Week 3 EDPY 416 Notes
EDPY 416/516 - Week 3 Notes
Course Information
Instructor: Jennifer A. Foote
Semester: Fall 2025
Institution: University of Alberta, Faculty of Education
Housekeeping
Appreciation expressed for thoughtful posts on the discussion board.
Next discussion post due date: October 1st at noon.
Agenda Overview
BICS and CALP: Discussion and review from last week.
First Language Acquisition (L1): Exploration of how children acquire their first language.
Second Language Acquisition (L2): Examination of how individuals learn a second language.
Language Proficiency Questions
Exploration of the question: "How long does it take to learn a language?"
Important considerations include defining what it means to "know" a language, particularly English.
BICS and CALP Definitions
BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills):
Involves daily conversational skills, such as talking with instructors or classmates.
Includes reading and writing about familiar topics (e.g., weekend plans).
Requires knowledge of high-frequency words (e.g., tired) and understanding common literal meanings.
Utilizes simple sentences and structures for communication.
CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency):
Involves understanding complex or abstract topics (e.g., symbolism in poetry).
Requires knowledge of less frequent vocabulary (e.g., weary) and understanding context-dependent meanings.
Involves using complex sentences and grammatical structures.
Quadrants from Jim Cummins' Framework
Quadrants for Classifying Language Activities:
Cognitively Undemanding and Context Embedded:
Examples: Face-to-face conversations, buying in stores, demonstrations.
Cognitively Demanding and Context Reduced:
Examples: Standardized tests, textbooks, academic lectures.
Timeline for Language Acquisition
BICS Development Time: Approximately 6 months to 2 years for students to achieve basic conversational proficiency.
CALP Development Time: Generally takes over 5 years to develop, particularly for literacy learners, who may require additional time.
Challenges with Academic Language (CALP)
Associated Functions of Academic Language:
To describe complexity.
To promote higher-order thinking.
To articulate abstract concepts.
Features of Academic Language: (Referencing Zwiers, 2014)
Use of figurative expressions.
Explicitness for 'distant audiences'.
Detachment from the message (objectivity).
Supporting arguments with evidence.
Conveying nuances with modal verbs.
Softening assertions with qualifiers.
Use of lower-frequency vocabulary.
Academic Grammar Characteristics:
Long sentence structures.
Use of passive voice.
Nominalization: usage of non-noun words as nouns (e.g., procurement, industrialization).
Clarity amid complex ideas.
Misleading Facade of BICS Skills
Importance of distinguishing between students’ conversational skills (BICS) and their proficiency in academic language (CALP).
The common misconception arises from assuming that good conversational proficiency equates to academic proficiency.
Research by Coelho emphasizes the time, often 5 to 7 years, needed to develop full academic proficiency after initial conversational fluency.
First Language Acquisition Insights
Importance of continuing to use the first language (L1) while learning a second language (L2) for identity and cultural reasons.
Challenges in diagnosing disabilities or developmental delays in L2 learners, potentially leading to misdiagnosis based on misconceptions surrounding “normal” language development.
Key Factors in Child Language Development
Prenatal Evidence of Language Learning:
Babies can hear as early as 16 weeks before birth and can distinguish the rhythm and cadences of their mother’s language.
Phonetic Discrimination:
Newborns can hear subtle phonetic differences, losing the ability to hear non-phonemic distinctions if not exposed to them.
Bilingual babies maintain this discriminative ability longer than their monolingual counterparts.
Milestones of Language Development in Children
Stages of Linguistic Development:
Crying: Initial communication.
Cooing: Begins around 6 to 8 weeks.
Babbling: Emerges at 6-9 months, involving consonant-vowel combinations (e.g., "bababa", "dadada").
One-Word Utterances: Around 12-18 months, e.g. saying words like "gone", "dada", or "teddy".
Telegraphic Speech: At two years old, children produce simple sentences like "Mommy play" and utilize word order effectively.
Developmental Sequences in Language Acquisition
Various grammatical morphemes emerge through stages:
Present Progressive: e.g., "Mommy running".
Plural –s: e.g., "Two books".
Irregular Past Forms: e.g., "Baby went".
Possessive 's': e.g., "Daddy's hat".
Copula Forms: e.g., "Annie is happy".
Articles: "the" and "a".
Regular Past –ed: e.g., "She walked".
Third Person Singular Simple Present –s: e.g., "She runs".
Auxiliary be: e.g., "He is coming".
Understanding Language Questions in Children
Children’s question-asking progresses in stages, from simple inquiries to more complex constructions.
Stages of Question Acquisition:
Stage 1: Formulaic phrases with rising intonation.
Stage 2: Declarative word order with intonation.
Stage 3: Fronting constructs without internal order change (e.g., "Is the doggie is hungry?").
Stage 4: Subject-auxiliary inversion for yes/no questions (e.g., "Is he going to eat now?").
Metalinguistic Development
Children’s understanding of language as an object evolves with age.
Early development shows that children under five often cannot distinguish between sounds and their associated meanings.
By learning to read, children begin to treat language more abstractly, indicating growth in metalinguistic awareness.
Child-Directed Speech Characteristics
Also referred to as “motherese,” child-directed speech is characterized by:
Slower speech rate.
Higher pitch.
Varied intonation.
Simpler sentence structures.
Frequent topics related to the child’s understanding and experiences.
Language Development in Preschools
By ages 3 to 5, children gain substantial control of their L1 and broad vocabulary understanding.
Most children move through language development stages without significant difficulty; however, some may face challenges, such as:
Dyslexia. - Articulatory issues. - Hearing disabilities.
Identifying Language Delays and Disorders
Normal Development Range: Children may not speak before age three, producing first words around 12 months.
A child who understands language but does not speak is not necessarily concerning.
Assessment of Language Disorders: Essential for identifying children from minority language backgrounds or those not fluent in the school's language.
Bilingualism in Children
Types of Bilingualism:
Simultaneous Bilingualism: Exposure to multiple languages from birth.
Sequential Bilingualism: Learning a second language after mastering the first.
Perspectives on Language Learning
Behaviorist Perspective: Focused on imitation and feedback in language acquisition.
Reinforcements play a critical role in the learning process.
Innatist Perspective:
Language acquisition involves innate cognitive abilities.
Children possess a language acquisition device (LAD) that aids in learning grammatical structures of language.
Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH):
Asserts that there is a limited time frame where language acquisition is most effective.
Evidence from various studies such as ‘wild child’ case studies highlights the challenges faced by individuals who miss this window.
Interactionist Perspective
Recognizes the intertwining of cognitive development with language acquisition.
Piaget and Vygotsky emphasized that language development emerges from social interactions and cognitive processes.
Language Learning Stages for L2
Discussion on similarities and differences in L2 acquisition compared to L1, considering age and conditions of learning.
Examination of developmental sequences in L2 learners, with examples of grammatical morphemes and their acquisition order.
Language Error Types
Developmental Errors: Emerge from understanding the L2 system (e.g., simplification of verb phrases).
Interlingual Errors: Raised through cross-linguistic influence and reflect L1 grammar application in L2.
Language Learning Implications
Cross-linguistic Influence: Recognizes that L1 and L2 interaction can both aid and hinder language learning processes.
Pragmatics in Learning: Understanding how to use language appropriately in social contexts is essential, indicating that pragmatic skills are also acquired through experience.
Vocabulary Considerations in Language Learning
Vocabulary ceiling in English: Estimated 100,000 to 1 million words available, with effective vocabulary use relying heavily on context and frequency.
Conclusion
This week’s learning focused on foundational concepts of language acquisition, encompassing various developmental stages and factors influencing both L1 and L2 learning processes.