. He further emphasized the role of ‘imitative learning’ where children imitate or copy from adults and by implication that children need to have exposure to environments that can allow them imitation for further development. It is therefore, important for teachers to provide adequate exposure for children through time spent, methodology and instructional materials used in teaching reading during the emergent stages of reading development.

With emphasis on his ‘Zone of Proximal Development’ (which he characterized as the means whereby what a child can do with assistance now, can be done independently by her in subsequent attempts), Vygotsky argues that a child can, through the help of an adult or more capable child, perform at a higher level than he or she can independently. The process of learning to read should thus be supported by caring and supportive individuals (in this context are teachers). By implication, the theory enables teachers to know what children are able to achieve through the use of a mediator and thus they should utilize suitable methods for example; discovery, child-centred, and all those that can involve a child in the learning situation. Furthermore, teachers need to use variety of instructional materials that can enable children develop important reading skills as supportive and useful mediator.

Vygotsky further elaborates on the importance of play in children’s learning situations and argues that play leads to development. Following this perspective, teachers need to provide young children many opportunities to play. Through play and imagination a child's conceptual abilities are enhanced. Therefore, teachers should use of play as a method of teaching reading. Through play children can develop the fundamentals required for proper development of reading skills.

In some important respects, Piaget and Vygotsky held similar views about children’s intellectual development, notably about the active and constructive nature of children’s understanding of the world. However, they differed on three important points. First, whereas Piaget believed that children’s early development resulted from their action on the material world, Vygotsky saw development as resulting from children’s participation in social activities. Second, while Piaget sought for universal characteristics of development, Vygotsky recognized the importance of the children’s

47 specific social and cultural environments for the ways in which they develop. And third, whereas Piaget treated language development as depending on prior cognitive development, Vygotsky saw it as the driving force of social as well as intellectual development (Bruner 1996).

Over the last quarter of a century, it has been Vygotsky’s theory of learning and development that has gradually been recognized as providing the most helpful basis for rethinking the principles on which early education should be based. It is therefore important to further highlight some of the central features of his theory.

a. Human behavior and cultural development take place in joint productive activity that is mediated by artifacts, both material and symbolic.

b. Language is the most important artifact – the "tool of tools". It enables coordination of joint activity, consideration of past events and plans for the future, and representations of understanding.

c. Activity always takes place within a social/cultural context

d. Learning is an active and constructive process; it involves a triple transformation:

of the learner's repertoire for action, of the artifacts used, and of the goals and organization of the activity.

e. The development of individual intelligence and personal identity occurs through appropriation of the culture's resources in the course of participation in joint activity. Since activities vary across cultures, so do the competences that children and adults develop.

f. Knowledge is constructed through solving problems that arise in joint activity in the present; knowledge is only meaningful and useful when it is used as a tool for further activity.

g. Learning is greatly facilitated by guidance and assistance that is pitched in the learner’s “zone of proximal development”. (Halliday 1975).

Finally, Vygotsky’s theory made it clear that children’s significant others play a critical role in their early development by making cultural resources available to them and by assisting them in making them their own. This is seen in some contexts at home, but it remains equally true of children’s learning and development in the time they spend at school.

SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

Social learning theory explains that children imitate the words and language patterns they hear by watching and listening to the models, caregivers, and family members in their life (Bandura, 1989).

48 In social learning theory, also called observational learning, Bandura postulated that human learning is a continuous reciprocal interaction of cognitive, behavioural, and environmental factors. This theory focuses on behaviour modelling in which a child observes and then imitates the behaviour of adults or other children around him or her. Social learning theory further states that learning can occur through the simple process of observing and then imitating others' activities. Thus, social environment can play an important role in teaching learners a second language. The socio-cognitive view is the result of converging the social ideas with the socio-cognitive ones, and it holds that learning occurs when the social and cognitive variables are engaged in this process. Social learning theory proposes that social life and psychological life interact as part of learning, so that learning cannot be considered a purely individual activity. Rather, it is situated in social institutions, social groups and social class.

Personality, cognitive and social factors interact dynamically to create identity, expectancy, self-esteem, efficacy and ultimately, performance. Within this context, second language learners could learn a language in a better manner if they are left to employ their cognitive capability along with their social interactions. This view is underpinned by the social aspect of constructivism claiming that knowledge is socially constructed.

Since the theory emphasizes the principle of situated learning in which learning is said to require social interaction and collaboration, it could be related with Chomsky and Vygotsky’s theories which emphasize the interaction with the environment in the child’s language development. Lave & Wenger, (1991) argued that learning normally occurs in a function of the actions, context and culture in which it occurs and that social interaction is a critical component of situated learning in which learners become involved in a community of practice which embodies certain beliefs and behaviours to be acquired.

Applying this in the field of reading, it would enable teachers to understand that it is very important to use methods that are interactive in nature so as to advance collaborative social interaction within learners especially in the struggle to improve and develop reading skills.

BRAIN RESEARCH

New advances in brain research have allowed scientists to understand how the physiology of the brain enables human beings to learn language. It appears that the brain is most plastic, or flexible, in young children. This plasticity is connected to a critical period for learning language easily. This critical period makes it easiest to acquire language before age eight or nine, when the ability begins to shut down.

A typically developing child tends to achieve language fluency around age three.

However, children who live in an environment characterized by trauma, neglect, stress, or abuse may experience abnormal physical changes in the structure of the brain which interfere with normal language acquisition. Levels of stress hormones

49 such as cortisol are increased. In some abused or neglected children vital areas of the brain appear like black holes-dark, undeveloped, and inactive.

All languages are composed of phonemes, the smallest units of sound-consonants and vowels. Phonemes combine to form the smallest meaningful units of language, or morphemes. Therefore, it is necessary for the brain to distinguish the phonemes of a given language in order for a child to differentiate the sounds of his or her native language. This differentiation is accomplished by neurons in the auditory cortex.

During the first year of life, when the infant hears the same phoneme repeatedly, a cluster of neurons becomes wired to respond to that phoneme. Subsequently, when the ear carries that particular phoneme to the brain, the assigned neuron cluster automatically fires. This process forms a brain map for the sound of the language or languages spoken in an infant's environment. By the end of the first year, a child will differentiate those phonemes which have been assigned to neural clusters but will not identify unused phonemes such as those used in other languages. Connections used the most are retained while unused connections are eliminated.

IMPLICATIONS OF THEORIES TO READING SKILL DEVELOPMENT

Focusing on beginning readers, the various theories converged that children need to be exposed to rich stimulating environment that can enable them develop language which in turn will help them to acquire all the necessary reading skills before they go to school. For example, a home in which parents or caregivers spare time to converse, tell stories, and sing songs and share rhymes and riddles with their young children is important because children would have had exposure with oral/ verbal communication and thus would have developed adequate skills that can enhance their reading development. This teaches us that for language to develop, a lot need to be done in the child’s social, physical and psychological environment and thus calls for teachers to utilize methods that encourage discovery and exploration experiences, use of verbal communication in most of their teaching than more of writing. In so doing, beginning readers will acquire important skills that will help them to develop proper reading.

It is proven by researches that rapidly developing children experience both a greater amount of interaction with adults and also a greater proportion of conversational episodes that respond to and extend the child’s initiations. As a result, it is difficult to determine whether it is the quality of adult-child interaction or sheer quantity that is facilitative of children’s language development. The answer seems to be that while quantity is certainly beneficial, there is an additional benefit to the child when adults tend not only to engage in frequent interaction but also to respond to the child’s contributions in ways that extend - or help the child to extend - the topic in which he or she is interested. One important result is that the child is likely to acquire a larger vocabulary and, this is a significant predictor of reading development and later academic success in school. However, there seem to be important consequences that are particularly attributable to the quality of talk, as previously defined. First, the child