Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Reflection #2

The behavioral, nativist, and functional approaches offer insight as to how a being acquires language. All three of these approaches have a valid stance on how language is obtained. Their perspectives have been proven when looking into different cases. When looking into the behavioral approach, I can see how learning takes place because children do respond when they are reinforced. In the classroom, if students blurt out "Ms." I ignore that behavior but if calls Ms.Palomino, I respond by saying thank you for getting attention the correct way, and students do respond to this action. Thier behavior is controlled by the consequences. The nativist approach also is proven in all children because children are born with a genetic capacity to learn. I think that the environment in which the child grows in develops and shapes the language system of a child.The role of culture in any language acquistion does have effects because children do develop patterns according to how they are interacted with. I do believe there is a difference in the child-parent interaction in the United States than in other cultures. In Mexican culture children have a spoken language similar to that of an adult. Topics of conversation are more advanced than here in the United States. The enviornment in which they are surrounded in is very aware of culture and world issues and are brought around children and children are invited into these topics. Adults do engage in adult like conversations with children which seem to be very different in the United States culture.

3 comments:

Learning languages 4 life said...

Janette, you brought up a very good point when you said "In Mexican culture children have a spoken language similar to that of an adult. Topics of conversation are more advanced than here in the United States. The enviornment in which they are surrounded in is very aware of culture and world issues and are brought around children and children are invited into these topics. Adults do engage in adult like conversations with children which seem to be very different in the United States culture".

I had forgotten about his! You are very right. I find that also in Italian culture, serious, "adult" subjects are brought up in front of kids and they grow up with a certain "social conscience" because of this. Thanks for bringing this up!

Ana A

Learning languages 4 life said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Learning languages 4 life said...

I'm trying to send my reply again because it's not showing yet:

Janette, you brought up a very good point when you said "In Mexican culture children have a spoken language similar to that of an adult. Topics of conversation are more advanced than here in the United States. The environment in which they are surrounded in is very aware of culture and world issues and are brought around children and children are invited into these topics. Adults do engage in adult like conversations with children which seem to be very different in the United States culture".

I had forgotten about his! You are very right. I find that also in Italian culture, serious, "adult" subjects are brought up in front of kids and they grow up with a certain "social conscience" because of this. Thanks for bringing this up!

Ana A
June 6, 2007 4:01 PM