english and its teaching III Gabybet
Wednesday, 12 November 2014
Monday, 3 November 2014
Subject: English and its Teaching III
Topic: Essay on FLA
Student: MarĂa Gabriela Villar
Teacher:SaraRacker
Deadline:September18th,2014. ____________________________________________________________________________ Possessing a language is what distinguishes human beings from other animals, yet the acquisition of language in children is not perfectly understood. Prior to Chomsky’s theory of First Language Acquisition (FLA) language was considered not knowledge but behavior. Most explanations involve either the observation that children mimic what they hear or the assumption that human beings have a natural ability to understand grammar. In fact, by observing our own children’s experience regarding language, we may well agree with the behaviorist point of view. All babies start making sounds like “da” “ba” that they later associate with certain object according to the intervention of an adult. I was astonished when I heard my daughter saying “agua” with an outstretched arm; it was one of Ana Julia’s first words by the age of 9 months. I associated that fact with stimuli –responses –reinforcing stimuli behaviorist theory. She used to spend most of the time with a caretaker who had a girl who was five months older than Ana. I believed that she was imitating the caretaker’s daughter whenever she wanted some water. What is more, I was strongly convinced that children development of language ability depended on the quality of INPUT they received. My daughter received floods ofINPUT so that she spoke very well at the age of 2 years old.
However, if we observe other children the process is more or less the same independently of adults’ reinforcement and it follows an accurate order. The time of language acquisition can be described by the following timeline: cooing(0-5 months) , babbling ( 5-8 months), one word utterance( first birthday), two- word utterances ( 1 and a half ),telegraphic period ( 2-3 years old),after that period the development of language and incorporation of grammar structures occur at high speed. The question is how children can master any language by the age of 6.Topic: Essay on FLA
Student: MarĂa Gabriela Villar
Teacher:SaraRacker
Deadline:September18th,2014. ____________________________________________________________________________ Possessing a language is what distinguishes human beings from other animals, yet the acquisition of language in children is not perfectly understood. Prior to Chomsky’s theory of First Language Acquisition (FLA) language was considered not knowledge but behavior. Most explanations involve either the observation that children mimic what they hear or the assumption that human beings have a natural ability to understand grammar. In fact, by observing our own children’s experience regarding language, we may well agree with the behaviorist point of view. All babies start making sounds like “da” “ba” that they later associate with certain object according to the intervention of an adult. I was astonished when I heard my daughter saying “agua” with an outstretched arm; it was one of Ana Julia’s first words by the age of 9 months. I associated that fact with stimuli –responses –reinforcing stimuli behaviorist theory. She used to spend most of the time with a caretaker who had a girl who was five months older than Ana. I believed that she was imitating the caretaker’s daughter whenever she wanted some water. What is more, I was strongly convinced that children development of language ability depended on the quality of INPUT they received. My daughter received floods ofINPUT so that she spoke very well at the age of 2 years old.
Chomsky’s classic critique of behaviorism was introduced through Chomsky’s key notion of “creativity” people produce sentences that they have never heard before. Human language is basically “unpredictable” and one stimulus has many responses .Behaviorist B.F. Skinner originally proposed that language must be learned and cannot be a module. The mind consisted of sensorimotor abilities as well as laws of learning that govern gradual changes in an organism’s behavior. Noam Chomsky challenged this belief by arguing that children learn languages that are governed by highly subtle and abstract principles, and they do so without explicit instruction or any other environmental clues. Therefore language acquisition must depend on an innate specific module that he puts metaphorically as a black box, called the Language Acquisition Device (LAD). Something comes into the black box and something goes out of it; by observing what comes out it is possible to arrive at some understanding of the process. Much of the debate in language acquisition has attempted to test these once revolutionary and controversial ideas. Exposure to language is required for a language to be acquired, and thus environment and nurture are not entirely left out of the equation.
However, I think that Chomsky is the one who manages to explain why any children is able to succeed in one of the most complex intellectual challenges as to learn any language in a short period of time and whatever his context is. If we were not born with a genetic capacity to develop language we would not be able to acquire it.
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