Language Development Interview
Cytesse Street
ECE 315 Language Development in young children
Laura Carlee
May 27, 2013

Q: What is the level of student involvement that you allow in the language acquisition process?
A: I will allow students the ability to raise their hands, answer questions and participate in discussions. Even if they often get the questions wrong, I believe that allowing them to attempt the answers in the first place is important for their development and self-esteem.
I would agree with this because I believe that kids learn from their mistakes and they learn from their peers as well. So getting the children involved is a plus. As our text states children need to learn on their own so that they can know how to learn.
Q: How do you cater to what children already know about words?
A: I often spend the first few days of every class surveying the knowledge that children already have about words. It does not take long to find out the particular strengths and weaknesses of students. It is my job to learn about those deficiencies and work on them.
I would agree that we need to understand and know what the children know about words but also we need to teach them the comprehension about words as well to have a better understanding. As Piper states comprehension increase word production. Then after that we can teach the children how to categorize and understand the concept of these words.
Q: How do you handle the jump from morphology to grammar in your class?
A: I spend a significant amount of time focusing on words in particular. I want my students to be able to say the words right before they even begin to make sentences. When it is clear that they know the words in a sentence, I will instruct them on how to put the sentences together.
Morphology is very important for children to understand this is what helps the children to form their sentences and combine their words.” Students who understand how words are formed by combining prefixes suffix, and roots tend to have a larger vocabularies and better reading comprehension than peers without such knowledge and skills (prince, 2009). “Teaching morphological awareness and decoding in schools may be the way to narrow the achievement gap for children whose families differ in education, income levels and ethnic and racial backgrounds.
Q: Do you ever touch on syntax much in your classes?
A: I may discuss syntax to a certain degree for those particularly eager to learn. However, I do not make it a concrete requirement in any of my classes. That is more of a job for more developed classes and ones which do not teach children in all ages of preschool.
Syntax is used more for children who have language impairment and it not that often that we come across children with language impairment. Now days that why we have more speech therapies to come out and help children with these types of issues.
Q: What do you think the role of preschool in language acquisition is?
A: The role of preschool in language acquisition is to give a basic foundation upon which children can learn the more practical skills of language development, i.e. what they learn in kindergarten and grade school.
Language acquisition in children is examined in light of a number of cognitive capacities, including the acquisition of semantic categories, memory processes, and speaking styles.

The woman that I have chosen to interview has been in childcare for over twenty years and she has a lot of experience with young children. She said it is a joy to work with children and they are her life sometimes. She now works in a center where she has worked with infants up until the age of five. She said it is a great experience and she wouldn’t trade her job for nothing because she love being able to help and guide these children in the right direction and on the right path to succeed in their future. She said all begins in the early stages of development and she loves to be a part of that. This woman has taught many children and said that each child have a very unique way of learning. She also told me in order to move be successful in this field of work we have to have patients and always have the parents involved because the more they are involved and on the same page with you the better the transition will be for their children. We have to understand kids will be kids and that’s why we are here to teach them and guide them along the way.
Developmental Stages
I believe that the developmental stage which I would focus on most heavily is the stage of morphology. This stage is the most important and necessary for my intervention because it is the stage where the building blocks of language are found. While I understand the importance of simple sounds and the connections of those sounds, I believe that there is no need for sound if one does not understand what words are and how to put words together.
One of my three techniques for aiding with this developmental stage would be to have individual attempts at these words and the practice of morphology. I would want every child in my class to try and spell/pronounce the words that I am teaching them. I would want them to make attempts early on in the class especially because I would like to change the trajectory of my class based on how they evolve.
If one child is struggling with something that the rest of the children are doing well with, I want to know long before the end of the semester or the first regular examination. I would like to know in the first few weeks of class because I would be able to shift what I was doing specifically for that student in order to make him or her more comfortable and more successful in the process of language acquisition. Another step I would take would be to facilitate learning through group discussions. Children learn effectively in groups when they can see their peers doing the right thing. They will feel a need to imitate those peers in doing the right thing just as they often imitate them in doing the wrong thing on the playground.
Yet another would be to put morphology within a framework of grammar and syntax only when I knew that the children were adept at the process of morphology. I would not want my students to jump into full sentences without knowing how the building blocks of those sentences worked. I would want them adept at the building blocks of words first before forcing anything more onto them.

References

Ambridge, B. (2011). Child language acquisition : contrasting theoretical approaches. Cambridge ;New York: Cambridge University Press.
Piper, T. (2012). Making meaning, making sense: Children’s early language learning. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education
Prince, R.E.C. (2009). Usable knowledge from Harvard Graduate School of Education - Morphological analysis: New light on a vital reading skill, HGSE Nonie Lesaux. Retrieved from http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/teaching/TC102-407.html