Young learners
How Young Learners Learn Languages – True or False
(960 words)
For this writing task, I was asked to give my response to 5 statements about how young learners learn languages. I will answer true or false statements 1- 5 and explain why.
1) Babies are unable to respond until they are at least 6 months old.
Is this True or False?
2) Babbling has an element of the meaning of which the young child is aware.
Is this True or False?
3) Children may sometimes use words in a way different from an adult’s understanding of the language item.
Is this True or False?
4) Grammar rules cannot usually be taught to young children.
Is this True or False?
5) Repetition plays an important part in first language acquisition.
Is this True or False?
1) Babies are unable to respond until they are at least 6 months old. T/F
This is false. From the moment a baby enters the world to eight weeks, the process of language acquisition is in motion. They begin to cry and make little sounds; this exercises the vocal organs and gives them practice in controlling the flow of air through their mouth and nose. They respond to their mother by looking at her when she speaks. If a stranger speaks, the baby will respond differently than to their mother’s voice. The tone, pitch, volume, and intonation of a speaker’s voice make the baby respond differently. The baby shows a response by crying, body movements, babbling, and laughing.
2) Babbling has an element of the meaning of which the young child is aware. T/F
This is true. Language can be said to be a progression of the process which means that there is progressive emergence. Babbling plays a part in this. It can be said that language comes with age and with the form of the body where the child grows and their cognitive senses form. For instance, at 6-7 weeks the baby will be experimenting with coos and chuckles. Then at 3-4 months, the child will start to babble; making rough speech sounds. Most babbling consists of a small number of sounds, which suggests the child is preparing the sounds they will need to speak the language it is exposed to. The baby is aware as the babbling noises tend to closely approximate the language spoken in their environment. When they imitate adult sounds they are scaffolding their language for later development. Learning is intimately linked with the progressive surfacing of a child’s vocabulary and syntax.
3) Children may sometimes use words in a way different from an adult’s understanding of the language item. T/F
This is true. Younger children do not have an adult’s understanding of language; they have their own way of saying things as far as they approximate them. They are born with a special ability to discover for themselves the underlying rules for their language system. For example, a child can tell you in his verbal sounds that the dog their family has, has gone outside. He may say ‘doggie’ and point or say ‘doggie out’. This utterance may just be a few grunts but significantly the point of it is; is that the child is telling you the dog has exited the house. Speech in children can be recognised by the way a child generally uses one pivot word plus one or two additional words, such as ‘Mummy go shops’, ‘Give dolly’. Telegraphic speech as it is known like this is marked by its own grammar, especially in terms of structure. These pivot words tend to occupy a consistent position in the sentence and the word order reflects the order of adult utterances, the only difference being that in telegraphic speech the less semantically important words disappear.
4) Grammar rules cannot usually be taught to young children. T/F
This is true if we were to say that a teacher or parent tries to formally teach a child grammar. Grammar is acquired naturally; it doesn’t need to be taught so formally especially to younger students. Grammar rules taught formally can be just too hard for some children to comprehend. Learning can be modeled on the natural environment although learning needs to accentuate the rate of language acquisition. Role-play, games that highlight interesting and thought-provoking activities can have grammar subconsciously delivered where the learner is using the appropriate language without realizing that the teacher is teaching a specific grammar point. The child will gradually pick up the grammar rules by interaction. They are not pressured. Grammar becomes secondary to the learners actually trying to speak. Their language can be facilitated by the teacher. There is the fact that if the teacher tries to the child’s sentence to the correct version, it often fails. For example:
A child looks at their dolly and says question and answer.
Child: What colour?
Mother: (You mean) what colour IS IT?
Child: Red
Grammar is a progressive discovery. It seems that the child can only learn when the time is right.
5) Repetition plays an important part in first language acquisition. T/F
This is true. This does not mean a child will learn a language by repetition. Repetition helps by the way of the instructor, be that the mother or teacher who replies to the learner’s comments. The child speaks differently from a normal adult. The repetition is done when the child speaks and the mother or teacher repeats and reinforces the child’s speech with their way of saying the utterance.
Child: Daddy come
Mother: Yes, here’s Daddy
Child: Nice doggie
Mother: Yes, he’s a nice doggie isn’t he?
With this type of repetition, encouraging responsiveness, the child will develop. She will keep the child’s word order and add on the rest. The emphasis is on the child’s meaning and not on grammatical structures.
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Setting out some ideas for developing and maintaining motivation in either young children or teenagers
(590 Words)
The teacher’s ability to motivate young learners should be regarded as a central component of effective teaching. Motivation involves encouraging learners to engage with the learning process, acquire new skills, and develop a sustained interest in their learning. Identifying and incorporating learners’ interests can be an effective means of fostering such engagement, as interest can function as an important intrinsic motivator. When children are genuinely engaged in learning activities that they find meaningful and enjoyable, they are more likely to participate actively and develop deeper approaches to learning. However, young learners are motivated by a range of different factors, and teachers therefore need to recognise and respond to individual differences in motivation. The teacher’s own attitudes, enthusiasm, and approach to learning can significantly influence learners’ attitudes and engagement. Furthermore, maintaining learners’ interest throughout the learning process requires the teacher to create a supportive and inclusive classroom environment. Learners should feel that they are respected and accepted as individuals and that they are able to express themselves without fear of criticism when making genuine mistakes. Such an environment can promote confidence, participation, and willingness to take risks in learning. Young learners therefore require appropriate levels of support, encouragement, and sufficient time to develop their skills.
Teaching methodology should consequently aim to sustain learners’ motivation while providing meaningful opportunities for engagement and learning. Although games and enjoyable activities can contribute to motivation, their educational value depends on whether they provide meaningful opportunities for learners to develop and apply new knowledge and language. For example, activities should enable learners to acquire new vocabulary, understand language structures, and use new expressions purposefully rather than simply providing entertainment. In this respect, teachers need to adopt a holistic perspective of children’s development, recognising that education encompasses not only linguistic development but also social, cognitive, and emotional growth. An activity-based approach, in which children participate in meaningful tasks and purposeful activities, can support this broader development. Such activities provide opportunities for children to use English in meaningful contexts, acquire new knowledge, interact with their peers, and develop as individuals.
Variety in teaching approaches is also important in maintaining learners’ engagement. Drama and role-play, for instance, can provide effective opportunities for motivating young learners, particularly when supported by costumes, props, and imaginative contexts. These activities can encourage interaction and collaboration while providing learners with opportunities to use language in meaningful and authentic ways. Consequently, the teacher’s role extends beyond the delivery of language content and encompasses a broader educational responsibility in supporting learners’ overall development.
This broader role requires teachers to recognise that children are at different developmental stages and that their abilities, needs, and readiness to undertake particular tasks may vary considerably. Although learners may possess an inherent capacity and desire to learn, the level and nature of their motivation can differ between individuals. It is therefore the teacher’s responsibility to channel and develop this motivation through lessons that have clear learning objectives, an appropriate level of challenge, and a coherent sense of purpose. In addition, curriculum and syllabus design should take account of learners’ age, cultural backgrounds, social contexts, and individual experiences. Teachers can personalise learning by providing opportunities for children to discuss topics that are relevant to their own interests, families, and experiences. Where necessary, teachers may also need to adapt the syllabus or learning activities to accommodate the specific needs and interests of particular learners or groups. Such flexibility can contribute to a more inclusive learning environment in which children are able to participate meaningfully and make progress according to their individual developmental needs.
Games and puzzles with young learners
It is generally accepted that language teaching not merely can be, but should be enjoyable. This is not to assume that it is easy, but only that there is no need, by excluding enjoyment, to make it more difficult.
Games are enjoyable. The essence of many games lies in out- stripping, in a friendly fashion, someone else’s performance, or (and adult learners often prefer this) in bettering one’s own, as in the world of sport. The goal is visible and stimulating: outdoing others, and improving on oneself, are by and largely enjoyable pursuits. Enjoyable also is the active cooperation with one’s fellows. In a group or team activity, rivalry and cooperation go hand in hand. There are other groups or teams to surpass, and friends to help surpass them. One’s own activity takes on importance in the latter’s eyes.
But in spite of all the effort -and sometimes, when attention is sharply focused and the learner’s energies stretched to the full in a game, it is hard to see any difference between ‘work’ and ‘play’ -there is a pleasant, informal, and often relaxed atmosphere, favourable to language learning.
Nevertheless, the case for language games is not identical with the case for enjoyment in the language lesson. An agreeable although busy atmosphere can be attained by other means, even if games are absent, and games have other and equally important virtues. They banish boredom and so make for willing learners, who look forward to language lessons. But after all, any kind of interesting activity would make them do that. We should ask, therefore, what other advantage language learning games offer than the creation of an enjoyable atmosphere in which to learn.
A language is learnt by using it -and this means using it in situations and communicatively. Disembodied sounds, words, phrases, and sentences, however, wrapped about with rules, do not carry language learning far; although it is helpful up to a point to remove such elements and look at them closely, much as one examines components of a machine, before returning them to the intermingling streams of discourse.
The situations which bring a foreign language to life in the classroom are provided by gestures, by handling and touching things, by incidents and activities, by pictures, by dramatization, by interesting stories spoken or in print -and not least by certain contests and games. In these, the language is linked with action and is no longer a disembodied thing.
(405 Words)
Grammar assignment
Students are always worried about grammar. There is a consensus of opinion that they need to study a lot more on their grammar. Of course, a teacher who does not know grammar would seem a bit strange, and they will be asked about it and will at times have to highlight it in the course of their teaching; once they are over that I feel the teacher should, in essence, focus on providing information about the students’ specific goals so that acquisition activities can focus on the topics and situations most relevant to the students’ needs. It can be shown that “we determine the situations in which they will use the target language and the sorts of topics they will have to communicate about” notwithstanding “we do not organize the activities of the class about a grammatical syllabus” (Krashen and Terrell 1983:71). All the same, on my TEFL course I had to complete a grammar assignment. I have added it here for you guys to get a feel of what is involved which is not just knowing how the grammar point is formed.
Grammar Assignment
Form
Past perfect tense in the if clause and would have + past participle
(had + past participle) the other part of the sentence
Example
If you had asked me I would have told you
Real situation = you didn’t ask me, so I didn’t tell you.
Use
When do we use 3rd conditional?
We use the 3rd conditional to talk about – regret, wishes, hindsight
Meaning
*Unreal past situation (imagining the impossible): to talk about hypothetical past situations. The speaker is dreaming of or imagining a different past. But the past cannot be changed.
*The conditional may be with a negative. In the case of a negative with the past tense, the opposite of what is said is true, that what was said in the negative did, in fact, happen, like ‘If it had not rained…’, meaning it did rain.
*You must watch the tense; maybe it is in the past, even though a conditional sentence. If the verb is in the past perfect tense, it can refer to something that did not happen in the past.
Example
‘If I had known I would have told you’.
Real situation = I didn’t know. I didn’t tell you
* The if sentence that describes the past, describes something different from what happened,
Example
‘ If we hadn’t invented paper we wouldn’t have had newspapers; in fact, we did invent newspapers.
When the time referred to is the same in both clauses, we have:
‘If he had done this (or ‘Had he done this’), he would have sinned’; ‘Had we done this, we should have let you know.’
Real situation = He didn’t do this, so he didn’t sin.
*Strategy: When you hear an ‘if’, you must think that this is a conditional and that if the sentence is positive, then the speaker means the situation never happened or has not yet happened and if it is negative and in the past, then the situation did happen. Don’t forget the inverted form of the conditional, like ‘Had it not rained…’ for ‘If it had not rained…’; in both cases, they are of course the same, it did rain!
Pronunciation (problems with)
Example
If (1) you’d listened you (2) wouldn’t have failed the exam.
If you (3) hadn’t gone I would have spoke with you.
(1) The pronunciation of YOU + HAD when contracted = YOU’D with the /d/ sound.
(2) The pronunciation of WOULD + NOT when contracted = WOULDN”T with the /nt/ sound.
(3) The pronunciation of HAD + NOT when contracted = HADN”T with the /nt/ sound.
Mistakes that can be made
Different structures using conditionals makes for different meanings.
Example (Second conditional)
If I were rich I would spend my time traveling.
This sentence is talking about unreal or improbable situations now or in the future.
CORRECT example using (Third conditional)
I f I had been rich I would have spent time traveling
The speaker is dreaming of or imagining a different past. But the past cannot be changed.
Example
If my father hadn’t met my mother I wouldn’t be here now.
This sentence is talking about the present situation that is no longer possible because of the way things have turned out.
Comprehension checking questions
If I hadn’t gone out last night I wouldn’t have crashed my car
Did I stay in last night?
Did I go out in my car last night?
Did I get home safely last night?
Did I crash my car last night?
Was my car damaged yesterday afternoon?
Is my car damaged now?
Did I go out then crash my car?
Did I crash my car then go out?
Real situation: I went out last night and crashed my car.
(b) If Jeff had gotten up early, he wouldn’t have missed the plane
Did Jeff get up early?
Did Jeff miss the plane?
Real situation: John didn’t get up early, so he missed the plane.
The grammatical form changes from the unreal to the real in the answers to a conditional sentence.
Exercise (Testing Point)
*Strategy: When you hear an ‘if’, you must think that this is a conditional, and that if the sentence is positive, then the speaker means the situation never happened or has not yet happened and if it is negative and in the past, then the situation did happen. Don’t forget the inverted form of the conditional, like ‘Had it not rained…’ for ‘If it had not rained…’; in both cases, they are of course the same, it did rain!
Example: If the children had been better fed, they would not have fallen ill.
(A) The children became sick.
(B) Children were not fed and that made them ill.
(C) It was wrong for them to feed the children.
(D) Even though they were well fed the children fell ill.
Correct Answer: A
Explanation: The result of the situation was that the children fell ill, or became sick, but not as in B, because they were not fed, but because they were not ‘better’ fed. The condition was that they were not fed well, and if they had been they might not have fallen sick.
Complete the dialogues
(1)
A: My shirt is too small.
B: Did you throw away the receipt?
A: No, I’ve still got it. Why?
B: If you ______________ you wouldn’t have been able to take it back to the shop.
(2)
A: I got drunk last night and got into work late.
B: You shouldn’t drink so much.
A: If ________________ so much last night I wouldn’t have been late this morning.
Write a sentence for this situation
You are upset because last night you said ‘you are stupid’ to a friend. Your friend walked out of the restaurant very angry. Use the third conditional to imagine a different past.
If I ____________________________ I _____________________________________
Use of special conditional structure
Example: __________ , we wouldn’t have gone to the beach.
(A) If it rains
(B) Had it rained
(C) It rained
(D) If it has rained
Correct answer: B
Explanation: The sentence is conditional, as can be seen by ‘would’ in the main clause. The subordinate clause could begin with ‘if’ ; ‘If it had rained’ to be parallel with ‘would not have gone’. However, an alternative structure is the inverted form without ‘if’ , ‘Had it rained’.
Activity (Desert Island Game)
The teacher outlines a situation:
The story
A man went out in his boat and there was a storm, he could not get back to the harbour because the engine was broken and the sails ripped in the wind. He was blown hundreds of miles off course. He landed on a desert island with no supplies, food or radio equipment.
Students’ Job
The students must decide which 10 things he should have done or shouldn’t have done that would have helped him; being on a desert island using third conditional.
The students in their groups must justify their answers.
List of resources
A-Z of English grammar & usage by Geoffrey Leech – Longman
Practical English Usage – Michael Swan – Oxford University Press
English grammar in use – Raymond Murphy –Cambridge University Press
Essay Corner Blog 