FACTORS AFFECTING LANGUAGE LEARNING / ACQUISITION : ENVIRONMENT

Environment
The

surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates. The setting or conditions in which a particular activity is carried on.

Introduction

Healthy language development is the natural result of a healthy lifestyle. Children who are exposed to diverse activities, repetitive exposures to stories and language use, and who have various relationships with several trusted others do best. Language development is an immersion learning experience. Like with all learning, calm, loving tones and safe stimulating sounds soothe young children into enjoying the processes involved in learning to talk. All of these factors make up a child's learning environment.

Home Setting
ENVIRONMENT FACTORS AFFECTING LANGUAGE LEARNING / ACQUISITION

School Setting

Home Setting

The home is the first and most significant setting for children, and parents are childrens first and most enduring teachers.

The home provides an ideal setting for

childrens language learning and development because home provides children with people, places, actions and objects to which they can harness their natural desire to explore and learn.

Parents Role
Provide Comfort Envinronment
The safe and comfortable environment is crucial to a child's healthy language development. Stress retards language use, and non-responsive or overly reactive parents cause children to stop making learning attempts. Body comfort is another important factor. If a child is too cold, too hot, or doesn't feel safe, again the focus for this child is not on learning. The child's focus becomes how to get comfortable or how to feel safe. More often than not, a pre-verbal child chooses crying to do this.

Listen To They Child

Opportunities for parents to help develop language skills begins when parents bond with their newborn and respond to the babys communication of needs and feelings. This nurturing response, which includes talking, singing and giving cuddles and smiles, helps the baby feel secure. Secure babies soon start to respond back, first with coos and smiles, then chuckles and sounds, (e.g. bababa), and eventually first words. With the support of their parents, babies begin to learn the art of conversation." Parents "converse" with the baby, meaning the baby responds back, and speech as a communication process is established.

Communicate Regularly With Their Child

Parents who communicate regularly with their babies, through play and everyday activities, help them understand the meanings of words and phrases long before they utter their first word. According to Shelley Gray, of the Department of Speech and Hearing Science, Arizona University, children rapidly acquire new vocabulary during their early years at the rate of about 10-20 words per day. A parent's role in supporting language development is to patiently encourage these efforts.

Read With Their Children

Children who speak clearly and listen attentively are well-prepared for learning in all areas of the school curriculum. Parents who read with their children also aid in the development of language and pre-reading skills.

Children not only learn new vocabulary, but also the awareness that print carries meaning. As well as sharing books, there are also many everyday opportunities for parents to support their children's language development when they are out and about together, such as pointing out and reading signs in the street, or labels in shops and supermarkets.

School Setting

School is an institution where instruction is given, especially to person under college age. School is an institution for instruction in a particular skill or field.