Reading Guide 1 Submit before class

Reading Guide 1
Submit before class

Ch 1: Language Learning in Early Childhood in Lightbown & Spada (2013)
Please read from pp. 5 – 25.
Name KHUDAYKULOVA ZARIFA Date 20.02.2021
Instructions: Read the questions in the Reading Guide before you read the assigned chapter. The questions will help you focus on some key ideas in the chapter. Please write out your answers under each question. Submit it BEFORE class. Happy reading!
Before you read:

1. 
   Take this survey: https://forms.gle/1KzUBUu7xdxdoFb48
   

Dear teacher, I can't open the above survey because it was a problem on the internet. So I am not able to do it. I apologize for that.
2. Ask your (grand)parents (or any caregivers who were around when you were a baby) if they remember the words you spoke when you first started to speak as a baby. List as many as they can remember. If you have children, you can write their first words too!
According to my mother; i couldn't pronounce the sounds "r", "t", "ch" as a child.
For example, I imitated the Uzbek word "Rayhon" as "Yayhon". This condition occurs not only in my childhood, but In all children as a result of not being able to pronounce sounds correctly. It sounds very nice in a child’s speech. However, my child had similar cases. In my opinion, the inability to pronounce sounds correctly when children imitate others should be present in almost all children. I can also say that the first words a child says, for example, in Uzbek, are words like "dadda", "buvva", "umma", "mamam". Such words also came from imitations of adults.
While or after you read:
3. What is one way to examine if there is a predictable order in which children learn their first language?
Your answer: In my opinion, the order in which children learn their first language can be predicted. Even though languages are different, I think the child language is the same in all countries. I mean, different gestures are also part of the language. The facial expressions that a child responds to in the external environment, such as crying, laughing, gestures, and hand and foot injuries, are the same in children of all nationalities. Janet Verker, Patricia Gray and several other scientists have used technology to study babies ’sensitivity to speech sounds. Based on this, babies are able to distinguish non-phonemic sounds in the surrounding spoken language. For example, children react differently when they hear their mother's voice or some songs. At the age of 4, the child begins to ask questions such as “what”, “how”, “which”, “where”. And they can say a few short sentences. For example, "Where is my mother?" ,”what is this”, "bye Bye”…..
At this age, children can ask questions, give commands, repeat real events, and create stories about imaginary events using the correct order of words and grammatical symbols.
Scientists have conducted several research methods in this regard. For example: the "wug test" developed by Jean Berko Gleason in1958. However, Brown's longitudinal study was confirmed in a cross-sectional study of 21 children.
4. Language development does not equal rote memorization of words and phrases that people have heard. How is this statement supported on pp.15-18 and in this video? Explain.
In the mid-20th century, several scientists studied the imitation of an adult’s voice, words, and phrases in a 24-month-old infant. During this period, three main theoretical positions were put forward to explain the development of language: experiments were conducted on theories of behavior, the supernatural, and the prospects for the development of interactions. Scientists have studied ways in which children imitate adults by playing various games with 24-month-olds. Research has shown that; the children not only repeated the words of others through short words but also used words to express their own opinions. For example: Orderofevents Randall (3 years, 5 months) was looking at a longer towel. You took all the towels off because I couldn’t dry my hands. In doing so, the child is unable to use the word “because” and has difficulty connecting the sentences.

Your answer:

5. Does the behaviorist view provide satisfactory explanations for children’s language acquisition? Why? Why not?
Behaviorism is a theory of education and Skinner has done a lot of work on psychological theory. According to him, children tried to reproduce not only imitation, but imitation, that is, based on their behavior and attitudes. This developed the concept of character in children. Because children no longer just imitate those around them, but respond with their own thoughts and actions. To do this, children will need to know more languages. And so they analyze what they hear from those around them and try to respond.
Your answer:
6. Watch this video. How does this video support the critical period hypothesis?
Your answer: This video is about Genie, a girl who lives in California and is cut off from the outside world. She lived under the pressure of his father, locked in a room since she was 20 months old, with his legs and table tied. No one spoke to him, neither his blind mother nor his brother. For this reason, the language, worldview, thinking are not developed at all in the girl. And that’s how Genius’s childhood went. When news of this humiliation was discovered, the girl's father was summoned to court but he killed himself. Psychologists and linguists worked with Genie to develop her language. For example: Susan Kurtiss spent five days a week with a girl, teaching her the external environment and language. The girl mastered these rules very quickly. She seemed to be studying the first few years of his life now. In the critical period hypothesis, the first few years of life constitute a period in which language develops rapidly, and then a period in which language acquisition is more difficult and ultimately less successful. Genius had similar difficulties in language learning. The girl had no vocabulary, could not ask questions. But later the girl mastered them very quickly.
7. In what way do you think age affects second language (L2) learning?
Your answer: Age is important in learning a second language because age is interrelated with language. For example, if we teach our children English as a second language, we teach it based on their age.
There is a significant difference in language learning between preschoolers and school-going children. They develop the ability to use language to understand others and express their meaning, and this ability expands and grows during the school years. Learning to read is a great help in developing meta-linguistic consciousness. Seeing words represented by letters and other characters on a page brings children to a new understanding that language has a meaning as well as a form.