Primary English Teaching

An Introduction to Language, Literacy and Learning

Robyn Cox

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781446244425
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Lehrmethoden für Lesekompetenz

This comprehensive introduction to language, literacy and learning in the primary school explores the theoretical issues that underpin pedagogical practice in the primary English language classroom in a straightforward manner, enabling readers to understand the resulting practice and curriculum offerings in English primary schools today.

The contributors explore new initiatives in primary language teaching, putting these into their theoretical context, and offer practical ideas, helping students to make the bridge from studying to be a teacher, through to the beginnings of their teaching career. Diversity and aspects of special educational needs are also considered in each section of the book.

This book will be essential reading both for undergraduate students of education, as well as for PGCE students.

CHAPTER 1

EXPLORING LANGUAGE AND LEARNING

ROBYN COX

---

How do we learn language? Is it the same as how we learn to walk or how we learn to do mathematics? These are the questions that characterize the long theoretical journey by researchers and thinkers which produced the theories of language acquisition which underlie much of the pedagogy of the primary English literacy classroom today. The first section of this chapter outlines the three main language acquisition theories that emerged early in the twentieth century: the behaviourist theory of language acquisition; the cognitivist theory of language acquisition; and the sociocultural theory of language acquisition.

Behaviourist theory of language acquisition

Early work by B.F. Skinner identified that all learning is a result of stimulus response and that people will learn when they are rewarded for their efforts. This grew out of experiments with animals and a growing knowledge of physiology and neural work, and proved to be an adequate explanation for language acquisition and language learning. During this period a number of questions were raised about this view of language learning. Those questions focused on the particularity of humans to learn language so efficiently and if it was as simple as stimulus–response then why could not animals learn to talk. So began a series of experiments across the world to try to teach those animals with physiology similar to that of humans, such as the ape family, and, most famously, chimpanzees, to speak.

Many famous experiments were conducted into primate language research, in particular with chimpanzees, gorillas and orang-utans. However, because non-human primates lack vocal cords and other human speech organs, the experiments often utilized primates’ manual dexterity and had them operate keyboards.

It is now generally accepted that apes can learn to sign and are able to communicate with humans. However, it is disputed as to whether they can form syntax to manipulate such signs. The idea that chimps could use the language of symbols but were unable to generate syntax or grammar was what convinced researchers that language is unique to the human species.

Cognitivist theory of language acquisition

During this time another researcher emerged – who felt strongly that it was not as simple as the picture painted by the behaviourists and that there was something very unique about language acquisition. His theory was supported in part by the outcome from the previous animal studies that chimpanzees could not produce ‘novel sentences’ – or those sentences they had not heard before – which is something that babies can readily accomplish.

Chomsky (1959) thus established that the human species had something which animals did not have which is a language acquisition device (LAD). The argument emerged that language acquisition is specialized learning which is peculiar to humans. Chomsky’s theory about language acquisition was based on his idea of the ‘novel sentence’. He stated that a young language learner had the ability to create a ‘novel sentence’, that is, a sentence that they have composed without ever hearing it spoken before. If young language learners only ever repeated what they heard then the swiftness of language acquisition for interaction in toddlers and pre-schoolers would not be possible.

Task box

Spend some time talking with a young child, thinking very carefully about Chomsky’s ideas of novel sentences.

Talk to children about something they are doing and ask them a question such as ‘Tell me about your game’. I am certain that they will give you the information in bursts of language, words which are linked together but may not be particularly grammatically perfect. The language will be rich with meaning and probably have groups of words put together that this language learner has never put together before.

If you do not think that this will happen, make some notes of the groups of words that they use and then ask the parents, teachers or carers if they have heard the children use this language before.

Make a note of how many words the child uses together. Are there one-word utterances; two-word utterances (what is the function of each of these words – descriptor + name, and so on)?

Sociocultural theory of language acquisition

Chomsky’s (1957) work is known as seminal because it changed the way we think about language acquisition and, as a result, language teaching and learning. It began to engage educators in thinking about what might be the best way to provide contexts for babies and children to acquire language. It was not long before this thinking moved into more formal educational contexts and, even, what it might mean for the learning of literacy (the comprehending and composing of written language).

Research into language learning at this time took on a new perspective – the importance of other adults in relation to the child learner took on a rising profile and began the movement of researchers looking at child–adult interaction as the central basis for language acquisition.

The earliest of these child interaction studies resulted in an array of findings – often referred to as child studies – where individual children’s learning patterns were extrapolated to the wider population. Following from these strong research beginnings many more practical pedagogical implications emerged and important secondary results came from these studies – most noticeably the child observation instruments which form the basis for many of the currently used National Curriculum levelling moderation processes. Some examples are the ELL project (Pascal and Bertram, 1997), Biks and Gutches (Clay, 1990b) and First Steps (DEWA, 1999). The identification of the specific language addressed to infants and young children by caregivers become important and a new term was conceived: ‘motherese’. Once this was identified, focus moved to making sure that those whose professional duty was working with young children had knowledge of the importance of language play, games and imaginative play.

Michael Halliday’s (1975) Learning How to Mean presented the rich data and analysis of his own son’s first 20 months of language learning. Halliday began what turned out to be his distinguished contribution to the field of linguistics when he noted that language acquisition is indeed a series of choices that the learner makes while learning to interact. He accepted the importance of the LAD, but more importantly he underscored the importance of the role of the interlocutor with the child learner. The identification that the language choices learners made were a result of the functional purpose of the language led him to develop a series of language functions.

One of the results from Halliday’s (1975) work was the recognition that children are motivated to acquire language because it serves certain purposes or functions for them. He went so far as to identify these functions, and it is always useful for students seeking to work with young children who are acquiring language to be familiar with these.

The first four functions help the child to satisfy physical, emotional and social needs:

• Instrumental. This is when the child uses language to express their needs (for example, ‘Want juice’).
• Regulatory. This is where language is used to tell others what to do (for example, ‘Go away’).
• Interactional. Here language is used to make contact with others and form relationships (for example, ‘Love you, mummy’).
• Personal. This is the use of language to express feelings, opinions and individual identity (for example, ‘Me good girl’).

The next three functions help the child to come to terms with his or her environment:

• Heuristic. This is when language is used to gain knowledge about the environment (for example, ‘What is the dog doing?’).
• Imaginative. Here language is used to tell stories and jokes, and to create an imaginary environment.
• Representational. The use of language to convey facts and information.

At the same time an increased focus on children learning two languages either at the same time (simultaneously) or one after the other (consecutively) became apparent and a body of literature emerged which presented case studies of bilingualism in children. This growing area of research became known as studies in bilingualism and generated a range of theories and pedagogical practices. It was the recognition of the rich linguistic background of some children entering school that led to, what this writer believes to be, the most famous 10 words ever written about language and education. These words were conceived by the team who produced the Bullock Report – the first enquiry into the teaching of English conducted internationally and commissioned by the then Department of Education in the UK. These words were: ‘No child should leave their language at the classroom door’ (DES, 1975: 45).

These famous words were to make an impact on the teaching of English in primary classrooms across the world, but unfortunately in the UK in the early 2000s it may be thought that these words have been forgotten. The work of early childhood researchers and theorists has ensured that these words have been enshrined in the Foundation Stage Curriculum materials but in Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 what has happened? We leave this discussion to later chapters.

Language learning as a social constructive process

Emerging from the work of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) was the link between language learning and cognitive development which provided clear directions to educators that learners are assisted by the scaffolding provided by more expert users. Thinking about this a little more enables us to clearly see how a pedagogical model can emerge from Vygotsky’s thinking – the idea that a task which is too difficult for a child to master alone can be learned with guidance from someone who can already do this task suggests a potent model for classroom learning. Vygotsky labelled this as the zone of proximal development (sometimes known simply as ZPD) – a novice learner begins the task and may become puzzled or confused, then the more expert other can assist by demonstrating the next level of the task. Often it is essential that the novice and the expert mediate this interaction with dialogue or talking. This idea further ascribed importance to the language learner’s interlocutor who needed to recognize that the language addressed to young children needed to be focused, and delivered into the zone of proximal development.

Primary language education across the world has become aware of Vygotsky’s influential ideas, and practice associated with scaffolding, more expert others and a clear focus on the language addressed to young children by teachers is apparent in the Primary National Strategy in England.

Emerging areas of language acquisition research

Currently there is again a focus on studies into language acquisition – both first language and additional language acquisition. The current research activity centres on the ability of researchers as never before to see inside the brain; using large man–machine interface (MMI) machines researchers can look at brain functioning while language learners are learning and using language. The studies started originally looking at medical patients who had lost the ability to use language and this then moved to looking at language learning. Researchers, teachers and curriculum designers need to follow these studies closely over the next few years and monitor the pedagogical implications, especially in relation to those children learning English as an additional language (EAL) in schools and those children whose language acquisition and use may not conform to expected progression rates.

English language as system

Every language has a system or a way that it functions – the identification and outlining of this system occurs sometimes after the language system is in everyday use. There are many languages used by humans, and some researchers even suggest that there are languages used by other species. The most famous of these, often described, is the way that bees communicate with each other through a series of dances which signal to the others where the best sources of honey are. This language is characterized by a system just as human languages have an elaborately documented system.

It is difficult to give an exact figure of the number of languages that exist in the world, because it is not always easy to define what a language is. It is usually estimated that the number of languages in the world varies between 3,000 and 8,000. The top five languages are Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, English and Arabic, although this is often disputed. Millions of speakers grow up and, without close tuition or instruction, manage to speak their mother tongue by the time that they are 5 years old. Languages are dynamic and can change and adapt to circumstances – already in learning to be a teacher you will have begun to add some new words or vocabulary to your language and within a few years your language will have adapted and changed to help you become a teacher.

Each of these 3,000 to 8,000 language systems is complex and has taken scholars many years to describe. The ways to describe languages are sometimes called a grammar.

As soon as we talk about grammar some of you might think ‘Oh no! This is a topic that I know nothing about’. David Crystal (2006) gives us a reason why the word ‘grammar’ might make you nervous. He talks about the history of teaching grammar in Britain in a way that helps us think about grammar in schools and gives us an overview of how the teaching of grammar took place in schools over the past 50 years. Before the 1960s traditional grammar was taught in primary schools and this involved a close focus on correct usage and the analysis of sentences; some of this pedagogy was derived directly from the study of Latin grammar.

After the 1960s and before the 1990s, and connected with what is sometimes known as progressive pedagogy, grammar was not taught as a discrete subject but treated more as an investigation into language use, with minimal use of grammatical terms, such as nouns and verbs. From the mid-1990s, when the National Literacy Strategy become more central to the teaching of English literacy in schools, a renewed interest in teaching about language emerged often with a focus on the difference between written and spoken English.

Traditional grammar

This grammar taught people to analyse a sentence by making sense of the word classes and divisions within the sentence; sometimes sentences were divided into subject and predicate – with the predicate being divided into verb and object. This continued until all the features of the sentence had been identified. Sometimes this analysis or parsing is consider...