Methodology and theories

Methodology

 

What I need to collect is a range of data that shows the caregiver's natural speech to the child and their response to the child's language, both grammatical mistakes and correct use. An example from my sample data that I found interesting was the language and response from the carer.  That is how I came to my conclusion of focusing on the carers' language rather than the child's. Even though the context was them reading a book and spotting the animals, the child copied her telling him what animal it is. Her commenting on him in the future this could lead to him using the word correctly. And so similar data like that, although focusing more on the carer, would lead to really interesting language to talk about. I will get her to do tasks that will able her to interact with the child, like playing, counting and reading through books.

The process that I used to make the sample data and future data comparable, reliable and ethical is making sure that it was as natural as it could be. The only issue with it was that she knew that she was being recorded, which could have influenced her language. However, in my actual data, I will manage this by letting her know to be as natural as she can. The observer’s paradox is an issue in recording someone who knows that they are being recorded. How I plan on overcoming this is perhaps recording more then only using a certain amount of it. An example would be recording for 10 minutes and only using the second half or the middle 5 minutes which could be when her speech is as natural as it can be. I think I will need to keep in mind the reliability of it as well and so make sure that if I record 10 minutes on one and use the last 5 minutes then I will need to do that on all other recordings.

I will collect more recordings, and so transcripts, than I will need in case there is not much data there that would be useful for my investigation. I want to use 3 or 4 recordings and so will collect 5 or 6 so I will have extras. I think that the data will be more reliable as well if I collect more than I need; if I do the same quantifications on each transcript then it will most likely end up more similar than if I didn’t do that.

When I recorded my sample data I made sure that the carer knew that she, and her child, could back out at any time if she was unsure about it. I will let her know this when recording more data. I will also make sure that she knows the only people who will see the data is me, my teacher, peers and exam markers. So, in the end I should end up with data that is reliable, ethical and that shows how the care giver’s interactions and language affects the child’s language.

Theories:

Jean Piaget- Cognitive development:

He said that he was interested in the reasons that children gave for their wrong answers to the questions that required logical thinking. Piaget said that the incorrect answers exposed important differences between the thinking of adults and children. He stated that children are born with a basic mental structure, which had been genetically inherited and evolved. And that all consequent learning and knowledge from them is based on it. He believed that a person’s childhood plays a vital and active role in their future development; this idea is commonly known as a “developmental stage theory”. This theory talks about the nature of knowledge and how we slowly acquire, construct, and use it.

He said that our cognitive development was a progressive restructuring of mental processes that has resulted from biological maturation and our environmental experience, and so from the people around us. He stated that “children will construct an understanding of the world around them, experience discrepancies between what they already know and what they discover in their environment, and then adjust their ideas accordingly.” He also claimed that cognitive development is the centre of all human development and so our language is reliant on knowledge and understanding that is acquired through cognitive development.

Examples:

Piaget conducted an experiment that evaluated the cognitive capabilities of children of different ages through the use of a scale and varying weights. The task that the children had to do was balance a scale by hooking weights on the ends of it. To successfully complete it, the children had to use formal operational that would show the distance of the weights from the centre and the heaviness of the weights both affected the balance. A heavier weight had to be placed closer to the centre of the scale, and a lighter weight has to be placed farther from the centre, so that the two weights balance each other. While 3 to 5 year olds couldn’t comprehend the concept of balancing, children by the age of 7 could balance the scale by placing the same weights on both ends, but they failed to realize the importance of the location. By age 10, children could think about location but failed to use logic and instead used trial-and-error. By age 13 and 14, some children more clearly understood the relationship between weight and distance and could successfully implement their hypothesis.

 

Lev Vyotski- Zone of Proximal development:

Vygotski saw that interaction between peers as an effective way of developing skills and strategies. He suggested that teachers use cooperative learning exercises where less competent children develop with help from more skilful and competent peers - within the zone of proximal development. This is the difference between what a learner can do without help and what they can do with help. It’s a concept that wasn’t fully developed.

He stated that when a student is in the zone of proximal development when completing a particular task, if the appropriate assistance is provided, it will give the student enough of a "boost" to complete the task.

The Zone of Proximal Development has become also been linked to the term scaffolding. When the student, after the benefit of scaffolding, masters the task, the scaffolding can then be removed and the student will then be able to complete the task again on their own.

 

Bibliography:

http://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaget%27s_theory_of_cognitive_development

http://www.simplypsychology.org/Zone-of-Proximal-Development.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development

Transcript Analyses

Transcript of a 2 years 8 month old

E= Ellie     B= Bailey (the child)   L= Lauren (Bailey’s mum)     *“Udge”= Smudge (Bailey’s pet dog)

B: Ye (.) be geen one (.) I be this wu-wun

E: Okay (.) I’ll be the green

L: Now you’ve got to read it by saying all the pictures

E: Okay (.) now what’s that one?

B: Chick (.) Ken (2) da dog

L: What’s that one?

B: I on’t know (.) dog

E: (laughs) dog

B: Tame as *Udge

L: Yeah (.) same as *Smudge

L&E: (Laughs) (2)

E: And (.) what’s that one?

B: Jraff

E: Giraffe

B: That’s (3) a (2) uh (.) ‘orses

E: Horses

B: Er rat’s (that’s) duck

E: Duck

B: ‘ook all ese

E: Yeah look at all of that

B: Duck

E: Another duck (.) what’s the next one (6)

B: I on’t (.) know

L: Ga (.) go (1)

B: Goat (.) tat (.( tat (.) wut this? (2)

L: Sealion

B: Sea line (5) rock

L: Pardon?

B: Rock (2)

L: Leopard

B: Lepa (.) urd rock

L: A rock?

L&E: (laughs)

L: It’s a rhino

B: Ri (.) yo (5) pig

E: Good (.) a pig

B: Uh dog

L: Baby sheep

B: Bay (.) Bee sheep

L: It’s called a lamb

B: Yeah (inaudible for 3 seconds) uh (.) tow

L: Yep (5)

B: Uh (.) dis?

L: Deer

B: Deer (2) uh

L: Raccoon

B: Wak (.) oon (4) a raddit (.) polar bear

L: Not a polar bear (.) a pa

B: Panda

E: |Panda|

L: |Good| boy

Analyse:

The child's language shows a of multiple non-standard language examples. My first example of non-standard English that I find interesting is "raddit"- he replaces the 'b's' with 'd's' which is odd. It's almost like he didn't know how to say it or add all the letters together to make the word. I find this interesting because he can pronounce the letter in other words like the 'b' in polar bear and in the word 'be'. However these last two examples use the 'b' at the start of the word.
Another example would be this:

"L: Sealion

B: Sea line"
He can't pronounce the sound that the "io" makes. I find this unexpected as he can pronounce the "or" in horses.
Through out the transcript there's grammatically correct words and sentences and incorrect. I think that it could either be because he's never been correct or that he has learned it from the people around him, which could support Skinner's idea of the environment being where we learn our language from.

Another example from the text that I find interesting is the language and response of the carer. For example, at the end when 'L' says: "Good boy". That compliment will tell him that what he just said is correct. Although the context is them reading a book and spotting the animals, he's copied her telling him what animal it is. So, in the future this could lead to him using the word correctly. I'm considering doing about that the carer for my coursework.

Phonics:

 

There are two different types of phonic systems: Synthetic Phonics and Analytic Phonics. Synthetic Phonics is the older approach and easier to explain. It is when the children are presented to 44 phonemes (letter’s sounds), they then will be able to recognise the letters at the start middle and end of the word. Once these are known they are taught to blend the letters into one word.

Analytic Phonics is more concentrated on the children’s experience of books. The way that it is taught is by looking at texts that children are familiar with then look at the initial letter then work to break down the rest of the word. Phonemes associated with particular graphemes are not pronounced alone. The children identify the common phoneme in a set of words in which each word contains the phoneme under study.

 

The article seems more pro synthetic phonics than analytic phonics. It seems like a very positive way of teaching, synthetic phonics, as they can learn up to 8 words in just over two weeks compared to analytic phonics which is one word in one week. Around 5,000 schools are teaching their children synthetic phonics. This is according to Thrass “(teaching handwriting, reading and spelling skills), that presents children as young as three or four with the 120 spelling choices in English via a system of grids, key images and chants.”

There are many advantages for synthetic phonics like: how fast paced it is means that it’s unlikely that the children will get bored and so will be able to read simple books about 11/12 weeks after starting to learn it. Another advantage is that they way that children are taught is by tracing and copy letters as they are learnt and they write correctly spelled words and phrases, will enable them to be more likely remembered. One more advantage is that children learn sounds that are represented by two letters at the same time as those written with one. So, they’re less likely to get confused when they see that individual letters sound different in different words. An example would be that they understand from an early age that an ‘e’ sounds different in ‘let’ than in ‘green’. They’ll also be able to read words like ‘mushroom’ with the same amount of ease as ‘cat’.

However there are some critics who say that even though phonics speeds up how fast a child can read words, it doesn’t help their understanding of what the words mean.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/the-sound-and-the-fury-of-the-phonic-boom-1096076.html

http://www.getreadingright.com.au/analytic-phonics-vs-synthetic-phonics/

http://www.childrens-books-and-reading.com/synthetic-phonics.html

Evie Questions

To what extent is this an example of child-led discourse? What is characteristic of the two participants' language?

I think that the video, to an extent, is a great example of child-led discourse. An example is when Evie’s grandma keeps the conversation along.

“G           two cats (2) how many things have we got now in the picture?

E              (inaudible)

G             how many? count them”

There’s over 16 of these strategies that show Evie’s grandma moving the conversation along. It is used to keep Evie talking instead of letting her just be quiet. These are important because it is a great example of child-led discourse. It’s also important because it shows that it triggers Evie to talk which could lead to her talking more and so getting a grasp on correct language. This is another example of the video showing that it is child-led discourse: her grandma trying to get her to understand language. She adds words to make a sentence that Evie will understand, although it might not be grammatically correct. The below section of the transcript shows this:

“E            (2) cat

G             cat           

E              in the picture

G             we want cat in the picture okay”

By repeating what Evie is basically saying, but in a sentence, she’s showing Evie what to say in the future. This could lead to Evie learning language quicker than she might have on her own.

 

I think what’s characteristic of Evie’s language is that she’s trying to take charge of the conversation instead of her grandma leading it, although she does at points during it.

“E            some more

G             some more things

E              (.) sho-o-o-w

G             you choose

E              (2) this

G             what’s that? (2) who is it?

E              tigger”

This shows that she’s trying to choose what to do. She attempts to say “show” which shows that she’s trying to understand language. Her grandma is characteristic to trying to get her lead and talk. I have explained this above.