Many people may say that children should not be corrected when making mistakes within conversations and their language choice however some language theorists would argue that is the best way for children to learn and progress. Techniques like scaffolding, promoting and interruptions could be effective for children to grasp the corrects forms for speech communication. Theorist Bruner has commented on this idea and said that it does work.
In the transcript George makes a few mistakes whereby his mother then corrected him in the proper format, this is called positive reinforcement so that George can recognise the difference when needed.Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) Theory is relevant in scenarios like this as he states that when children make mistakes they should always be corrected in a process of the most effective way for children to learn language and the correct terms etc. Negative reinforcement is one of the best ways to help children progress, George's mother uses this during the transcript when George confuses never and need and his mother doesn't prompt him with corrections however uses negative reinforcement by just saying 'nooo' which immediately shows that it was an incorrect term. Shortly after his mother uses reinforcement she supports the strategy with some positive reinforcement by saying 'thats it' giving George some praise for getting the correct term.
In another section of the transcript George uses a strategy suggested by his mother, of sounding out the word in bits. He was trying to say sand bags so he then sounded the words of so he could understand it better a very common technique used for children to learn new words. sounding out the phones allowed him to understand the wording. the reason why he was likely to have misstated the word was because of the lettering being 'db' next to each other, confusing children with little understanding of grammar as it consonant cluster. the simplification by omission celision of the 'd' phoneme.
At Georges language development stage is expected for him to make some small miscues when involved a fairly in depth conversation. Further down the transcript almost half way through the transcript when George makes a whole word miscues which followed a slight error just before. He said 'house' rather than the plural term which was needed being 'houses.' Georges mother uses a slight prompt by just saying'(e) (z)' which George clearly doesn't understand as he doesn't find the link and correct himself instead just carries on his speech.
Vygotsky theory is clearly supported by Georges mother as she very often scaffolds Georges language skills to make them correct and slowly learn the proper terms in his speech. However theories show and life situations show that not always is it most effective to always correct children whilst they are speaking as it can lower their confidence to continue speaking and allow the their language to grow through their own mistakes.
In another section of the transcript George uses a strategy suggested by his mother, of sounding out the word in bits. He was trying to say sand bags so he then sounded the words of so he could understand it better a very common technique used for children to learn new words. sounding out the phones allowed him to understand the wording. the reason why he was likely to have misstated the word was because of the lettering being 'db' next to each other, confusing children with little understanding of grammar as it consonant cluster. the simplification by omission celision of the 'd' phoneme.
At Georges language development stage is expected for him to make some small miscues when involved a fairly in depth conversation. Further down the transcript almost half way through the transcript when George makes a whole word miscues which followed a slight error just before. He said 'house' rather than the plural term which was needed being 'houses.' Georges mother uses a slight prompt by just saying'(e) (z)' which George clearly doesn't understand as he doesn't find the link and correct himself instead just carries on his speech.
Vygotsky theory is clearly supported by Georges mother as she very often scaffolds Georges language skills to make them correct and slowly learn the proper terms in his speech. However theories show and life situations show that not always is it most effective to always correct children whilst they are speaking as it can lower their confidence to continue speaking and allow the their language to grow through their own mistakes.
Some good exploration of the pressures on language. Check which ideas go with which theorist as ZPD is about scaffolding not correction and so is Bruner.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't clear - is sounds as if you are saying correction is positive reinforcement: "George makes a few mistakes whereby his mother then corrected him in the proper format, this is called positive reinforcement so that George can recognise the difference when needed".