Language Development Chart Research Paper

English Language Learning (Native Speakers)

Stage/Age

Language Overall

Phonology

Morphology

Syntax

Semantics

Implications on reading and writing

Practical Approaches

Birth -3 mo.

Cries, responds to tone, attentive to special sounds, and begins to vocalize.

Reflexive and diverse cries, coos and gurgles.

Verbal play, some consonants, laughing.

No understanding

Sounds or intensity as opposed to meaning.

Music and talk to child

Double syllables, MAMA, tunefully vocalize

Vocalizes pleasure and pain; initiates speech, reproduces babbles.

Increased sounds and imitation

Very little understanding

Truck red; hungry eat, etc.

Use of words and instructi8ons, jargon and jabber before frequent

Imitates some words, asks questions using intonation, vast improvement in tone and sound.

Stage I morphemes; nomination,

Most language is noun based, finger pointing, usually sentences are 2 words.

Action + Agent, Agent + Object, etc. (Daddy is laughing, I push the truck)

Very imitative stage

Show pictures of nouns and ask questions

2-4 years

Talks to self, asks questions, begins using sentences, large amount of vocabulary acquisition

May omit some phrases or parts of phrases, uses final consonants most of the time fewer omissions and learns to blend.

Present, progressive, location, learning some articles

Learning word order, 1/3 of all spoken words are nouns, utterances have few grammatical markers (no an, the, that); grows to 2-4-word phrases

I am here; Cat on box

Beginning to look at symbols

Help child "trace" letters with hands, show how to hold pencil or chalk, encourage mimicry

5 years

Fluent speech, recognizes past, present and future

Masters most consonants and improves intonation.

Mastering articles; past tense, third person

5-6-word phrases, uses contractions, possessive, past tense, progressive verbs (jumping, running).

An apple, a book, my dog, she went away, he brought the puppy

Move now from symbols (letters) to words and word combinations.Spend time with pronunciation; cat -- c -- ah -- t, expand to write cat using pictographs

6 years

Has learned to pronounce and sound out, more fluent and confident in speaking.

Voiceless (th, sh, ch) are mastered; v, s, and zh mastered

3rd person, complex tense, prediction

4-8-word sentences, infinitive (I want him to go) gerunds (we are swimming), passive tense

I want to go next month; he brought a red dog home. Is dinner ready?

Increase to sentences and read, then repeat, then write

Flash cards, vocabulary and spelling drills. Conversations leaving out significant portions for child to address

Table 2 - ELL, ESL Stages of Second Language Acquisition

Stage/Age

Language Overall

Phonology

Morphology

Syntax

Semantics

Implications on reading and writing

Practical Approaches

Pre-Production.

Silent Stage. Listen attentively, parroting

Learning English sounds

No action

May hear some similarities to native language

Sounds or intensity as opposed to meaning.

Learner benefits from reading and simple conversation

Use flash cards to connect objects to sounds

Early Production

May last up to 6 months while learning a receptive vocabulary of 1000 words

Two word responses

Imitation and can look at pictures to make sounds

Learning common words,

Simple and predictive

Predictive text, familiar phrases

Drill with vocabulary cards and illustrative stories; begin to show mimicry in writing.

Speech Emergence

3,000 words is goal

Short phonetics

Placing phonemes into words

Understands two-step directions

Improved vocabulary now from nouns into verbs

Build vocabulary through multiple types of texts

Write daily, even if short sentences; pose questions, write answers; pose answers, write questions

Intermediate fluency

6,000….....