Into the Unknown

 

        I am not certain what to include in this journal... I looked in my inbox and did not see the link for the analysis of my lesson plan, perhaps an oversight. So, I'll dabble a bit into the unknown.It feels like much of the process of language development and ultimately reading are actually unknown scientific postulates of how the brain works and how language is acquired. Some of the things that I have learned in this course have helped me to better understand how language development primarily occurs in the earlier stages of life. However, there does not seem to be a clear understanding of the "how". We know the why, but the how seems to allude us and cause the most consternation.

In watching this week's videos, I found the discussion on studying identical versus fraternal twins interesting. The researcher shared that the key part of language development is not how much a language is spoken but if it is understood. This reminds me of my own forays into the initial use of Spanish, but often turned into Spanglish. A laughable effort, but eventually i studied abroad, volunteered in a hospital teaching breastfeeding to Spanish speaking mothers, connected with parents and students alike with a few uttered Spanish phrases. What I learned and I keep in mind when working with my students is that language development and therefore, reading takes time. The problem is do we have enough time.

Ideally, we would want our intervention to be the perfect fix, but what we find is that it sometimes takes years and numerous interventions to take a child to the next level of language attainment, comprehension, fluency and the ability to read. I digress. I think that to be better educators, there needs to be more emphasis put into the different ways in which we learn and how to best meet the needs of all learners. Every child in our room. Every child in our small groups. Every child who enters the building must become a priority. The pandemic has made this particularly challenging, with our lowest performing students more than two years behind and knowing that on average it takes two years to make up one lost year. We continue to know the “why,” but we struggle with the “how.” Thus, we continue to walk into the unknown.

Talk to me baby!

  

   Did you know there is a direct link between play and language development? There is  a connection between play and language development. The interesting thing is that “play” time for young children is being taken away for academic time. Preschool and Kindergarten programs once focused on children's social and emotional growth instead of forcing ill-prepared and developmentally inappropriate lessons that push children to spend more of their school day sitting still for whole group lessons. A specific aspect of play, pretend play, opens the door for children to increase their language development. It starts from interactions with adults and infants (Yogman et al., 2019). 

    According to researchers at the University of Washington, the first three years of life, infants and toddlers learn more than any other three- year period in their life. They learn to respond to a number of different stimuli, motions, facial expressions, reaction and responses of their caregivers (Gaga & Cooper, 2022). This would seem like just a part of spending time with a child, when in actuality, it has a long-lasting impact on children and how they will communicate, written and oral. I believe more parents would spend time interacting with their children if they knew the importance of the time spent with children. 

    “One study sought to understand whether communication could benefit from play. Researchers observed what happened when an infant began playing with a toy.  They found that if the mother responded by manipulating and naming the toys, the baby- when tested three months later would have better language skills (Newland et al., 2019).” Another study showed, “Pretend play is especially beneficial because it allows young children to practice new vocabulary when they speak and to understand others. During social play, they often reciprocate each other’s words and actions to reach agreements (Orr & Geva, 2019).”

    Early learning and play are fundamentally social activities‍ and fuel the development of language and thought (Yogman et al., 2019) Play is not frivolous; it is brain building. Play has been shown to have both direct and indirect effects on brain structure and functioning. Play leads to changes at the molecular (epigenetic), cellular (neuronal connectivity), and behavioral levels (socioemotional and executive functioning skills) that promote learning and adaptive and/or prosocial behavior (Yogman et al., 2019).

    Play should not be underestimated. In fact, early education programs should reconsider the current structure to include more play time. Additionally, parents should be made aware of the importance of their interactions with their infant and toddler children. Then maybe they should say< Talk to me baby!”

References

Gaga, L., & Cooper, B. (2022, January 17). ??? ??? - YouTube. Retrieved November 8, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLoEUEDqagQ&feature=youtu.be

Newland, L., Roggman, L., & Boyce, L. (2019, April 11). Home. YouTube. Retrieved November 8, 2022, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0163638301000674?via%3Dihub

Orr, E., & Geva, R. (2019, January 17). ... ... - YouTube. Retrieved November 8, 2022, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016363831500003X

Yogman, M., Hutchinson, J., Hirsch Pack, K., & Michnoff Gilinkoff, R. (2019, April 11). Home. YouTube. Retrieved November 8, 2022, from https://watermark.silverchair.com/peds_20182058.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAqEwggKdBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggKOMIICigIBADCCAoMGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQM_b1X5x_oNo-FFWhiAgEQgIICVNIQ4hNjKVebNdkv_I0DB9gDZ-hA-Kvb4q0Fy6qfFa

 
"Blame it on the BRAIN"

Did you know that the human ability for learning language is the highest from infant to about 7 years old (Kuhl, 2011)? This ability dramatically decreases as one ages and severely declines at puberty (Kuhl, 2011). The TED talk shared how babies essentially take note of how often they hear a sound (Kuhl, 2011). The most interesting part of this research was that the child’s language acquisition was not effective from a video, but in fact the words had to be heard from an adult actually speaking the language (Kuhl, 2011). 

With just this little nugget of information, you would think that when and how we learn additional languages would shift. Yet, we try to encourage middle, high school and even college students to learn an entirely new language when the most optimal time for this learning should occur when children are in elementary school. It boggles my mind how we have all this research regarding the brain, education, teaching and learning and yet we insist on doing things the way they have always been done.

In watching a number of "brain based" videos, I learned quite a bit about the brain and its functioning with regards to language. One of the videos shared that a damaged brain was used to tell scientists how the brain functions with regard to language (Boston Children's Hospital, 2012). The brains of people who had experienced a brain injury was used to determine what portion of the brain is responsible for language. To use a deficiency to determine why people have a particular portion of the brian that functions seems a bit like backwards design. However, it offers an explanation for the development of language within the human brain.

Another video spoke about the brains of the ape, chimpanzee and other primates who are considered distant relatives of humans (Rilling, 2012). The interesting thing is that although humans have attempted to teach apes a language, they have made no more progress than a three year old child. This video showed the numerous scans of primates’ brains and compared them to the human brain, but ultimately there is no comparison. It would appear that the human brain is unique in its functions. At first, it was thought that it was simply that it had to do with the size of the brain, but it seems that there are several parts of the brain that deal with syntax.

In a video shared based on research from University of California, Berkeley, we learn that by reading a story what parts of the brain are stimulated (Nature Video, 2016). Words, like mom, wife, home and friend are all uniquely coded in the brain (Nature Video, 2016). The experiment showed that blood would be most evident in a particular part of the brain, based on the word (s) in the story (Nature Video, 2016).  From this research it appears that certain words are recognized by certain parts of the brain.This is fascinating! I think this should be shared with people so they can have a better understanding of how the brain functions and impacts language development.

References

Boston Children's Hospital. (2012, May 1). Labs of Cognitive Neuroscience - Nelson Lab - Boston Children's Hospital. YouTube. Retrieved November 1, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hfCV0IwJsg

Kuhl, P. (2011, February 18). The linguistic genius of babies | Patricia Kuhl. YouTube. Retrieved November 1, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2XBIkHW954&feature=youtu.be

NativLang. (2013, October 9). Your Brain on Language: Is grammar inside my head? -- Linguistics & Logic 101. YouTube. Retrieved November 1, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUFdUiJXS4E

Nature Video. (2016, April 27). The brain dictionary. YouTube. Retrieved November 1, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k61nJkx5aDQ

Rilling, J. (2012). James Rilling - Human Brain Specializations Related to Language. Wikipedia. Retrieved November 1, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nqaPAqOmKQ&feature=youtu.be

                                       

Lost in Translation

 

                                                            Where Do I Begin?

The first challenge I encountered by watching a television show with no sound was to attempt to read lips. After a while I realized that I was going to be unsuccessful with the challenge because it required sustained focus, which isn't necessarily my strong suite. I turned the television off in frustration of wanting to know what is being said and not able to figure it out. Similarly, I struggled with the news broadcast in French. I was surprised at how challenging it was to even understand the context of the story. I speak Spanish and thought to myself, surely, I can figure this out. So, I listened and understood a word here and there, but by and large I was limited in what I could actually comprehend. However, this time my frustration led me to utilize Google Translate on my phone so that I could actually understand what was being said. It confirmed my suspicion that the newscast was commentary about French politics.

The challenge of understanding something when not in your own language requires you to use a number of visual cues to gather meaning. I suppose once again, I could use Google Translate. I could also view the body language of the speakers and seek clarity in the interactions of those around me. The challenge would then be more about my perception of how those interactions around me as opposed to necessarily understanding the reality of the presented situation.

EL students sit in classrooms all across the country unable to access materials because they do not know the language, they need a visual representation about what is being discussed, shared ot taught. The sad thing is that so many educators do not realize that EL understanding will increase dramatically simply by sharing visual aids with the students. Although it is known that language acquisition is important and why students are in English speaking only classrooms, there is a difference between being able to speak the language and understand the spoken language. It's also one thing not to be able to hear the language spoken and determine the action by visual representations. However, to hear a language spoken and your only understanding of the language is diminished to the occasional word you understand. This is beyond frustrating and seems in part to be educational malpractice.

My current role in the school building is ELA Lead. Therefore, I am responsible for providing intervention, coaching and modeling for classroom teachers. I think where I can put more emphasis and support EL learners in the school building is to encourage classroom teachers to use visual representations to provide meaning and context for their students. I think this may be beneficial for all learners. Do you have any suggestions?

                                                        References

Nase, J. P. (2022, January 17). - YouTube. Retrieved October 25, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQhdwDw0Hck&t=885s

Digging up the Roots

 Roots of Language Development

For today’s blog, we will begin digging up the roots of Language Development. I would like to provide commentary for Dr. Barbara Lust’s talk at Cornell University that is specific to language acquisition (Cornell University & Albert Mann Library, 2007). She began with the history of language acquisition and the researchers who pre-dated her most current research. The talk established that language is acquired in the womb, prior to a child’s birth (Cornell University & Albert Mann Library, 2007). What was particularly insightful is that there are different schools of thought, the Rationalist and the Empirical approach which gives theory on how language is actually acquired (Cornell University & Albert Mann Library, 2007).  Essentially how a child is exposed to language in their initial first year is pivotal in how a child learns a language. In a “normal” setting, I am assuming Dr. Lust means when a child does not have any learning challenges, the format is similar in that children begin with words and sentences and meaning developed by experience (Cornell University & Albert Mann Library, 2007). Dr. Lust’s book specifically looks at language development from an interdisciplinary approach and from all levels of representation (Cornell University & Albert Mann Library, 2007). I appreciated the discussion about how children can learn multiple languages at once and the process is still the same.

The video itself was helpful in better understanding of the text. Dr. Lust’s Booktalk further elucidates the process of language acquisition which is key in a child learning to read. Language has five parameters: syntax, morphology, phonology, semantics and pragmatics. 

Syntax is the form or structure of a language (Owens, 2019, p.18).Morphology is concerned with internal organization of words (Owens, 2019, p.20).Phonology is the aspect of the language concerned with rules governing the structure, distribution and sequencing of speech sounds and the shape of syllables (Owens, 2019, p.21).Semantics is a system of rules governing the meaning  or content of words and word combinations (Owens, 2019,p.22).Pragmatics concentrates on the social use of language and on how you use language to  achieve your communication goals (Owens, 2019,p.24).

 Each part is essential in knowing where a student with reading challenges as well as an English learner may struggle at a key element and impact their reading. I often see this with universal screeners like Dynamic Indicators of Basic Literacy Skills (DIBELS) in which educators must drill down to find out where a student is having difficulty. Most of the time in elementary students I find it in phonemic awareness. English Language Learners are particularly challenged because certain letters and sounds are not the same in their home language.

An area of interest that I think would be helpful in teaching African American students is learning how dialects and code switching play a part in how students learn language (Owens, 2019, p.27). This will be shared in coming blogs. Stay tuned as we dig up the roots of language development.

References

Cornell University & Albert Mann Library. (2007, November 29). Child Language Acquisition. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9gATksP8xc&feature=youtu.be

Owens, R. (2019). Language Development: An Introduction. Pearson Education, Incorporated.

TedTalk & Bowern, C. (n.d.). Ted-Ed Where Did English Come From. Ted-Ed. https://ed.ted.com/lessons/where-did-english-come-from-claire-bowern

Treasure, J. (2011, July). Julian Treasure: 5 ways to listen better. TED. Retrieved October 18, 2022, from https://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_5_ways_to_listen_better