I found an article from www.scholastic.com that discusses the importance of early childhood educators to language acquisition in children. I found this article really interesting for myself because I am majoring in elementary education. The article basically gives teachers advise on how to help children learn a language and speak it well. One of the pieces of advise tells teachers to encourage parents to read with their children. Children need to hear words and sentences. This can be done by actively reading, talking, and singing with a child. If a child hears few words, if a child is rarely read to, sung to, or talked with, they will not have normal language development. The article also instructs teachers to encourage their students to talk with other students. Assign the students conversation buddies and everyday ask to students to talk with their conversation buddies about various topics. I feel as a future educator it is my responsibility to help students in every way I can. Language acquisition may be thought of as a parents job, but its a teachers responsibility to make sure a child is on the right path.
This is really interesting! I am also an elementary education major and I work with young kids now, so this is really helpful. I had never thought about it before but this article definitely puts things in perspective about teachers can help children learn language just as much as parents.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of Conversation buddies discussing certain topics. That's really interesting, and would probably work and help promote language alongside reading and normal talking of course.
ReplyDeleteYes, what a cool thing to read! I love the Conversation buddies! I think I did that in my own 5th grade class, and it was very fun and helpful. :)
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