Facultad de Ciencias Humanas UNLPam Prof. de Inglés Practice II, Didactics of ELT Young children acquiring language (Practical N°7)

1. Practice II,Didacticsof ELT-
UNLPam Practical N°7 Ana Morán
Young ChildrenAcquiring/learninglanguages
1. For teachers, Principlesof SecondLanguage Acquisitionare veryhelpful becausesuchprinciples
guide theminteachingEnglishasa secondlanguage andalsohelpful because learningasecond
language requiresextraeffortforlearners.Thatistosay, the more teachersknow aboutthese
principles,the more effectivethe learningprocessbecomes.
2. The critical age periodhypothesisstatesthat humansare geneticallyprogrammedtoacquire
language andotherskillsatspecifictimesinlife. Thatis,the youngerthe learner, the quickerthe
learningprocess andthe betterthe outcomes.The CPH alsosuggeststhatif a childhasno enough
exposure tothe language,itwouldbe difficultorimpossible forhim/herto acquire it.Thistheory
alsosuggeststhatbefore 10 yearschildrenlearnEnglishveryeasy.FirsttheythinkintheirL1and
thengo intoL2, whichiscalled lateralization.
3. Telegraphicspeech isthe exclusiveuse of contentwordsthata childrendoinorderto conveya
message.Althoughfunctionwordsandgrammatical morphemesare missingwhatmakesthe
telegraphicspeechmeaningful isthe wordorder. Childrenproducethisspeechatthe age of two,
whentheybegintocombine wordsintosimplesentencessuchus“Mommyjuice”or “babyfall
down”.
4. Roger Brown,a researcherfocusedonhow childrenacquire grammatical morphemesinEnglish,
foundthat ina longitudinal studyof the language developmentof three children, there was
fourteengrammatical morphemes whichwere acquiredin aremarkablysimilarsequence:
 Presentprogressive -ing(Mommy running)
Plurals:-s(two books)
Irregularpastforms (Baby went)
Possessive ‘s (Daddy’shat)
Copula(Annieishappy)
Articlesthe/a
Regularpast-ed
Thirdpersonsingularsimplepresent (Sheruns)
AuxiliaryBE(He is coming)
However,inacross-sectional study, RogerBrown discoveredthatchildrenmasteredthe
morphemesatdifferentages,butthe orderof theiracquisitionwasverysimilar; the orderis
determinedbyaninteractionamong a numberof differentfactors.
5. Childrenlearnthe functionsof negationveryearlyandtheirstages are:
STAGE 1
Negationisusuallyexpressedbythe word“No” “No. No cookie.No comb hair”
STAGE 2
The negative wordappearsjustbefore the verb.Sentencesexpressingrejectionorprohibition
oftenuse “Don’t” “Don´t touch that!”
STAGE 3
The negative elementisinsertedintoamore complex sentence. Childrenmayaddformsof the

2. Practice II,Didacticsof ELT-
UNLPam Practical N°7 Ana Morán
negative orderthan“no”,includingwordslike “Can’t”,“Don’t”.These sentencesappeartofollow
the correct Englishpatterof attachingthe negative tothe auxiliaryormodal verb.However,
childrendonotyetvary these formsfordifferentpersonsortenses “Ican´tdo it. He don´twant
it”.
STAGE 4
Childrenbegintoattachthe negative elementtothe correct formof auxiliaryverbssuchas“do”
and “be” “You didn´t havesupper.Shedoesn´twantit”.
However,theymaystill have difficulties withsome otherfeaturesrelatedtonegatives“Idon´t
haveno more candies”.
The stagesof the questionsare formedby:
STAGE 1
Children’searliestquestionsare composedbysingle wordsorsimple two- orthree- word
sentenceswithrisingtone intonation “Cookie?”,“Mummy book?”
Theymay produce some correctquestionsthattheyhave beenlearnedas chunks “What´s
that?”
STAGE 2
Childrenuse the wordorderof declarative sentence,withrisingintonation  “You like this?” and
theycontinue toproduce the correct chunk-learnedforms alongsidetheirowncreations.
STAGE 3
Childrenbegintoproduce more questions “Can Igo?”“Areyou happy?”We call thisstage
“fronting”because the child’srule seemstobe thatquestions are formedbyputtingsomething (a
verbformor questionword) atthe frontof a sentence,leavingrestof the sentence inits
statementform  “Do I can havea cookie?”
STAGE 4
In thisstage,some questionsare formedbysubject-auxiliaryinversion “Areyou going to play
with me?”
Also, theycanevenadd“do” inquestionsinwhichthere wouldbe noauxiliaryinthe declarative
versionof the sentence  “Do dogslike ice cream?”
Moreover,theyseem able touse eitherinversionora wh- word,but notboth.We way find
inversionsinyes/noquestionsbutnotinwh-questions,unlesstheyare formulaicunits“What’s
that?”
STAGE 5
“wh-“and“yes/no”questionsare formedcorrectly“Aretheseyourboots?”
However,negativequestionsmaystill be abittoo difficult  “Why theteddy bearcan´t go
outside?”
There are some problemswithinversionwith wh- questions.
STAGE 6
Childrenare able tocorrectlyformall questiontypes,includingnegative and complexembedded
questions.

3. Practice II,Didacticsof ELT-
UNLPam Practical N°7 Ana Morán
6. Piagetianpsychologydifferentiatestwowaysinwhichdevelopmentcantake place as a resultof
activity:assimilationandaccommodation.The firstone happenswhenactiontakesplace without
any change to the childand the secondone involvesthe childadjustingtofeaturesof the
environmentinsome way.Focusingonaccommodation,we will findthe term“restructuring”,
usedto refertothe re-organizationof mental representationsof alanguage.
7. Adultsoftenrepeatthe contentof a child´sutterance,buttheyexpandorrecastit intoa
grammaticallycorrectsentence.Forexample if ababysays “Dump truck!” “Fall!” her/his
mother/fatherresponds, “Yes,thedump truckfell down”.Theydothat in orderto correct
learners'errorsinsuch a way thatcommunicationisnotobstructed.
8. Some researchersobservedthatadultsoftenmodifythe waytheyspeakwhentalkingtolittle
children.This mothereseischaracterizedbyaslowerrate of delivery,higherpitch,more varied
intonation,shorter,simplersentence patters,stressingkeywords,frequentrepetition and
paraphrase.
9. In the cartoon “Baby Blues”the motherisrecastingthe sentence.Herbabycommitteda
grammatical error, insteadof sayingDREW he made an over generalization of the –edand said
DRAWED. What the motherdidwas toexpand hissentence intoagrammaticallycorrectwayin
orderto create a clearercommunication.
The sentenceslike “Bye bye boat”or“Katherine sock”are sentencesthatchildrencreated
betweeneighteenmonthsandtwoyears,inwhichtheyenterintoagenuinelysyntacticphase of
acquisitionbyplacingtwowordstogethertocreate a new meaning.Thisistelegraphicspeechand
it isformedbycontentwords.
The experiencewouldthensaytothe child,pointingtothe picture,“Thisisawug”. Inthis test,
childrenare showndrawingsof imaginarycreatureswithnovel names.Then,another“wug”is
drawn,so there are two hugs.Childreninsteadof sayingthere are twowug, theysaythere are
twowugs,so here childrendemonstrate thattheyknow rulesforthe formationof plural in
English.
Whatthat? AndNo sitthere are examplesof negationandquestions
 Whatthat?
Children’searliestquestionsare single wordsorsimple twosentenceswithrisingintonation.They
may produce some correctquestionsbecause theyhave beenlearned aschunks.
 Nosit there
It isthe firststage of negation,whichisusuallyexpressedwiththe word “no”
“Ride truck”is an example of telegraphicspeech.Itisformedonlybycontentwords.
The othersentences, “Catstand up table”,“He play little tune”,“Andrew wantthat”,“Cathy

4. Practice II,Didacticsof ELT-
UNLPam Practical N°7 Ana Morán
build house”and“ShowMommy that”are examplesof grammatical morphemes:
 Presentprogressive -ing(Mommy running)
Plurals:-s(two books)
Irregularpastforms (Baby went)
Possessive ‘s (Daddy’shat)
Copula(Annieishappy)
Articlesthe/a
Regularpast-ed
Thirdpersonsingularsimplepresent (Sheruns)
AuxiliaryBE(He is coming)