Mary Klaire Reena M. CalmaMAED ECE______________________________________________________________________

ECE 504Activity B

1. I agree with what Christie et. al, or Machado, or Masland suggest about how language ability develops because universally, these are milestones and the timetable for mastering the skills in language. Although, language development may vary greatly among children. Some children are considered as late-bloomers and some may gain control over language earlier than others, this is because of the biological and environmental factors. One example of this is when the child reaches the age of two to five, the child can form multi-word sentences. As they age they continue to learn new words every day, and their vocabulary can reach up to 10,000 words or more. However, if the child reaches this stage and did not show any of this behavior there might be some learning difficulties or impairment.

2. Language Development at an Early Age: Learning Mechanisms and Outcomes from Birth to Five YearsBy: Erika Hoff, PhDReference:http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/sites/default/files/dossiers-complets/en/language-development-and-literacy.pdfThe research by Erika Hoff and the suggestions of Christie et.al, Machado and Masland are very similar, because they both suggest that language development have different milestones in specific developmental stage and age. The only difference is that the research by Erika Hoff describes language development into three domains which are the phonological development (the sound system), lexical development (the words) and the morpho-syntactic (grammar). These domains describes that from birth infants learn language and communication skills and are able to react to different sound through babbling and cooing, when they reach the age of 5 months to 21 months, the infants can produce words and can reach at least 50-100 word milestones in vocabulary. When the child reaches the age of 24 months or 2 years old, he/she can put two, three or four words together into short sentences, and when the child reaches the age of two to four years old, he/she can be able to produce long and grammatically complete sentences.

3. Yes, because according to research, the first language (L1) generally needs to be reinforced and developed for 12 years in order for successful second language (L2) learning and academic success to take place. The use of mother tongue or the native languages in early childhood education can boost the learners confidence and academic performance. The drawback of using the childs mother tongue is the adjustment of the school, teachers and law-makers in creating an effective curriculum in learning the first language and the second language.According to the research of Lalaine F. Yanilla Aquino of University of the Philippines entitled The Effects of Bilingual Literacy to Young Learners, the implications of this are; The results suggest that the kind of language used in beginning literacy instruction does have an effect on the preschoolers literacy skills and that instruction is more effective in a language that the children are more familiar with. Beginning literacy instruction (preschool to the early grades), therefore, is better done in the childrens L1. Once the children have learned literacy skills in this language, the results of this study suggest that it is easier for them to transfer such learning to their L2 if and when they are taught in this language and; The results likewise suggest that for English Language Teaching (ELT) to be effective, policy makers and educators have to invest in mother tongue-based instruction.