Building Blocks of Language III

Language Acquisition and Development

Generations of studies have shown that learning language is a social process and that students use language to increase their knowledge of the world around them. Students exposed to language-rich environments during their formative years develop confidence and fluency in acquiring new vocabulary, learning grammatical structures, and usage.

You should be aware of some key terms associated with the study of language and how usage develops over time. Phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics are the basic components of all languages.

Effective Instruction

Effective language instruction is critical to a student’s academic success. It’s that simple. Providing students access to available language tools coupled with ongoing instruction across the content areas will not only develop a student’s working vocabulary but also develop his or her ability to decipher unknown words in context and to use resources to extend learning.

• Inclusive instruction. Language instruction should be an integral component of every lesson plan. Repeated exposure to meaningful experiences across a wide variety of contexts will reinforce and enhance learning. Daily instruction also gives you more opportunity to vary your teaching methods and extend learning through the use of oral, visual, writing, and reading exercises.
• Repeated exposure. Students should be given multiple exposures to a wide variety of material and be encouraged to respond to texts through discussion and shared language experiences. Repeating words, syntactic structures, and complex sentences will enable students to connect words and ideas across a wide variety of contexts.
• Encourage deep processing. Students need to connect new words and concepts into their working vocabularies. Develop daily speaking and writing exercises that encourage students to respond to texts using new vocabulary, practicing full sentences, and constructing complete sentences.
• Give it context. Make sure students can identify and use context clues across a wide variety of texts. Encourage them to use sentence structure and word syntax to decipher the meaning of unknown words.
• Instructional language. Students should also gain confidence in understanding and using instructional language to help them meet their academic goals. Explicitly teaching instructional language tools such as and/or, from/to, left/right, true/false, before/after, first/last, then/now, if/then, here/there, near/far, inside/outside, top/bottom, above/below, front/back, over/under, in front of/behind, next to/away from, in/on, and up/down will develop students’ fundamental vocabulary and language acquisition skills.

Perhaps the most important aspect of language instruction is your ability to accurately assess comprehension. You’ll want to plan lessons that incorporate oral as well as written instruction to assess diction and understanding.

Most importantly, language instruction is, after all, about expanding confidence and fluency with the words we all use to communicate. Keep students talking and engaged. Ask questions constantly, and encourage them to do the same.

Review

• Learning language is a social process.
• Students use language to increase their knowledge of the world around them.
• Effective instruction in early language development can lead to accelerated lifelong learning.
• Phonology is the study of speech sounds.
• Morphology is the study of word structure, particularly of the relationships between words.
• Syntax refers to word order in the English language; we create some questions out of sentences by changing the syntax.
• Semantics is the study of meaning in language.
• Daily language instruction gives students repeated exposure to words across a wide variety of contexts and reinforces and enhances learning.
• Students need to integrate new words and concepts into their working vocabularies.
• Students should be given multiple exposures to a wide variety of material and be encouraged to respond to texts through discussion and shared language experiences.