Children's Authors, How children are taught in school, Children making virtuous errors whilst speaking

1 The best authors for 0-5 year olds

-     Janet & Allan Ahlberg. Books- Each Peach Pear Plum, The Jolly Postman or Other         People’s Letters

-     Eric Hill. Books- Where’s Spot?

-     Eric Carle. Books- The Very Hungry Caterpillar

-     David Mckee. Books- Elmer

     Puffin – popular children’s books

   The best authors for 6-8 year olds

-     Roald Dahl. Books- The BFG, The Magic Finger, James and the Giant peach

-    Jeff Kinney. Books-Diary of a Wimpey Kid

-     Michael Bond. Books – A Bear called Paddington

   The best authors for 9-11 year olds

      Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake. Books- Matilda

    C S Lewis. Books- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

     J K Rowling. Books- Harry Potter

   Harper Collins- popular books

Books for early year’s children are interactional. Sometimes there are stickers included in the books. They sometimes pop out (3D). They may have different materials in the books for the children to feel (Elmer elephant) they have big colourful pictures and minimum of writing. The Hungry Caterpillar has local topics in them, such as food, which may be interesting for the children as they will recognise the foods. Some contains buttons to press for music. If the child is 0-1 years they will be at the Enactive stage, generally using actions and touching tangible things. If the child is at 1-6 years they are usually focussing on images as they will be at the Iconic stage. –James Bruner

Books for 6-8 year olds have more compound sentences in them. They are more complex than 0-5 year old books. They contain more text and include words such as adjectives/ adverbs to make the child imagine what is happening in the story. They still contain pictures and are not overloaded with too much text. They usually will not be as interactive as 0-5 year old books. The books usually contain an interesting, imaginative story.

Books for 9-11 years have minimal pictures and contain more complex sentences. There are many books that are written after films such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl.

When I was younger my favourite book was The Very Hungry Caterpillar. This was and still is a very popular book for early year’s children. It is a big book containing colourful pictures on each page. It has local topics such as food on the pages and is educational as it shows us that a Caterpillar turns into a Butterfly. There were minimal words on the book.

There are different approaches for teachers to teach reading in schools. The main strategy is Phonics. Phonics enables a child to learn to read quickly and skilfully. Whilst learning phonics they are educated to identify the sounds that letters make and recognise the sounds involving the combinations of letters. E.g. ‘sh’ or ‘oo’, they then merge these sounds together from left to right to make a word. After learning the basics, children can then apply their knowledge to new words that they see or hear. Applying what they have learnt, to new words is a significant way of helping them to improve their reading.

The reason why phonics are used to teach children in schools is due to research proving that it is the most effective method of teaching. Phonics is structured. Children start with the simple sounds and improve to the more complex sounds. Phonics helps children of ages 5-7, when they start learning to read in Primary school. ‘Look and say’ is another method used to teach reading; however the children are not as accurate when reading as children learning phonics. Phonics particularly helps children with Dyslexia.

Arguments for Phonics: the government introduced a phonics screening check for pupils in 2012. This tests pupils on their reading, asking them to read 40 words. The amount of students meeting the expected standard has increased from 58% to 74% in 2014.

Look and Say is also a method of teaching children how to read. Rather than breaking down the word, like phonics, the child will learn by reading words as whole units. This method is usually done using flashcards. Children are told the word repeatedly whilst being shown a flashcard with the word on it. Sometimes there are pictures included. This learning technique enables them to ‘sight-read’ and they will be able to identify the word through pattern recognition. After learning and remembering words, children will continue to learn more complex vocabulary and have a lot more of it. 

Pros- children need to identify whole words to read fluently. Children can usually recognise any word when learning with the ‘Look and say’ method. 

Cons- If a word is unknown to the child; they will find it hard to read it. The child would not have learnt every single word, so when it comes to reading books, the child may not be able to read everything.

Some caregivers will model a word. If the child is struggling with pronouncing a word, and they pronounce it wrong, the caregiver may say it in the correct form. This may then help them improve for the next time round. Modelling certain words that a child finds hard may also help them to understand how to read other complex words. The caregiver may also echo the child, meaning repeating their non – standard use of the word. This may give the child confidence if they are not a very good reader, it will also help to not confuse the child if they have only recently started learning to read.

Jerome Bruner - Interaction

Jerome Bruner's theory is based on how language is acquired through interaction between a child and the care giver.

Child directed speech (CDS) - caregivers use it. Adults change their speech whilst speaking to children.

LAD- language acquisition device- Chomsky

-Bruner says that interaction is the key element

Limitations- In some cultures children are ignored and are not acknowledged. Other parents interact with their children

Child directed speech-

- Phonology

- Pragmatics

- Grammar

- Lexis

Adults when speaking to children. CDS-

Phonology- higher pitched voice, questioning for a response, slower speech, exaggeration

Lexis- Simplified, fewer syllables, concrete nouns, local topics, diminutives (kitty, doggy)

Grammar- simpler constructions, frequent use of imperatives and interrogatives, repetition, simple sentence, personal names instead of pronouns (mummy instead of me), repeated sentence frames e.g. 'that's a', no past tenses

Pragmatics- Lots of gesture and warm body language. 

Bruner says that using the child's name is essential, they will concentrate on what you are saying

CLD- child led discourse- pursuing the child's area of interest, letting them set the discourse

Example that supports Bruner- 

'Interaction' case study: Jim's death parents-

-Little boy growing up with death parents and he tried to learn language from the TV.

-He used non standard syntax e.g. i saw that she a cookie ate   -what he said

He attended language therapy sessions which helped him improve his language and he came to a similar level as other children.

Bruner has three stages of representations:

-Enactive- 0-1 years (movement) e.g. shaking a rattle, sniffing things

-Iconic- 1-6 years (images)

-Symbolic- 7+ years (symbols or codes)

Chomsky's Language Acquisition Device

Chomsky – language acquisition 1960’s

Chomsky believes that every child has a language acquisition device. Noam Chomsky believes that the LAD (language acquisition device) concept enables a child to acquire and produce language because it is a natural mental ability. He believes LAD converts the major principles of a language and its grammatical structures into the child’s brain. Children then learn different/new vocabulary and relate the syntactic structures from the LAD to form different sentences. Chomsky discusses that an infant cannot learn language through imitating people because the language people use around the child is very irregular. Adult’s speech is sometimes broken up and can be ungrammatical. His theory applies to all languages as they all contain verbs, consonants, vowels and nouns and children seem to be ‘hard-wired’ to acquire the grammar. He is adamant that children are born with an inherited ability to learn any human language. Chomsky suggests that certain linguistic structures which children can precisely use must already be imprinted on to the infants mind. All children, regardless of their intellectual ability, become fluent in their native language within five or six years.

Evidence to support Chomsky’s theory 

   -Children learning to speak do not usually make grammatical errors such as getting their subjects, verbs and objects in the wrong order.

-   -If an adult said a grammatically incorrect sentence on purpose, the child would generally recognise it

-  -Children often say things that are ungrammatical such as ‘mama ball’, which they could not of learnt from someone else

-    -Mistakes such as ‘I drawed’ instead of ‘I drew’ show they are not learning through imitation alone

      Chomsky used the sentence ‘colourless green ideas sleep furiously’. This does not make sense but it is a grammatical sentence. To prove his theory: he believed that it shows sentences can be grammatical without having any meaning. We can recognise the difference between a grammatical and an ungrammatical sentence even if we have never heard of it before.  This shows that we can create and understand new sentences that have not been said before.

Evidence against Chomsky’s theory

People who do not believe in Chomsky’s theory say that although it is obvious that children do not learn language from just imitating people, this doesn’t prove that they have an LAD. Language learning could simply be through general learning and understanding abilities and interactions with other people.

https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/chomsky/

Updated Reliability for Methodology

Reliability- To make my data reliable, I am going to use the most recent series of Towie, to find conversations between Danni and James. I will be testing Robin Lakoff’s theory, the Deficit Model, about whether women’s language is deficient in reference to men’s language. Series 18 is the most recent series. I will start from episode 1 and I will find 5 conversations meaning it may go to other episodes as well (2,3) . I am starting from the most recent series as Danni and James have been on the show for a while meaning their speech may be more natural as they are on TV and they may be used to having cameras around them. However, I also understand that it may be slightly scripted to entertain the audience. I will still use the data if other people are present during the conversation. I am choosing the first 5 conversations they have because I will have more data to analyse, they may have an off conversation which does not represent their usual selves, so I need to have a range.

Child Language - Zach Texts

Zach drawing a banana-

The genre of this text is a conversation. The transcript has a formal register; it is a conversation between Zach and his parents. The mode of the text is spoken; it is a spontaneous and interactional conversation. The purpose of the transcript is to discuss, Zach is speaking about his day and his surroundings such as his ‘little pad’ and drawing a banana.

Within the transcript, his mother uses a lot of interrogatives. This may be because of the contextual factor, his age. Zach is two years old which means he is at his two word utterance stage, going onto the telegraphic stage. His mother uses interrogatives which lead to adjacency pairs. His mother also uses interrogatives to ask Zach to elaborate his speech such as ‘for the banana (.) what can the banana have (.) its three things (.) what are they?’ Zach had stated that a banana, has three things and his mother is asking him to go in to detail with his speech to challenge him to use more language such as adjectives. At Zach’s stage he will usually know more than 200 words. He has proved he knows nouns, such as his local topics like banana, biscuits, his 'little pad'. He also shows he is new to adjectives 'little pad' and 'because its too small'. He hasn't used many adjectives which may be because he had recently been introduced to them and has started recognising factors about nouns such as the size of objects.

Zach’s mother echoes him when he uses overgeneralistion, ‘skins’, in conversation. ‘and here’s the skins’ ‘oh (.) are the are the skins off are they?’ Zach is at a young age, he is at the telegraphic stage so he is familiar with nouns such as ‘skin’ but may not know the difference between it being plural or not. His mother may echoe him to give him confidence whilst learning speech rather than confusing him by modelling what he had said in a non standard form.

Chomsky has a theory about language acquisition, 1960’s. He believes that every child is born with a language acquisition device which enables them to learn and produce language because it is a natural mental ability. He believes that LAD converts the major principles of a language and it’s grammatical structures into the child’s brain. Children then learn different vocabulary and relate the syntactic structures from LAD to form different sentences. He believes that children cannot learn language by imitation alone because adults use irregular language in general conversation. Adult’s speech can be broken up and sometimes ungrammatical. Zach using ‘skins’ backs up Chomsky’s theory as in the environment; he would have heard his mother say ‘skin’ instead of ‘skins’ which shows that not everything is imitated. However, Zach may of heard his mum pluralising words such as ‘cows’ and he may have picked up on it and is applying it to other words.  There is evidence to support Chomsky’s theory such as when children are learning language, it is unusual for them to get there subjects, objects and words in the incorrect order. Also when they use overgeneralization such as ‘I drawed’, instead of ‘i drew’ show that it can’t be just imitation that allows them to learn language. There is evidence against Chomsky’s theory such as language can be learnt from interactions with other people (Bruner).

Build a robot- Zach and his mum-

The genre of this text is a conversation. It has an informal register as it has non standard use of language such as ‘doo doo doo dooo’ which is said by Zach. The audience of this transcript is Zach and Halla as they are having a conversation. The mode of the text is spoken. It is a dialogue which is spontaneous.  The purpose of this text is to discuss the project of building a robot which is the subject of the transcript.

Throughout the transcript, Zach pauses a great amount within his sentences. He is not very fluent. This may be because he is focused on what he is doing physically, building his robot. He is also ill which may affect his speech. ‘We don’t need breakfast (.) it’s gonna take a little time now (2) cos it went wrong before (.) now we (.) then it healed and now (.) it will take a little time (.) for the robot to heal again (2). Because of his age he may need to think more about what he is saying, meaning it takes him longer to get his words out, rather than if he was older and more experienced, he would be more familiar with new words. Zach uses adjectives in his speech such as ‘lots’ of sellotape, ‘long’ bit. Zach may have recently become familiar with adjectives because of his age, meaning his speech is broadening. Zach uses many declaratives, in response to his mum’s interrogatives. He also uses an exclamative ‘Tadah!’ which shows that from 13 months onwards, his speech has developed significantly.

Throughout the first conversation, Zach brings up the topic of the robot, but his mum, Halla, sets the agenda by asking him interrogatives, which leads to adjacency pairs of Zach responding. In the second half, Zach is setting the agenda as he is dominating the conversation. He is saying to his mum that they have to wait rather than get breakfast. ‘Yeah (.) it’s gonna be a long time though (.) but we’re not gonna have breakfast still’. This supports Zimmerman’s and West’s theory, the Dominance model, that men dominates the conversation over women. It also contradicts the theory as Zach does not interrupt his mum, the theory claims that men interrupt more than women. He uses a declarative to tell his mum what they are going to do, rather than asking her.

In the first transcript, i looked at the first 10 utterances that Zach uses. I look at the morphemes within the 10 utterances. There were 80 morphemes within the first 10 of Zach’s utterances. I divided the number of morphemes with the number of utterances (80/10) which got me the mean length of utterance, 8. In the second transcript, build a robot, i looked at the first 10 utterances as well to make sure the data is reliable. There were 112 morphemes in Zach’s first 10 utterances, meaning the mean length of utterance was 11.2. The difference between the two transcripts mean length utterance is 3.2. This proves that since Zach has got a little bit older, his speech has improved and he has a broader range of language.  Zach was ill on the ‘build a robot’ transcript which may have reduced the amount of language he would usually use, so if he was feeling okay, he may have had a greater mean length of utterance.

Methodology

Methodology-

Hypothesis- Danni uses more deficit features than Lockie whilst in conversation

Data resource- TV programme – The Only Way is Essex. People: Danielle Armstrong and James Lock. Known names: Danni and Lockie

Reliability- I am going to look at the series where Danni and Lockie started off as a couple together. I am then going to look at 5 of their conversations. I may look at more of their conversations if they are short. I am going to watch the first episode and find the first 5 conversations they have, which will most likely mean I will be looking at the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th episode as well, depending on how many conversations they have in each episode. I am choosing the first 5 conversations they have because I need it to be a reliable piece of data. I am not going to pick and choose at random, the different conversations otherwise it is not scientific. I am choosing 5 conversations because I will have more data to analyse, they may have an off conversation which does not represent their usual selves so I need to have a range.

Comparability- The one factor in which will be different is the Gender of the two people. There are many comparability factors which mean that gender is the main reason for the different language they are using. The two people that I am studying for my data are both from Essex and still currently live there. This means that they will have similar accents and also dialect as they have been brought up within the same city. They are both of similar ages, Lockie is 29, and Danni is 28. They have similar life styles as they both own their own businesses; Danni owns a clothes shop called ‘Danni Boutique’ and Lockie has his own restaurant called ‘Lockie’s Kitchen’. They both have similar interests such as going clubbing, getting spray tans and going to the gym.

Ethicality- I am using a TV programme for my data. This means I will not need any permission as it is a show that is for public viewing. 

B.F Skinner - Behavioural Theory

B.F Skinner – Behavioural Theory

·         Skinner- American Psychologist.

• ·         Developed Theory of Operant Conditioning : Whether behaviour is determined by its consequences, Reinforcements or punishments are used, which make it more or less likely that behaviour will occur again.
• 
  
• ·         Positive Reinforcement- Praise and Response
• ·         Negative Reinforcement- Punishment/ignored

Skinner viewed babies as ‘empty vessels’ in which language had to be ‘Put into’. He suggested that children learn language through the environment (e.g. people) and consequences of undesired responses.

·         He noticed parents reward children for babbling etc, they don’t punish their baby for no vocalisation.

·         Skinners suggested that babbling would not progress into speech unless the parents give the child a response.

·         Said children imitate speech, if this is rewarded, learning takes place.

• How he discovered the theory:  Placing a rat in the ‘Skinner Box’

1.  He showed positive reinforcement- placing a hungry rat in his skinner box. The box contained a lever on the side and as the rat moved around the box it would accidentally knock the lever.
2.   Food would fall.
3. The rat learnt to go straight to the lever after a few times
4.  The consequence of receiving the food, if they pressed the lever, it is ensured that they would repeat action again and again.
5. He shown Negative Reinforcement by placing a rat in his Skinner Box and then giving it an unpleasant electric current.
6. As the rat moved around the box it would accidentally knock the lever
7. The electric current would then switch off
8. The rats learnt to go straight to the lever after a few times of being put in the box
9. The consequence of escaping the electric current ensured that they would repeat action again and again.

Evidence- Rat pressing level to get a reward is like a child doing something and getting an outcome.

Not too reliable... a rat and a child is a big difference.

Punishment- Opposite of Reinforcement

Problems with punishment-

·         Punished behaviour is not forgotten, its suppressed- behaviour returns when punishment is no longer present

·         Causes aggression, which is a way to cope with problems

·         Can create fear. E.g. fear of school