Teaching English to Young Learners

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Teaching English to Young Learners

• How children learn develop
• Week-2

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Outline

• An Overview of Child Development
• Why Studying Development Is Important
• Processes and Periods
• Cognitive Development
• The Brain
• Piagets Theory
• Vygotskys Theory
• Bruner

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Outline, continued

• Language Development
• What Is Language?
• Biological and Environmental Influences
• How Language Develops

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Cognitive and Language Development
An Overview of Child Development
Processes and Periods
Why Studying Development Is Important
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An Overview of Child Development

• Development The pattern of biological,
  cognitive, and socioemotional changes that begins
  at conception and continues through the life span.

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An Overview of Child Development Developmental
Processes

• Biological processes and genetic inheritance
• Development of the brain Gains in height
  and weight Changes in motor skills Pubertys
  hormonal changes
• Cognitive processes Changes in the childs
  thinking Intelligence Language acquisition

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An Overview of Child Development Developmental
Processes

• Socioemotional processes Changes in the
  childs relationship with other people
  Changes in personality

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Cognitive and Language Development
Cognitive Development
Vygotskys Theory
The Brain
Piagets Theory
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Cognitive Development The Brain

• Brain Growth in Childhood
• Myelination The process in which cells in the
  brain and the nervous system are covered with an
  insulating layer of fat cells.
• Synaptic connections The growth and pruning of
  connections between neurons in the visual,
  auditory, and prefrontal cortex is critical to
  the functioning of learning, memory, and
  reasoning.

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Cognitive Development The Brain

• Brain Lateralization is the specialization of
  functions in one hemisphere of the brain or the
  other.

Verbal Processing In most individuals, speech
and grammar are localized in the left
hemisphere.
Nonverbal Processing Spatial
perception, Visual recognition, and emotion are
localized in the right hemisphere.
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Cognitive DevelopmentPiagets Theory

• Piagets Four Stages
• Cognition unfolds in a sequence of four stages.
  
• Each is age-related and distinctive.
• Each stage is discontinuous from and more
  advanced than another.

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Piagets Theory
He was a child prodigy who published his first
article in a refereed journal at the age of 11.
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Piagets Theory

• Piaget identified 4 stages of development as a
  child grows,
• the sensorimotor stage
• the preoperational stage
• the concrete operational stage
• the formal operational stage.

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Piaget's Four Stages of Development
Stage Age Characteristics
Sensorimotor 0-2 years Begins to make use of imitation, memory, and thought. Begins to recognize that objects do not cease to exist when they are hidden. Moves from reflex actions to goal-directed activity
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Piaget's Four Stages of Development
Stage Age Characteristics
Preoperational 2-7 years Gradual language development and ability to think in symbolic form. Able to think operations through logically in one direction. Has difficulty seeing another person's point of view.
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Piaget's Four Stages of Development
Stage Age Characteristics
Concrete Operational 7-11 years Able to solve concrete (hands-on) problems in logical fashion. Understands laws of conservation and is able to classify and seriate. Understands reversibility.
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Piaget's Four Stages of Development
Stage Age Characteristics
Formal Operational 11-15 years Able to solve abstract problems in logical fashion. Thinking becomes more scientific. Develops concerns about social issues, identity.
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The Sensorimotor Stage 0-2 Years

• Between one and four months, the child works on
  primary circular reactions just an action of
  his own which serves as a stimulus to which it
  responds with the same action
• (reflex actions)
  (goal-directed activity)
• For example, the baby may suck her thumb.  That
  feels good, so she sucks some more...   

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The Sensorimotor Stage 0-2 Years

• Between four and 12 months, the infant turns to
  secondary circular reactions which involve an
  act that extends out to the environment 
• For example, She may squeeze a rubber duckie.  It
  goes quack.  Thats great, so do it again, and
  again, and again. 

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The Sensorimotor Stage 0-2 Years

• Between 12 months and 24 months, the child works
  on tertiary circular reactions.  They consist
  of the same making interesting things last
  cycle, except with constant variation.
• For example, I hit the drum with the stick --
  rat-tat-tat-tat.  I hit the table with the stick
  -- clunk-clunk.  I hit daddy with the stick --
  ouch-ouch .
• It is best seen during feeding time, when
  discovering new and interesting ways of throwing
  your spoon, dish, and food.

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Key Piagetian terms

• Assimilation
• Fitting new information into existing schemes.
• For example, an infant knows how to grab his
  favorite rattle and thrust it into his
  mouth. When he comes across some other object --
  say daddys expensive watch he easily learns to
  transfer his grab and thrust schema to the new
  object.  This is what Piaget called assimilation,
  specifically assimilating a new object into an
  old schema.

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Key Piagetian terms

• Accommodation
• Altering existing schemes or creating new ones
  in response to new information.
• For ExampleWhen our infant comes across another
  object again -- say a beach ball -- he will try
  his old schema of grab and thrust. 
• This is called accommodation, specifically
  accomodating an old schema to a new object.

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Key Piagetian terms

• Adaptation
• Adjustment to the environment.
• Assimilation and accommodation are the two sides
  of adaptation, Piagets term for what most of
  us would call learning. 
• He saw it as a fundamentally biological process. 
  

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Key Piagetian terms

• Equilibrium
• Search for mental balance between cognitive
  schemes and information from the environment.
• According to Piaget, they are directed at a
  balance between the structure of the mind and the
  environment just like a pendulum swinging between
  two and he call this balance equilibrium.

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Key Piagetian terms

• Egocentrism
• The assumption that others experience the world
  in the same manner as you do.
• For Example the child is quite egocentric during
  the pre-operational stage (2-7), that is, he sees
  things pretty much from one point of view  his
  own!  She may hold up a picture so only she can
  see it and expect you to see it too.

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Key Piagetian terms

• Decentration
• Focusing on more than one aspect at a time.
• Younger children center on one aspect of any
  problem or communication at a time. 
• For example, Since the milk in the tall skinny
  glass goes up much higher, she is likely to
  assume that there is more milk in that one than
  in the short fat glass, even though there is far
  more in the latter.

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Key Piagetian terms

• Reversibility
• Thinking backward from the end to the beginning.
• For example If I take a ball of clay and roll
  it into a long thin rod, or even split it into
  ten little pieces, the child knows that there is
  still the same amount of clay. 

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Key Piagetian terms

• Conservation
• Conservation refers to the idea that a quantity
  remains the same despite changes in appearance. 
• If you show a child four marbles in a row, then
  spread them out, the preoperational child will
  focus on the spread, and tend to believe that
  there are now more marbles than before.

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Key Piagetian terms

• Classification Seriation
• Classification
• Grouping objects into categories.
• Seriation
• Arranging objects in sequential order according
  to one aspect like size, weight, volume.

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Key Piagetian terms

• Operations
• Actions carried out by thinking them through
  instead of actually performing the actions.
• Piaget uses this term frequently while
  explaining his theories.

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CONCLUSIONThe principle goal of education is
to create men and woman who are capable of doing
new things, not simply repeating what other
generations have done. Jean Piaget
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Applying Piaget's Theory in the Primary Classroom

• Preoperational Stage
• Use concrete props and visual aids whenever
  possible.
• 2. Make instructions relatively short, using
  actions as well as words.

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Applying Piaget's Theory in the Primary Classroom

• 3. Do not expect the students to be consistently
  to see the world from someone else's point of
  view.
• 4. Be sensitive to the possibility that students
  may have different meanings for the same word or
  different words for the same meaning. Students
  may also expect everyone to understand words they
  have invented.

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Applying Piaget's Theory in the Primary Classroom

• 5. Give children a great deal of hands-on
  practice with the skills that serve as building
  blocks for more complex skills like reading
  comprehension.
• 6. Provide a wide range of experiences in order
  to build a foundation for concept learning and
  language.

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Applying Piaget's Theory in the Primary Classroom

• Concrete Operational Stage
• Continue to use concrete props and visual aids,
  especially when dealing with sophisticated
  material.
• 2. Give students the opportunity to manipulate
  and test objects.

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Applying Piaget's Theory in the Primary Classroom

• 3. Make sure presentations and readings are brief
  and are well organized.
• 4. Use familiar examples to explain more complex
  ideas.

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Applying Piaget's Theory in the Primary Classroom

• 5. Give opportunities to classify and group
  objects and ideas on increasingly complex levels.
• 6. Present problems that require logical,
  analytical thinking.

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• Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934)
• Developed sociocultural approach an attempt to
  understand how social and cultural influences
  affect childrens development p. 4
• Troika of Vygotskian school of thought
  Vygotsky, A.R. Luria and A.N. Leontev
• Influenced by Marxist ideals created Marxist
  theory of psych. and child development

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Vygotskys Basic Concepts

• Learning is the internalization of tools and
• occurs most naturally and efficiently when we
  participate in authentic, social activities.
• Main difference the importance he gives to
  language other people in the childs world.
• Though his central focus is on the society, he
  did not neglect the individual individual
  cognitive development

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Vygotskys Basic Concepts

• Cultures create mental tools which transform our
  mental work just like physical tools transform
  our physical work.
• As we internalize these tools we become smarter
  (i.e., we develop higher psychological
  processes).
• Language is the mother of all mental tools.

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The Importance of Language

• All higher mental functions--those that are
  unique to human beings--are initially created
  through collaborative activity only later do
  they become internal mental processes.
• Mediation through Signs
• Vygotskys views Signs are critical link between
  social and psychological planes of functioning.
• Signs are socially generated, not biologically
  given or individually constructed.
• Internalization
• A.k.a. appropriation (Rogoff) children choose
  from cultural tools encountered during social
  collaboration to fit goals.

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Mediated Activity
Signs
Tools
(Help us do mental work--So I call them mental
tools)
(Help us do physical work)
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More Basic Concepts (Internalization)

• These tools help us stay in the Zone of Proximal
  Development (ZPD).
• The ZPD
• The distance between the actual developmental
  level as determined by independent problem
  solving and the level of potential development as
  determined through problem solving under adult
  guidance or in collaboration with more capable
  peers. p.26
• The child is an active learner in a world full of
  other people
• Adults mediate the world for children to make
  it accessible
• Examples?

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Tasks I cannot do even with help
ZPD
Tasks I can do only with help
Tasks I can do all by myself
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• Learning to do things learning to think are
  both helped by interacting with an adult.
• child does things in social context then
  gradually shifts away from reliance on others to
  independent action thinking
• This shift from thinking aloud to thinking inside
  is called internalisation

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Vygotsky in a Nutshell

• The mental tools of our culture are what make us
  smart. We acquire these mental tools best
  through meaningful participation in authentic,
  social activities. The ZPD describes how we
  learn from others as we participate in social
  activity.
• Overall, learning is a process of enculturation.
• Human learning presupposes a specific social
  nature and a process by which children grow into
  the intellectual life of those around them
  (Vygotsky, Mind in Society, p. 88)

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Implications

• ?????

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Jerom Bruner

• Discovery learning

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What is learning?

• an active, social process in which students
  construct new ideas or concepts based on their
  current knowledge.
• children learn by discovery he/she is a problem
  solver who interacts with the environment testing
  hypotheses and developing generalizations.
• learning is a continual process.

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Stages of learning

• Learning occurs in three stages
• Enactive- in which children need to experience
  the concrete (manipulating objects in their
  hands, touching a real dog) in order to
  understand.
• Iconic- students are able to represent materials
  graphically or mentally (they can do basic
  addition problems in their heads)
• Symbolic- students are able to use logic, higher
  order thinking skills and symbol systems
  (formulas, such as f--ma and understand
  statements like "too many cooks spoil the broth")

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How are skills and knowledge acquired?

• Not acquired gradually but in a staircase pattern
  which consists of spurts and rests.
• Spurts are caused by certain concepts "clicking",
  being understood.
• These "clicks" have to be mastered before others
  are acquired, before there is movement to the
  next step.
• These steps are not linked to age but more toward
  environment.
• Environments can slow down the sequence or speed
  it up

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Scaffolding routines

• Language is the most important tool for cognitive
  growth
• He investigated how adults use language to
  mediate the world for children help them solve
  the problems

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Parents scaffold the task to

• make the child interested in,
• simplify the task,
• keep the child on track towards completing the
  task,
• show other ways of doing,
• control childs frustration,
• demonstrate an idealised version

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Good Scaffolding

• tuned to the needs of thew child,
• adjusted as the child become more competent

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The process of education Four key themes

1. Curiosity and Uncertainty
2. Structure of Knowledge
3. Sequencing
4. Motivation

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IMPLICATIONS

• ?