How do they learn language?
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
@Olasquare literally inspired me to write this post which made me go into research last night and I feel obliged to bring it here so we can also learn if perhaps we would be enlightened more. I really learnt something myself too, and why would I keep such learning to myself alone? Besides, I love studying about little children. I do like children a lot to say.
Last night as I and Ola were chatting which I asked of my beautiful angel. He answered that she is doing fine and blowing English to him. I laughed where I was sitting and I told him to allow her to continue blowing English. It's evidence that she is being taught in school and also learning. After the chat, something suddenly told me to research on how children learn language and understand what they say to them.
There is a little girl in my area here, she is still some months old and not yet clocked a year, and I wonder how she immediately hears her name being called and she would give a smile. I really love her so I would just buy something for her. When you call her name, she would turn around or if she is breastfeeding at that moment, she would stop and turn to see who called her name. Sincerely, I am curious to know the secret behind it which made me go into researching it. So enough of my experience and let's move to the business of the day.
Language development is an amazing process that we learn as we grow up. It amazes me to see how babies learn language and communicate either with sounds to their parents or guardians. Learning a language is indeed a natural thing and children get to understand what to do and how to do it. It is also interesting that children learn any language their parents speak.
There are three language developments which occur in a familiar pattern. So as children begin to learn how to speak, understand and communicate, they usually follow an expected series of milestones which they keep practicing until they learn their native language. So, it is necessary to understand that every child learns a language at their own pace and not be forced to learn it. It is normal as they take time to understand each language and communicate the way they understand it and with time, they can master such language on their own when the time comes.
The first language development is called Learning sounds
At this stage, when a baby is born, he is able to hear and distinguish all sounds in a language. According to research, there are 150 sounds in 6500 languages. So the sounds that a language uses are called Phonemes.
What are phonemes? Phonemes are the smallest unit of speech that differentiate one word from another, and there are 44 phonemes that make up a language. To understand this, an example of phoneme sound is /b/ which makes up a language of /ball/
Children learn language using phonemes, for example, learning to call the word “Mom”.
At this stage, they learn which phonemes belong to a particular language and which do not. This is why babies should be communicated often by their parents.
At birth, they learn how to respond to the rhythm of a language. At 4 month old, they can now distinguish a language sound from noise. For example, they know when you speak to them from a clap. Then at 6 month old, they can now learn how to babble and utter a sound from their mouth beginning with “arr” “wuu” etc. By this time, babies can now learn how to make words and by the time they are a year old, they will drop a sound that isn't part of a language.
The second language development is Learning words
At this stage, children can now learn which sound to use for a particular language to make a meaning. They can now understand that the word m- o- m means a “being” which is their mother feeding them. Then they start learning words and putting them together to form a meaning. This is why parents need to keep reading story books to them before bedtime so they can fully understand the language around them. For you to help them develop in this language, it is advisable to mimic the words they say out of their mouth. For example, when a baby says “mommy”, the adults around them can repeat after them and consistently, they know such language.
The third language development is Learning sentences
By this stage, children have come to learn how to make sentences correctly by saying “I want to eat”, “I want cookies” etc. instead of saying incorrectly like “want I cookies”
To promote language development at this stage, it is important to communicate effectively with children using right sentences and also allowing them to talk while you pay attention and also correcting them where necessary so they can keep building and growing too.
Thanks for reading.
Image credit by Kelly
[March 15, 2022] (No 74 article for the year)
What children always heard, possibly it will inculcate in their minds. If a child always watched tv using foreign language, high tendency they will grow speaking English. Like my eldest son, We were amazed that he talked to us in English but we never taught him like that way. But we replied of course in English. He could hardly understand our native language.