The many faces of language:

an aspect of early childhood education

MARGARET ROBERTS, U.K.

Between birth and four to five years theyoung child normally achieves the majorfoundation for his later adult skill in spokenlanguage. Language, the meaningful arrange­ment of vocal sounds in words and sen­tences either spoken, written or in readingmaterial, represents highly condensed ex­perience, generalizations both of feeling andknowing, in symbolic form of an abstractnature. Recalling the highly condensed emo­tive metaphors of the poet and the logicalshort-hand of the mathematician one standsamazed at what is achieved in a short spanof time in terms of the learning of one'snative tongue in the earliest years.

It is perhaps only when studying closelythe development of language in relation tothe child's social experience that it becomesapparent that even before he has acquiredhis first word, a baby of 15 months or so hasin fact developed a language. In the contextof a social and experimental situation, suchas 'helping' father carry out minor repairsto the family car, a baby of this age usescertain verbal sounds to 'explain' what he isdoing to an interested adult. He uses a parti­cular pattern of sounds to relate to hisfather, to tell his father, for example, thathe has brought him the hammer, to explainwhen something, usually the spanner, hasjammed in a hole. If his father does notappear to hear, he will make 'grumbling'sounds which eventually turn into a little

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shriek which usually has the desired effect­an appeal for help, to which his father re­sponds.

At this stage, just prior to the child'sawareness that he can repeat the sound ofadults to some purpose, the child has in somesense the idea of language, he uses soundsmeaningfully, he strings certain sounds to­gether, he is on the threshold of repeatingparticular sounds in certain situations. He ispractising, as he works (plays), the soundsthat he will use later to construct sequencesof words and later more complex sentences.He has already eliminated some of thesounds irrelevant to his native tongue.

The personal-social aspect of language issoundly based and rapidly developing at 15months. Signs are important, he points topeople he knows, draws the attention of hisparents to friends of the family; waves'goodbye' when they show signs of depart­ing. Very soon he will be constructing hisfirst two-word sentence, e.g., 'Daddy gone',and generating original syntax as well asrepeating the word patterns of his parents.At three or four years this child's speechwill increasingly represent the normal struc­ture of his native tongue, though he will stillhave difficulties with some grammaticalforms, and he will be capable of generatingoriginal syntax. As Professor Halliday hasput it: the young child learns to make lan­guage work for him in particular situations.

46 MARGARET ROBERTS

Competence for languageIt appears clear from many studies and re­search that all children with normal hearinghave the potentiality to learn the native lan­guage of their parents, i.e., every normalchild is born capable of learning one lan­guage fluently. Even though many childrenare 'disadvantaged' in terms of linguisticexperience within their family they have thecompetence to learn the normal syntax oftheir native tongue. What clearly is lackingin the case of linguistically disadvantagedchildren is the habit of using complex sen­tence structure in a variety of situations,largely because they do not experience thiskind of language. However, when speech isdeliberately associated with the children'splay experiences and other exploratory acti­vities by teachers in the nursery school whoare aware of the lack of language exper­ience, these children very quickly begin tolisten, to include new words and structuresin their own verbal expressions and to gene­rate more complex sentence structure. Inother words they clearly have the compet­ence to develop spoken language at a morecomplex level. What is lacking is the habitof using what Professor Bernstein has called'elaborated code' language to distinguish itfrom the 'restricted code' which he foundto be characteristic of children from lowersocio-economic status families. Preschoolprojects involving children and their parentshave provided evidence that valuable helpcan be given at this stage.

Educational programmesWhat seems to be basic to this new ex­perience is the motivation arising from the'mental companionship' provided by theteacher. This is normally extended by theteacher to include the parents who verysoon became interested in fostering theirchild's verbal fluency. Often the parentsthemselves enjoy joining in discussions aboutlanguage and express delight in hearingtheir own children's voices recorded on tapein informal conversations arising from theirexeriences.

It has been found that the kind of recordsthat can be kept by busy teachers have to beshort and to the point, recording briefly thesituation and the actual words spoken by theadult to the child and the child to the adult,or if possible recorded on tape. The contextof the linguistic experience, including thedate, is important, as it has been found thatthe most dramatic developments occur whenthe child begins to recall earlier experiencesand relate these to adults and other children.The teacher needs to be aware of this excit­ing development and to make records whichcan provide the basis for objective evalua­tion of progress related to the structure andfunction of language.

At a later stage children begin to 'exploit'the adults through language, using themthrough this new communicating relation­ship to provide further companionship,sharing of experiences, developing concepts,asking questions. It has been found thatwhen the children begin to ask spontaneousquestions they are well on their way to usinglanguage to extend their thinking and developtheir interests.

What is the significance of the first ques­tons posed by children previously lacking inlinguistic experience? Here surely we haveevidence of the relationship of thought andlanguage and the child's awareness of oneimportant function of language: to enter intodialogue with other humans.

In one nursery school where the teachershave developed an interest in the varyingfunctions of language in contributing to theall-round development of the young child'spersonality, children from deprived back­grounds have considerably increased theiruse of language in both self-expression. e.g.,in running commentary on their play andother activities, and also in their interactionwith other children and with adults. Theyare beginning to show initiative in their useof language. Language associated with ex­perience in the company of an interestedadult generates further language and leadsto an increase in confidence and growth inthe child's sense of self-identity.

THE MANY FACES OF LANGUAGE 47

There are, however, other views on thesubject of language enrichment programmesat the preschool stage. There are researchworkers who firmly believe that linguisti­cally deprived children must be exposed tostructured language programmes delivered indaily doses to groups of children who re­spond in unison; others impose language'drills' as in some methods of teaching asecond language. An extreme example ofsuch programming is provided by theBereiter and Englemann academic preschoolprogramme for disadvantaged preschoolchildren in one of the many and varied'Head-start' programmes. In this approach,language appears to be seen as somethingseparate from first-hand experience and re­quiring special material as in the PeabodyLanguage Kit, with its diagrammatic twodimensional material and imitation fruit.Whilst these methods have been introducedas part of research programmes which need

Le langage est I'arrangement conscient de sons vocauxen mots ou phrases qui seront employes sous formeparlee, ecrite ou lue. L'apprentissage du langage estune tache symbolique complexe d'un caractere tresabstrait que presque tous les enfants ont terminee al'age de cinq ans.

La maitresse d'ecole maternelle peut faire beaucouppour remedier aux deficiences Iinguistiques qui serencontrent chez les enfants provenant de milieuxdefavorises. Une methode' efficace consiste a etablir

EI lenguaje es la significativa distribuci6n de sonidosvocales en palabras 0 frases, sean habladas, escritaso leidas. EI aprendizaje de una lengua es una complejatarea simbolica, de una naturaleza sumamenteabstracta, que casi todos los nifios realizan antes decumplir los cinco afios,

Las maestras de escuelas maternales 0 jardines dela infancia pueden Ilevar a cabo una gran labor paracorregir cualquier deficiencia de lenguaje que sepresente en nifios de las c1ases socio-economicarnente

to control as many variables as possible andto obtain objective measurements in terms ofthe children's progress, the danger arises inthe view of the writer when the testing­teaching-testing research technique is advo­cated as the best educational approach. Isthe Peabody Language Kit with its twodimensional material and its imitation fruita real substitute for the first-hand lived ex­perience which is the true basis of all lan­guage?

Margaret Roberts leotures in Child Developmentat University of London Institute of Education,18 Woburn Square, London W.CI.

BibliographyBernstein, B., 1961. 'Social Class and linguistic

Development: a theory of social learning', inA. H. Halsey et aI., Economy, Education andSociety (The Free Press, New York).

Halliday, M. A. K., 1968 'Language and Exper­ience'. University o] Birmingham EducationalReview, vol. 20, no. 2.

une 'fiche linguistique' de I'enfant, oil I'on note toutce qui survient dans ce domaine: Ie moment oil ilcommence a parler de ses experiences anterieures, lanature des questions qu'il pose, etc. L'auteur doutede l'efficacite de certains programmes prescolairesactuels oil l'apprentissage du langage est aborde defront par des exercices systematiques ; il prefere uneapproche plus spontanee reposant sur I'experimenta­tion directe.

inferiores. Uno de los metodos es el conservar datosdellenguaje del nino, anotando desarrollos drarnaticoscomo, por ejemplo, el momento en que el ninoempieza a recordar experiencias anteriores, y lanaturaleza de las preguntas del nino. EI autorexamina algunos de los prograrnas actuales referentesal lenguaje pre-escolar, que se basan en un ataquedirecto al aprendizaje de la lengua mediante metodosde ejercicios, prefiriendo el sistema de ensefianza dellenguaje por medio de 'experiencias directas'.