Language Development in Middle Childhood

12.4 LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

12.4.1 VOCABULARY AND GRAMMAR

• During elementary years, children's vocabularies greatly increase, reaching nearly 40,000 words.
• This development is attributed to rich life experiences and diverse, appropriate content in schools.
• Reading is essential for exposure to a large number of new words; reading material should cover many genres and formats.
• Teachers should focus on precise language use with children.
• Upon attaining concrete operations (Piaget), children begin working with words in abstract ways, without concrete or pictured referents.
• For older children to understand subtle grammatical differences, literacy experiences that include reading, writing, speaking, and listening with a purpose are essential.
• Visual literacy concerns how meaning is made in still and moving image texts; addressed in the Victorian Curriculum: English through the mode of viewing.
• Visual literacy involves closely examining diverse visual texts across a range of text types, including:
  • Non-fiction
  • Textbooks
  • Picture books
  • Art
  • Advertisements
  • Posters
  • Graphic novels
  • Comic strips
  • Animations
  • Film clips
  • Web pages

VISUAL METALANGUAGE

• Teaching visual literacy requires students and teachers to have a shared visual metalanguage, a shared, specialized terminology that describes meaning.
• Access to a visual metalanguage enables students and teachers to accurately and consistently discuss how meaning is made in visual texts, similar to using a commonly understood grammar of language to discuss meaning making in written and spoken forms.
• A metalanguage enables text comparison and facilitates discussion and identification of visual semiotic choices made by authors to construct meaning.
• It allows for the analysis of the effects of authors’ choices on the audience and consideration of alternative choices and how they would change meaning (Unsworth, 2007, p. 380).
• Visual metalanguage identifies and names key components of visual meaning and their relationships, using recognized visual literacy conventions, based on shared cultural and social knowledge of visual meaning, patterns, and purposes of visual design, which have developed over time (Callow, 2013, Kress, 2010).

12.4.2 PRAGMATICS

• Pragmatics deals not only with making meaning in statements or sentences but also addresses the hidden meanings of speakers.
• The field of pragmatics investigates what is unsaid.
• It depends on the speakers' intentions and what they want to convey to the listener in different situations.
• Pragmatics also addresses human gestures during speaking, which carry their own meaning that can be consistent or contrary to the statements made.
• Different narrative styles include:
  • Recursive thought
  • Topic-focused style: Beginning-to-end series of events (factual)
  • Topic-associating style: Blend several similar experiences (creative)
• Generating clear oral narratives enhances reading comprehension and prepares children to write explicit narratives.

12.4.3 LEARNING TWO LANGUAGES

• Bilingual Development:
  • Simultaneous bilinguals: Exposed to both languages during early language acquisition.
  • Sequential bilinguals: Exposure to a second language after primary language acquisition.
• Code Switching: A single utterance that contains one or more “guest” words.
  • Code switching is adaptive, reflecting deliberate control of two languages.
  • Children use the most efficient form of language to express themselves, considering their abilities.
  • Code switching results from experiences in two or more social situations where different languages are used.
• The existence of a sensitive period for second language learning has not been definitively determined.
• Bilingual Education:
  • Language Immersion Programs: One language of instruction.
  • Two-Way Language Immersion Programs: Two languages of instruction taught simultaneously.
  • Full Immersion versus Partial Immersion.