Children learn languages in stages. From the time of before you are born till your death, you are continuously acquiring language, changing it and using it in the way that fits your needs. There are many factors that can affect how a child learns the English language; gender, age, their native language and the amount of access/interaction the child has.
Gender: On average, girls acquire language faster than boys between 10-24 months. It’s proven that girls are better at using gestures and have a wider range of vocabulary. However, by the age of 3-6, this gap decreases and by the age of 9, both genders perform similarly. Using this, we could hypothesize that in a learning environment (class), girls would have better pronunciation then boys with little to no difference in participation. Differences in learning language between genders may also be due to social environments, biological nature, hormonal differences and neurological changes.
Age: The younger a person is, the easier it is for them to acquire a language because of the brains elasticity and the neurons make connections quicker. As you grow older, your knowledge and lexis increases. In the holophrastic stage (one to two years), children are very egocentric. Jean Piaget claims that the child thinks of the world in relation to themselves. E.g., milk, ball. This enables the child to express feelings and expressions. This leads us to the next stage where they start to understand wider ideas.
Children normally start attending school at the age of 4, when they are in the post-telegraphic stage. In this stage, a child is able to hold a conversation and combine ideas. They also develop their cognitive and social ability by interacting with a variety of people and things, though there still might be a few virtuous errors when speaking. In interactions, we may even see some children correcting their friend’s pronunciation or correcting themselves before an adult gets the chance to. As children get older, they are fully able to understand the level of complexity and formality that may occur when talking to different people. E.g., talking more formally to a teacher compared to an agemate.
Different native language: Not all children have English as their first language, it could be their second or even third. When the child is a non-native speaker, it becomes harder to acquire a different language, however understanding cognitive concepts may be easier because they already exist in the child’s mother tongue. If the learner’s native language is from a similar family, it may be easier for them to pick up English, due to similar grammar and syntax rules.
English is the lingua franca in the world. It is spoken as a first language by around 375 million people and as a second language by 750 million people. Due to the increase in popularity, many varieties of English are forming. English is mixed with another language to form a different version of English. E.g., Chinglish, Spanglish. Kids who learn this variety of English is very different to kids who learn English as their native language. This causes phonological differences in language acquisition, and speakers may find it harder to achieve the same level of acquisition as native speakers.
Access to the language: The higher the access to a variety of learning materials a child has, the greater the level of acquisition. If the child’s parent speaks English, the child will learn more words compared to a child who doesn’t (non-native speakers speaking their mother tongue at home). At school, multilingual children may be a bit behind in using English so teachers would pay more attention to them and interact with them more so they can gain confidence in speaking in English.
There are different methods a teacher can use to aid children in acquisition and learning. A teacher may constantly repeat what they are saying or get the children to repeat after them. This helps to increase confidence, fluency and speed as each time it assists in attaining the concept/word. E.g., TV shows repeat things (Dora). Songs, games and using physical/visual activities (having visually appealing posters) can help solidify ideas and concepts into the student’s mind.
It was found that younger students prefer songs as it engages them more, compared to older students. When teaching older students, teachers slowed down to explain the concepts and as the students got older, the less questions they asked.
Another method used is modelling. Children imitate what they see and hear. This method allows children to hear the way language is being used and how they can apply it themselves. E.g., using prosodic features: looking at the way a teacher’s mouth moves when teaching phonological sounds. It can also help model the structure of conversations (turn taking). On the other hand, the behaviorist theory states that children produce infinite utterances, many of which they haven’t heard before so it’s unlikely that they imitate.
In 1965, Noam Chomsky expressed that the human brain has an innate ability to learn language which allows children to learn language easily. They have a LAD (Language Acquisition Device) which allows all children to be born with an understanding of universal grammar and it is part of the nature of humans. This is why all children go through the same stages of acquisition around the same time, even though cultures and environments may differ.
Vygotsky’s theory states that learning takes place by interacting with the environment; children learn when they are faced with new situations and have to adapt to it themselves. He also emphasized the role of an educator in a child’s life. It is important for a teacher to use IRF (Initiation-response-feedback), in this a teacher will ask the learner and give feedback to the student’s response. This helps the child to achieve things themselves without any support.
No two children learn language the same, due to many factors discussed. As children grow older and start to develop and interact with others, they will start to form their own set of “standards” for the language due to social and economic factors. It will also change due to the language changing itself because of neologisms. Language acquisition is a long-life process with most of it occurring in the first 5-7 years of your life.
