Summary Post on Language Acquisition

Alexandra, Kelly K., Rachel D., and Amanda

We all found the question of language acquisition thought provoking as it pertained to our own experiences.

Kelly K. gained new knowledge from Nativist theories and Chomsky's LAD. She found most interesting the notion that children dont just parrot back what they hear, but actually extapolate what's important, adjust, and create new sentences based on an "understood" grammar. She also feels that langauge and reading go hand in hand. If you dont undertand a language , how can you read it, and vice versa. Language and reading assist each other. She fells that teaching children undertanding and meaning will be the hardest part about leaching reading and literacy.

Amanda felt that while oral language is an innate characteristic of being human, reading
is a skill that humans have acquired and that needs to be taught. Even if one cant read, they can still communicate. Amanda remembers modeling her parents as a child when they watching them read to her. The difficulty she experienced in learning a second language reinforces the idea that children learn language easily and naturally only during that critical period described in the articles. Nonetheless, the more we read, even as adults, we can always become better readers.

Rachel D. stresses the combination of innate ability and learned experience in language acquisition. She communicates with kids alot at her job and describes how different their communication styles are. She emphasizes the importance of teaching language, even a foreign one, during the critical period. And she shares her experience tutoring non-english speaking students and how they were much more fluent when speaking about something they enjoy in their lives, like soccer. Familiarity helps a child's language growth.

As for myself , after reading the articles , I think that children can instinctively find a way to communicate what they need by creating their own language. It was interesting to read the theories on whether learning is a result of innate language- specific capacities plus "mere exposure", or from general cognitive abilities plus more crucial interaction. So I wonder if children are born with differing levels of this innate ability. Are certain children more language-inclined than others, or do they merely possess higher cognitive abilities? I related with the O'Riordan article on a couple of levels. Having spent my childhoon in Italy, I did find it much easier to learn french and spanish. I also like him, found it essential to read as much as possible while learning a new language, so I can "see" the words I had previously only heard. On the other hand, it's also helpful to be familiar with what a word sounds like prior to seeing it in print, so you can "hear" it in your head when you are reading it for the first time. So for me language acquisition and reading are inexorably entwined.

Hey guys- Hope I got your points across OK.