chapter 10 language and education. learning objective what is the typical developmental course of...

CHAPTER 10LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION

Learning Objective

• What is the typical developmental course of language development?

Mastering Language

• Language

– Defined as a communication system in which a limited number of signals – sounds, letters, gestures – can be combined according to agreed-upon rules to produce an infinite number of messages

Mastering Language – What Must Be Mastered?

• Words (symbols) and rules must be mastered: phonemes, morphemes, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and prosody– Phonemes – basic units of sound that can change the

meaning of a word• Example: substitute the phoneme /c/ for /m/ in the

word “man” changes the meaning of the word– Morphemes – the basic units of meaning that exist in a

word• “View” is one morpheme

– Add the morpheme “re” to get a two-morpheme word with a different meaning – “review”

– Add “pre” to get another two-morpheme word with another different meaning – “preview”


• Phonemes, morphemes, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and prosody (continued)

– Syntax – the systematic rules for forming sentences

• Fang Fred bit. or Fang bit Fred. or Fred bit Fang. Which violates the syntax of English?



– Semantics – understanding the different meanings of language

• “Sherry was green with jealousy” does not mean that Sherry was green, literally



– Pragmatics of language – rules for using language in different contexts

• We might say “Chill!” to a peer, but not to a respected family member



– Prosody – how the sounds are produced

• The “melody” of speech, including pitch, intonation, accentuation of syllables in a word or words in a sentence, and the duration or timing of speech

–We might say, “Oh, yeah” in response to a friend who asks if we are ready to go, but “Oh, yeah?” to express doubtfulness or disbelief

When Does Language Develop?Before the First Words

• Newborns are attuned to human speech, show a preference for speech over nonspeech sounds and for their native language– Can distinguish between phonemes such as b

and p or d and t

• By 7½ months, infants demonstrate word segmentation ability when they detect a target word in a stream of speech

• They understand that “The cat scratched the dog’s nose” is a string of six words, not one word


• Infants produce sounds that exercise the vocal cords and provide opportunities to learn how airflow and different mouth and tongue positions affect sounds

• By 5 months, infants know that their sounds affect caregivers’ behaviors

– Parents respond to as many as 50% of prelinguistic sounds as if they were genuine efforts to communicate

• Prelinguistic sounds and the feedback infants receive pave the way for meaningful speech


• Milestones in vocalization– Cooing – around 6 to 8 weeks of age

• Repeated vowel sounds such as “ooooh” and “aaaah” when babies are content

– Babbling – around 4 to 6 months • Repeated consonant-vowel combinations such as

“baba” or “dadada” for the pleasure of making an interesting noise

• By 8 months of age, infants’ babbling begins to include the intonation patterns (accent) of the language that they hear and is restricted to the phonemes of the language

– These utterances sound a great deal like speech


• Comprehension (reception) occurs before production or expression of language– 10-month-olds, on average, can comprehend about 50

words but do not produce any of them• Around 1 year, infants seem to understand familiar words

– Use cues to connect words with their referents (objects, people, or ideas represented by a name)• Important social cue is joint attention – social eye gaze –

two people looking at the same thing• Infants see parents pointing, labeling, directing their gaze

and make the connection between words and their referents

• Children use syntactic bootstrapping to determine the meaning of a word– Where a word is placed in a sentence

When Does Language Develop? –The First Words

• An infant’s first meaningful word – spoken around 1 year – is a special event– Holophrases – first words that convey an entire

sentence of meaning• “Shoe” means “There is Mommy’s shoe” or• “Shoe” means “I want to put my shoes on my

feet”• 1-year-olds can use holophrases for naming,

questioning, requesting, and demanding• At the same time, they begin to use nonverbal

symbols, gestures such as pointing or raising their arms


• 1-year-olds talk about familiar objects and actions– Nelson (1973) found that 2/3 of early words

were common nouns representing the objects and people that children interacted with daily (mommy, kitty)• The objects were nearly all things that

children could manipulate (bottle, ball) or that were capable of moving on their own (animals, trucks)

• Children also acquire words that facilitate social interaction (hello, no, bye-bye)


• Vocabulary acquisition proceeds one word at a time

– At 18 months, when the child has about 30 to 50 words, the vocabulary spurt occurs and the pace of word learning quickens dramatically

• Pinker (1995) estimates that a new word is acquired every two hours during this time

• Children seem to realize that everything has a name and by learning the names of things, they can share what they are thinking with others, and vice versa


• Rapid vocabulary acquisition may involve some mistakes– Overextension – the use of a word to refer to a

too-broad range of objects or events• All furry, four-legged animals are “dogs”

– Underextension – the use of a word in too-narrow fashion• “Kitty” is used only for the family pet and not

in reference to other cats

• Semantic errors such as overextension may occur because children want to communicate but don’t have the vocabulary they need

• Caption: The range of individual differences in vocabulary size from 16 to 30 months

When Does Language Develop? –Telegraphic Speech

• The next step in language development is telegraphic speech about 18-24 months of age– Two-word sentences to express basic ideas– Like telegrams, the utterances contain critical

components and omit articles, prepositions, and auxiliary verbs

– A form of functional grammar that emphasizes the semantic relationships among words, the meanings being expressed, and the functions served by sentences (naming, questioning, or commanding)


• Overregularization represents continued language development

– “Foots” or “goed” or “mouses”

– The child has inferred the morphological rules of adding –s to pluralize nouns or –ed to signal past tense

– In overregularization, the child overapplies the rules to cases in which the proper form is irregular


• Children must learn to use rules for creating variations of basic declarative sentences

– For example, converting a statement into a question, a negative sentence, or an imperative

– Linguist Noam Chomsky proposed that language be described in terms of transformational grammar – rules of syntax for transforming basic thoughts into a variety of sentence forms

When Does Language Develop? –Later Language Development

• The average first-grader starts school with a vocabulary of about 10,000 words and adds somewhere between 5 and 13 new words a day throughout the elementary-school years

• Middle childhood and adolescence bring metalinguistic awareness – knowledge of language as a system

• Adolescents are better able to understand and define abstract terms and are better able to infer meanings that are not explicit

When Does Language Develop? –Later Language Development

• Adults retain their knowledge of phonology and syntax

• Adults often expand their knowledge of semantics (word meanings) and refine their pragmatic use of language (adjusting language to social and professional contexts)

• Hearing impairments, cognitive deficits, or memory problems/retrieval problems can affect adults’ language skills

Learning Objectives

• What is the neurobiological basis of language?

• What are the main features of the nativist and learning theories of language acquisition?

• Which explanation is best supported by research?

How Does Language Develop? – Neurobiology of Language

• Recent research regarding neural activity reveals that the left hemisphere shows increased activity when listening to speech and the right hemisphere is active when processing the melody or rhythm of speech

• fMRI studies show that areas in both the left and right hemispheres are active in women’s brains when processing language, whereas activity in men’s brains is more typically localized in the left hemisphere

How Does Language Develop? – Neurobiology of Language

• Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area are connected with a band of fibers

• Typically, incoming language is processed –comprehended – in Wernicke’s area and then sent to Broca’s area via these fibers to be turned into speech

– Damage to this band of fibers can leave a person with a type of aphasia, a language disorder in which a person might hear and understand linguistic input but be unable to vocally repeat the information

How Does Language Develop? – Nurture – Environment and Learning

• Children’s language development is influenced by their environment– Learn the words they hear spoken by others– More likely to use new words if they are

reinforced for doing so– Children who have encouraging, interactive

caregivers are more advanced in early language development

• However, imitation and reinforcement are not the best explanations for children’s acquisition of syntax (grammatical rules)

How Does Language Develop? – Nurture – Contributions of Biology

• Chomsky (2000) proposed that humans have a unique genetic capacity to learn language– Equipped with universal grammar, system of

common rules and properties for learning any language in the world• 75% of the world’s languages have the

basic order of subject-verb-object or subject-object-verb

– Exposure to language activates the language acquisition device (LAD) which sifts through language, applies the universal rules, and tailors the system to the specifics of the language spoken in the child’s environment


• Evidence for the nativist perspective on language development

– The “learnability factor” – children acquire an incredibly complex communication system rapidly and without formal instruction

– All children progress through the same sequence of language development at similar ages and make the same kinds of errors

• Suggests that language development is guided by a species-wide maturational plan


– The universal aspects of language development occur despite cultural differences in adults’ styles of speech with children

– Researchers believe there is a period for optimal language development – a sensitive period – when language processing areas of the brain are shaped by early experience with language


– There is evidence that the capacity for acquiring language has a genetic basis• Some human linguistic competencies

are shared by chimpanzees and other primates (e.g., the ability to combine symbols to form short sentences)

• Identical twins score more similarly than fraternal twins on measures of verbal skills

• Certain speech, language, and reading disorders appear to run in families

How Does Language Develop? – Nature and Nurture Working Together

• Interactionists believe that both learning theorists (nurture) and nativists (nature) are correct

– Children’s biologically based competencies and their language environment interact to shape the course of language development

– Language acquisition is interrelated to other developments (perceptual, cognitive, motor, social, emotional) that are taking place concurrently with language acquisition

How Does Language Develop? – Nature and Nurture Working Together

– Interactionists emphasize the ways that social interactions with adults contribute to children’s language development• Child-directed speech describes the speech

adults use with young children–Short, simple sentences spoken slowly in

a high-pitched voice with repetition and exaggerated emphasis on key words

• Adults may use expansion – a more grammatically correct or complete response to a child’s verbalization

– “Kitty goed” elicits “Yes, the cat ran away”

Learning Objectives

• What factors influence infants’ motivations to master their environments?

• How do early education programs affect infants’ development?

The Infant – Mastery Motivation

• Mastery motivation appears to be inborn and universal

– Will display itself in the behavior of all normal infants without prompting from parents (e.g., how to open a cabinet door)

– Appears higher when parents provide sensory stimulation designed to arouse and amuse their infants

– Flourishes when infants have a responsive environment that provides them opportunities to see that they can be effective, successful in their efforts

The Infant – Early Education

• Parents are often encouraged to purchase special products to promote infant intellectual development

– Most experts disagree that children can benefit from special educational experiences before age 3

• Elkind (1987) believes that children need time to socialize and play

– May lose self-initiative and intrinsic motivation if pushed to achieve at early ages


• Research suggests that overemphasis of academics during the preschool years may undermine achievement motivation

• But preschool programs that stress both play and academic skill-building activities can be beneficial to young children, especially disadvantaged ones

– Disadvantaged children who attend programs specially designed to prepare them for school experience more cognitive growth and achieve more success in school than disadvantaged children who do not attend such programs


• Research suggests that children also benefit when parents are educated about the importance of early environment and experiences

• Positive effects on later school achievement are especially likely if the early education experience stimulates children’s cognitive growth, gets parents more involved with their children’s education, and includes follow-up during elementary school

The Child – Achievement Motivation

• Explaining differences in children’s achievement motivation

– High achievers have a healthy attributional style – mastery orientation

• Attribute success to internal and stable causes such as high ability

• Attribute failures to external factors beyond their control or on internal causes that they can overcome, such as insufficient effort

• Do not blame the internal, stable factor of low ability


• Explaining differences in children’s achievement motivation– Low achievers have a helpless orientation

attributional style – tendency to avoid challenges and to cease trying when they experience failures based on the belief that they can do little to improve

– Attribute success to the internal cause of hard work or to external causes such as luck or easiness of the task• Do not experience pride or self-esteem

– Attribute failures to the internal, stable cause of lack of ability


• Characteristics of the child that contribute to achievement levels and motivation to succeed– Age or developmental level

• Before age 7, children tend to think they can succeed on any task

• With age, children’s perceptions of their academic abilities become more accurate

• Children’s belief that ability is changeable and that they can become smarter and improve their ability if they work hard leads them to adopt mastery goals – aiming to learn new things so they can improve their abilities

– Mastery goals dominate through the lower elementary grades


• Characteristics of the child that contribute to achievement levels and motivation to succeed

– Age or developmental level (continued)

• As children age, they begin to see ability as a fixed or stable trait and begin to adopt performance goals

–Aim to prove their ability rather than improve it

• Children who continue to focus on mastery or learning goals tend to do better in school than those who switch to performance goals


• Characteristics of the child that contribute to achievement levels and motivation to succeed (continued)

– Level of intelligence

• Motivation and achievement goals are higher when children value a subject – when they believe it is important


• Contributions of parents to children’s achievement and motivation

– Stress and reinforce children’s independence and self-reliance

– Emphasize the importance of meeting high standards of performance

– Get involved with children’s education and emphasize practices that stimulate curiosity and engagement in learning

– Provide a cognitively stimulating home environment


• Contributions of schools to children’s achievement and motivation

– Educational practices

• Schools are structured to emphasize children’s performance goals – by rewarding grades – rather than mastery or learning goals.

– School climate

• Academic achievement is greater when schools encourage family involvement and regular parent-teacher communication

Learning Objectives

• What are the components of learning to read?

• Is there a most effective way to teaching reading?

• What distinguishes skilled and unskilled readers?

The Child – Learning to Read

• Before children can read, they must understand the alphabetic principle

– The idea that the letters in printed words represent the sounds in spoken words in a systematic way


• Phases of learning the alphabetic principle

– In the prealphabetic phase, children memorize selected visual cues to remember words

– In the partial alphabetic phase, children learn the shapes and sounds of letters


– In the full alphabetic phase, children make connections between written letters and their corresponding sounds• Apply phonological awareness – sensitivity

to the sound system of language that enables them to segment spoken words into sounds or phonemes

– In the consolidated alphabetic phase, letters that regularly occur together are grouped as a unit• Example: “ing” is perceived as a unit rather

than as three separate letters


• Factors that influence emergent literacy– The developmental precursors of reading skills in

young children• Activities that strengthen children’s working

memory and attention control, such as repetitious storybook reading

• Reading with the child by asking questions in order to deepen understanding

• Engaging in rhyming stories and games to foster phonological awareness

• Activities that expand children’s semantic knowledge, such as providing definitions and assigning meaning to printed symbols

Learning to Read – Skilled and Unskilled Readers

• Skilled readers

– Understand the alphabetic principle

– Have a higher level of phonological awareness

– Read all the words

• Unskilled readers

– Skip words or parts of words

– Have difficulty with phonology


• Dyslexia

– Reading disability experienced by children who have normal intellectual ability and no sensory impairments or emotional difficulties that would explain difficulty learning to read

– Dyslexia may involve problems with visual perception or auditory perception


– Deficiencies in phonological awareness are apparent before school age

– Brain imaging studies reveal distinctive patterns of neural activity, which suggests that a perceptual deficit may develop during the prenatal period


– Difficulty analyzing the sounds in speech causes trouble in detecting sound-letter correspondences

–In turn, this impairs the ability to recognize printed words automatically and effortlessly

– So much time and effort in decoding words leaves too little attention for interpreting and remembering what was read

– Dyslexia is a lifelong disability

Learning to Read – How Should Reading Be Taught?

• Two broad approaches to reading instruction

– The phonics approach

– The whole-language approach

• The phonics (code-oriented) approach teaches children to analyze words into the component sounds (letter-sound correspondence rules)

• The whole-language (look-say) approach emphasizes reading for meaning by teaching children to recognize words by sight or to determine meaning by using contextual clues

Learning to Read – How Should Reading Be Taught?

• Research supports the phonics approach to teaching reading– To read well, children must learn that spoken

words are made up of sounds and that the letters of the alphabet correspond to these sounds• Phonological awareness leads to better

reading skills

• However, reading programs that use both phonics and whole-language approaches help children learn letter-sound correspondences and find meaning and enjoyment in what they read

Learning Objectives

• How does school affect children?

• What factors characterize effective schools?

The Child – Effective Schools

• Some characteristics of schools have less influence than other factors upon children’s performance– As long as funding is adequate and used

wisely, increased resources have not been shown to improve school effectiveness

– Modest reductions in the student-teacher ratio are not likely to increase student achievement• But small-group or one-on-one tutoring in

the kindergarten through third grades, especially for disadvantaged and low-ability students, makes a difference in reading and mathematics performances


– Research shows only minimal effects on achievement when schools have implemented modest increases in the length of the school day or year

– Ability grouping – when students are grouped according to ability and taught with ability-level peers – has no clear advantages over mixed-ability grouping for most students• Ability grouping can be beneficial to higher-

ability students if they can move more quickly through a higher-level curriculum

• Lower-ability grouping may deny students access to effective teachers and instruction and create stigmatization


• Some characteristics of schools have a great deal of influence upon children’s performance

– Characteristics of the students

• Genetic differences in aptitude

• Socioeconomic status

– Characteristics of the teachers

• Are well prepared and qualified

• Strongly emphasize academics

• Create a task-oriented, comfortable atmosphere

• Manage discipline problems effectively


– Goodness of fit – an appropriate match between the person’s characteristics and her environment• Highly achievement-oriented students

adapt well to unstructured classrooms in which they have a great deal of choice

• Less achievement-oriented students often do better with more structure

• Students tend to have more positive outcomes when they and their teacher share similar backgrounds

Caption: Teacher effectiveness matters

Learning Objectives

• What changes in achievement motivation occur during adolescence?

• What factors contribute to these changes?

• How does science and math education in the United States compare to science and math education in other countries?

• What are the pros and cons of integrating work with school during adolescence?

The Adolescent – Declining Levels of Achievement

• At the transition from elementary school to middle school, achievement motivation, self-esteem, and grades may all decline– Gutman and colleagues (2003) identified the

following risk factors for a decline in academic achievement• Minority group status• Low maternal education and mental health• Stressful life events• Family size• Father absence


• Explanations for achievement may be found in examinations of

– Characteristics of the individual

– Family and peer influences

– Context of school and society


• Explanations for achievement – characteristics of the individual– Children become increasingly able to

realistically evaluate their strengths and weaknesses and may lose self-esteem and high expectations of success

– Students who have a performance orientation – believe that success is a matter of luck – have lower grades

– Those who maintain an emphasis on mastery or learning goals attain higher grades in high school


• Explanations for achievement – characteristics of the family– Potential risk factors

• Minority group membership, single-parent family, and having a mother with less education or mental health problems

– Higher academic achievement associated with• Living in a small, caring family with at least one

stable parent who uses consistent discipline• Mothers who talk to their middle-school children

about assuming responsibility and making decisions• Students’ perceptions that parents are involved in

their schooling


• Explanations for achievement – context of school and society

– Peer influence

• At times can undermine parents’ and teachers’ efforts to encourage school achievement

–Teens may be concerned with popularity, may want to avoid looking dumb, or may want to be average


– Peer pressures that undermine achievement motivation tend to be especially strong for many lower-income males as well as minority students

• African-American and Hispanic peer cultures in many low-income areas actively discourage academic achievement

• European-American and especially Asian-American peer groups tend to value and encourage academic achievement



– Some decline in achievement motivation may be attributed to a poor person-environment fit

• Transition (switching schools) to middle school/junior high school may be especially difficult when it occurs simultaneously with the physical and psychological changes of puberty


– The fit between developmental needs and the school environment affects adolescent adjustment to school• When adolescents are seeking more autonomy

and becoming more intellectually capable, they may transition to a school environment that is characterized by

– Larger size, more bureaucracy– More impersonal student-teacher relationships – More emphasis upon grades– Fewer opportunities for choice– Less intellectual stimulation– More rigid discipline



– The middle-school slump can be lessened by

• Supportive teachers

• School staff that understands and responds appropriately to students’ developmental needs

• Mothers who display high interest in academics and hold high expectations

The Adolescent – Science and Mathematics Education

• On mathematics and science achievement tests, U.S. students score above the international average but significantly below achievement levels in nations such as Singapore, Japan, and Korea

• The achievement gap between American and Asian students seems to be rooted in cultural differences in attitudes concerning education and educational practices


• Cross-cultural research on education and achievement shows– Asian students spend more time being

educated• Asian students spend about 95% of their

class time listening to the teacher and completing assignments

– Teachers have different approaches to instruction• In China, more time in math classrooms is

spent questioning and discussing correct answers


• Cross-cultural research on education and achievement shows (continued)

– Asian students, especially Japanese students, are assigned and complete considerably more homework than American students

– Asian parents are strongly committed to the educational process: homework, monitoring children’s progress, following teachers’ suggestions


• Cross-cultural research on education and achievement shows (continued)

– Asian peers value school achievement and have high standards

• Time with peers often involves doing homework

– Asian parents, teachers, students all share a strong belief that hard work or effort will pay off in better academic performance (learning goals)

The Adolescent – Integrating Work and School

• In the U.S. and Canada, between 1/3 and 1/2 of teens work part-time during their high school careers

• Steinberg and colleagues compared working and nonworking high school students

– Working students appeared to gain knowledge about work, consumer issues, and financial management, and sometimes about greater self-reliance


• Steinberg and colleagues compared working and nonworking high school students (continued)

– High school students who worked 20+ hours each week had lower grade-point averages, compared to nonworking students or those who worked 10 or fewer hours per week

– Working students were more likely to be disengaged from school – bored and uninvolved in class, prone to cut class, and spend little time on homework


• Steinberg and colleagues compared working and nonworking high school students (continued)

– The more adolescents worked,

• The more independent they were of parental control

• The more likely they were to be experiencing psychological distress (anxiety, depression, and symptoms such as headaches)

• The more frequently they used alcohol and drugs and engaged in delinquent acts


• Other researchers found that

– Academically struggling students are the ones likely to work more hours

– Working reduced the number of math and science courses that students enrolled in

• Mortimer and colleagues (1996) found a more positive perspective

– Working 20 hours or more a week did not hurt academic achievement, self-esteem, or psychological adjustment


• The damaging effects of working while attending high school may be related to the nature of the work adolescents do

– Fast-food service or manual labor are routine, repetitive jobs that offer few opportunities for self-direction or decision-making and rarely call for academic skills such as mathematics or reading

• These jobs do not build character or teach new skills

• Adolescents may lose mastery motivation and become more depressed when they hold menial jobs that interfere with their schooling

The Adolescent – Pathways to Adulthood

• The educational paths and attainments of adolescents are influenced by factors that originate in childhood

– IQ scores and aptitude for schoolwork

– Level of achievement motivation

• In adolescence, influential factors include

– The quality of the school

– The extent to which parents are authoritative and encourage school achievement

– The extent to which peers value school

The Adolescent – Pathways to Adulthood

• Students who achieve good grades are more likely to complete high school– 92% of European Americans– 86% of African Americans– 85% of Asian Americans– 70% of Hispanic students

• Students who complete 4 or more years of college– 30% of European Americans– 17% of African Americans– 49% of Asian Americans– 11% of Hispanic students

Learning objectives

• How does achievement motivation change during adulthood?

• How do literacy, illiteracy, and continued education affect adults’ lives?

The Adult – Achievement Motivation

• Adults with strong achievement needs are more likely to be competent workers than adults who have little concern with mastering challenges

• Adults’ achievement-related motives are more affected by changes in work and family contexts than by the aging process

• Elders who have a sense of purpose, direction, and achievement enjoy greater physical and psychological well-being than those who do not

The Adult – Literacy

• Literacy is the ability to use printed information to function in society, achieve goals, and develop one’s potential

• Literacy among U.S. adults is unevenly distributed

– 14% demonstrate the lowest level, roughly third-grade or lower reading ability

– 29% have basic literacy skills sufficient to use a television guide or compare prices

– 13% demonstrate proficient literacy

The Adult – Continuing Education

• Nearly 40% of college students are 25 years or older

– Often motivated to attend college by internal factors such as personal enrichment or work-related reasons

– Internal motivation often leads to deeper levels of processing information, greater effort to understand material because they want to learn and want/need to use the material

The Adult – Continuing Education

• Continued education allows adults to remain knowledgeable and competitive in fields that change rapidly

• Higher education is associated with maintaining or improving physical and mental health

chapter 10 language and education. learning objective what is the typical developmental course of...

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mastering language language

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pragmatics of language

native language

word morphemes

morpheme word

meaningful speech slide

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