EDU 2303 Final Draft Assessment-1

ASSESSMENT COVER PAGR

Course Name: Language and Development: Course Code: 2303

SLA Principles and Pedagogy

Instructor Name: Khadija Aljassmi

Task Title: Assessment 1 – Coursework: Case Analysis (Individual)

Provide a well-supported account of a child’s initial language
acquisition by exploring the views of several key theorists and also
drawing on support from recent research.

Due Date: Final Draft: Week 5: Wednesday Date 22-2-2018

14 th Feb 2018 Submitted:

Name of Student: Amal Mohammed Abdullah

Student ID: H00275962 Section:

Late Penalty:
Unless special circumstances are agreed with the course teacher regarding late submission,
10% will be deducted for work submitted 1 working day late, 20% for work that is 2 days late
and 30% for work that is 3 days late. Any work submitted more than 3 days late will receive the
grade Zero.
Academic Honesty:
Breaches of Academic Honesty will be treated with the utmost seriousness. You are
reminded that the penalties for cheating, or plagiarism include dismissal from the HCT.
(for more information please refer to Academic and Student Regulations, HCT Academic
Honesty Policy, Student Handbook)
Student Declaration:
This assignment is entirely my own work, except where I have duly acknowledged other
sources in the text and listed those sources at the end of the assignment. I have not
previously submitted this work to the HCT. I understand that I may be orally examined on my
submission.
Signed: ___Amal___ Date: 22-2-2018

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THE DRAFT

Children learn language according to a highly organized set of rules including systems:

phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics”(kopko,2014). There are some

theorists who spent a lot of time in their live to study the way to humans learn a language. In

this essay I will provide some information about if language is learned or acquired. Then I will

move to discuss about do researchers agree that there are recognized ‘stages’ in L1 acquisition.

Does the researchers agree that infants pick up language as ‘chunks’ or is there evidence that

acquisition of the language system is highly organized, which plays a greater part: ‘nature’, or

‘nurture’ At the end I will share with you my point of view. There are some words might be new

for some of you but, you will find their definitions while reading my report.

B.F. Skinner believe that the language is learned, the Children learn the language when they

hear around them and they reproduce what they hear “positive reinforcement” e.g. A father

says to his child say, “Daddy I want a piece of chocolate” (Skinner’s,1959). the child will be

reinforced and will say “want chocolate” (Lightbown and Spada, 2006). Children keep imitate

and practice the sound until they are formed, and he mentioned that the quality and quantity

for the child language recording to what they hear, the environment take the big place to

reinforce the language. The behaviorists believe that imitation and practice are initial for

language development. Chomsky (Innatisim) considers that the language acquisition ‘it’s all in

your mind’(LAD) means (Language acquisition device) he believes that all humans are capable

to learn a language by innatisim”. His disagreement with the behaviorists theory was that a

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child only needs a little exposure to language from his parents/ caregiver” (Lightbown and

Spada, 2006). In the beginning to learn a language, they may have mistakes, then they will

differentiate between grammatical and ungrammatical. The child learns the native language

successfully, the deaf child if they didn’t learn the sign language in infancy after it will be

challenging for them to learn it, it’s similar to a normal child who is learning a language”

(Newport,1990).

A recent theory called interactionist was made up by Piaget and Vygotsky. Piaget cognitive

theory believes that the language is learned from the interaction with environment. However,

Vygotsky consider that the language acquisition is from the social interaction.

All theorists agreed that there is a highly organized system for learning a language. The first

stage is Pre-linguistic the first stage is birth to 2 months in this period the child reply to the

speak more than the sound after three or four month they start to learn the different between

the P and B but they don’t knows how to use this word until years after”(Piaget,1951-1946) The

second stage is Babbling from four to six month in this stage the most child understanding the

repeated word for example “when someone says bye- bye they wave, and once they hear juice

and cookies they head to the kitchen right away”. in this stage the child say word or two. The

third stage One-word (holophrastic) in this age the child begin learn the first word by nine

months , after they learn 50 word they will be able to learn more by themselves , the first 50

words are from things around them for example names and food and same daily used words .

Moreover, in this age the child can have incorrect meaning of the word for example “Apple

means any round object “. The last stage Combining words stage, (two and a half years) in this

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stage children can say full sentences but without good grammars. By age of six their grammar

start to sound like adults, they can repeat others sentence but they cannot make their own

sentence. However, the acquisition for the children is different between one to others. Same

child great in noun other in make sentences, there are different ability for each

child’(Slobin,1980) .

There are stages for picking up language, by the first age the language is learned in chunks, then

the child becomes highly organised, child grow and start to acquire the language, for example

grammatical morphemes“ (Jill and Peter de,1973). according to Brown's "the children mastered

the morphemes at different age" and the language goes systematically by what they hear and

form” (Lightbown and Spada, 2006). The child learns the negation at a young age. However,

the child knows they need to use the negation, they need time to know how to say in a full

sentence. with the negation they may start by only one word than sentence. After that, they

can start to say a full sentence with same forms, finally, they can say a correct sentence. They

also have challenges to learn how to use negation, they will find the same challenge to ask a

question” (bloom,1991) When the child start going to school they develop stage by stage until

they are able to say the full question with correct forms” (Lightbown and Spada, 2006).

Nature is when the child learns from his/her environment or by observing their parents, while

nurture is when they interact physically and emotionally. In my opinion, I think both nature and

nurture play a significant role in learning a language. In the first years the child acquires the

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language naturally, but when the child starts to learn in the school with teachers its transform

to nature,

To sum up, in this report I covered many different research about the language, there are many

researchers agree that the language learned, but the others disagree with that. There are

stages in first language acquisition, I talked about the stages in details supported with evidence,

then I talked about if they pick up language as chunks or no, lastly, I gave my opinion on which

plays an important part is it nature or nurture and the difference of each one.

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Bibliography

 Berk, L. E. (2009) Child development (8th Edition) Chapter 9 Language

Development (pp. 359 -390) Boston, MA Pearson Higher Education

 Bhattacharjee, Y. (2015) The first year. National Geographic, January 2015. Vol.

227. No. 1 pp. 58 – 77

 Kopko, K. How do children learn language? (retrieved August, 2014 from

Human Devt & Outreach, Cornell Universitywww.human.cornell.edu)

 Lightbown, P. & Spada, N. (2006) How languages are learned (3rd Edition)

Chapter 1 Language learning in early childhood Oxford: Oxford University

Press.

Amal Mohammed Final Draft H00275962