Rhonda Eley

LAPU

English 420 Principles of Language

Professor: L. Gonzalez

11/16/2020

Language Acquisition Autobiography

Thinking back on my earliest moments of spoken and written language it's somewhat of a blur. I

remember my mother and father telling me that they used to talk to me while I was inside the

womb and my mom would put headphones on her tummy and have me listen to her oldies but

goodies music and I would move around a lot as if I were dancing. As far as being spoken to in

my earliest years I just remember my parents smiling in my face a lot and moving their mouth

but didn't know the words coming out of their mouths at all. Me speaking had to do with

repetitiveness because that is how you learn and how to talk as well. By the time I was 2 years

old my words were coming together because my parents constantly talked to me along with my

other family members. I know I was around my aunt a lot as well and she took me to different

places and I learned different words with her as well. Between my parents and my aunt my

vocabulary was being built and added to all at the same time. The earliest memories are the

more fragile ones because it is harder to remember when spoken language really started that I

can remember on my own. My parents are constantly talking to myself and my siblings all the

time. Language never went unspoken in my household. My dad worked a lot so my mom was

the one who read to me and my siblings, worked on writing, and just did more of the social

interaction with us. During family dinner is when my dad would talk with us and interact so we

constantly had language flowing around us. Our spoken language is English but I also learned

sign language when I got older and also to speak some Spanish from having friends who are

Hispanic and also some family members who also are Spanish speaking. My mom is a

bookworm so she read to me constantly. As I grew older I became a bookworm also. I love to

read especially when the book or an article peaks my interest. I grew up with and around

literature most of my life and now I still have literature as a part of my learning. English is my

first language so this is what was taught to me on a daily basis. My mother is the person who

made sure language was a part of my everyday learning. Without language what would I have

really learned and been able to produce on my own.

Memories are just what they are, memories! We as humans don't remember everything from

our childhood, especially literature. But the one thing I can say about my literacy moments is my

mother always having me and my siblings reading books to expand our vocabulary. As I got

older my feelings toward literacy changed because I love to read and learn new words. When I

was able to be in school of course, the teacher taught me vocabulary in which I had the

opportunity to learn new words to add on to what I already knew from reading and listening.

Language is the message of education. I say this because it allows the process of teaching and

learning to take place. How my memories connect to my current experiences now is, how

language acquisition and its use has had a profound effect on my development of thinking.

Being inside of a classroom also generated my use of language because as children we

socialize with our peers as well as the teacher and this is how we learn on top of what is taught

at home. According to the literacy bug "Emphasis is placed on a developmental approach

because we are sensitive to the language journey of acquiring the rich skills that will prepare

learners to enter adulthood with the skills they need to participate fully in a democratic society"

(the literacy bug. com). Reading and writing is all a part of language acquisition because without

this we wouldn't have memories of it whatsoever. My career path has led me to try many things.

But my ultimate path that I have chosen is to become a special education teacher. I'm already in

this field and I love it, so this is what I would have chosen as my career. Just by going through

my own experiences of how I learned language made me actually want to teach others and help

them develop proper language also. Learning how to talk in phrases makes you develop full

sentences in the whole learning process. "A quite different view of the beginnings of language is

based upon the concept of natural sounds. The human auditory system is already functioning

before birth" (the study of language page 3). So with learning all of these different techniques

and styles, my career choice I think, is by far the best decision yet. Also, my experience with

language and learning added a little bit more, or a new word to my vocabulary. My

developmental learning from my parents and teachers being on a physical level with me got me
to be more engaged and have encouraging conversations to improve the language and

vocabulary that I have today.

Personality affects the way a person speaks. This influences learning through attitudes and

motivation which creates different ways of learning. You see, human language allows speakers

to express thoughts in sentences compromising subjects as well as verbs and objects. Our

perceptual experiences of the world outside us seem to justify our beliefs about how the world

outside us is. Let's really define what extrapolate means. "It is kind of like an educated guess or

hypothesis"( vocabulary. com). So based on my own hypothesis or the educated guess of

others, everyone learns differently and has a unique way of retaining information. For example,

we as human beings, teachers ,parents or students gather or receive information to process. It's

part of organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information that represents and

understands the presented information or environment. Our brain processes a lot of information

that is given to us whether it's through pictures or language. Our perception of language to me

shapes learning, memorization, expectations, and attention. This is what expands our word

banks and we become more fluent with language acquisition. Language develops through

children's interactions and other people around them in which literacy is based off of reading

and writing because this develops through interactions of children's experience with others. This

is what affects people later on in life. Language as well as literacy just has different effects on

people and we don't really know the outcome until later on down-the-line when we are older.

Some people like it and some do not want to be bothered with it because it can be complicated.

Language is not easy to understand and it takes a lot of practice to get it right. According to

simply psychology.org they have Skinner's theories about language. It says "Skinner argued

that children learn language based on behaviorist reinforcement principles by associating words

with meanings" (simply psychology.org). What connects these theories together are behavior,

semantics - cognitive, and social - pragmatics for development and acquisition. These theories

help me understand my own experiences and the experience of others because social -
cognitive skills involve the ability to think about the mental states of my own and others also.

This helps me by understanding other people's thoughts and how their beliefs and thoughts may

be different from mine which are theories of the mind. According to the language experience

approach "Children's language is extended through interactions with an expert other, that is the

teacher" (education. vic.gov.au). To me this means that your parents are teachers as well as a

school educator being your teacher too. Both are teaching you different aspects of learning

language. My experiences with understanding language once again justifies how I was taught.

My parents were my first set of teachers and then came school age teaching which broadened

my vocabulary even more. So learning more language on top of what was already taught to me

helped me better understand others and how we all learn the same thing but just taught to

differently.
 References

Skinner, B.F. (1957). ​Verbal behavior​. Acton, MA: Copley Publishing Group.

https://www.simplypsychology.org/language.html​ n.d. Retrieved November 13,2020.

Christie, F. (2013). ​Writing development as a necessary dimension of language and literacy

education​.

https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/discipline/english/literacy/r

eadingviewing/Pages/teachingpraclangexp.aspx​ n.d. Retrieved November 13,2020.

Snow, C. (2004). What counts as literacy in early childhood? In K. McCartney & D. Phillips (Eds.), Handbook
of early child development. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers.

https://www.theliteracybug.com/stages-of-literacy​ n.d. Retrieved November 13,2020.

Yule,G.(2017).The Study of Language Sixth Edition.Cambridge University Press,UK.

www.cambridge.org​. n.d. Retrieved November 13, 2020.

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/extrapolate​ n.d. Retrieved November 13, 2020.