The Language Gap Essay - 1509 Words

Mastering language is an important milestone in human development. When language is developed, the world opens up and a person is able to communicate their needs and interact in a meaningful way. Psychologist Lev Vygotsky even believes language is the most important tool we have in learning. Our basic learning skills are taught to us through an informal education system consisting of parents, other grown-ups, peers and even the media (Sigelman, C. Rider, E., 2009, pg. 277). Formal education then takes over, teaching the language skills necessary to read, write and problem solve. Both formal and informal education play a large part in development and when one of these is compromised language development can suffer. Infancy and†¦show more content†¦When parents respond to these pre-lingual sounds as if they were real words it relates positively to cognitive development of the infant by drawing him/her into a dialogue. An infant’s first meaningful word is typica lly spoken around 12 months of age. Scientists refer to these first words as holophrases because a single word often conveys an entire sentences worth of meaning (Sigelman, C. Rider, E., 2009, pg. 279). In the beginning, language acquisition is a slower process, and words are gained one at a time. It may take 3 or 4 months before a child has a vocabulary of 10 or so words. However, this soon speeds up after about 18 months old and the rate of word learning doubles so that at 20 months they are producing an average of 150 words (Sigelman, C. Rider, E., 2009). At age 2 until about age 5 children learn to speak sentences that are more complex by then end of the preschool period, childrens sentences are much like those of adults even though they have never had a formal lesson in grammar (Sigelman, C. Rider, E., 2009, p. 281). Once children enter school their language acquisition and language skills greatly improve. Research has shown that the average first-grader starts schoo l with a vocabulary of 100,000 words and adds somewhere between 5 and 13 new words a day throughout the elementary school years (Sigelman, C. Rider, E., 2009, p. 281). If a child has any deficiencies in their vocabularyShow MoreRelatedThe Language Gap Between First And Second Generation Immigrants1589 Words   |  7 Pagesacquire the language spoken in the receiving country (their second language, the L2) when old enough to leave the household for schooling, while their parents—first generation immigrants—retain their native language (the L1). While childhood arrivals â€Å"effortlessly acquire† the L2, â€Å"higher wage returns and better job opportunities† are typically prerequisite incentives for older immigrants to invest in learning the L2 (Isphording). 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