[General] How does a mother teach her baby to say a word for the very first time?

[atabitaraf]

Hello dear teachers,

One of my dear friends, who is a teacher and a publisher, asked me if English-speaker mothers tell their babies 'book' or 'a book' for the very first time they want to teach them the meaning of 'books.'

Thank you,

 

[Barb_D]

I'd say we talk to them in sentences, with a lot of repetition.

Pick a book for Mommy to read to you. Should Mommy read to you from this book? Is this the book you want? Okay, let's read this book.

Are you looking at this book? Look, this book has a picture of a bunny. Oh look. There's a picture of a kitty cat, too. Let's see what the bunny and kitty are doing.

Do you want Mommy to read the book about the bunny and the kitty? Or should we look at this book instead? This book has a pig and a cow on the cover. This book looks funny. Let's read this book.

We don't have vocabulary lessons with our babies.

 

[atabitaraf]

Not necessarily talking about the word, 'book,' it could be any other word, you say 'door,' 'sofa,' etc.

Here my friend, he is a teacher and a publisher, wants to make a system in which teachers do not start teaching every word in a sentence like the usual English books.

He believes that we need to start asking them to repeat 'book' 'book' 'book'
Teacher: 'What's this?'
Students: 'book'

But there are some teachers who believe we should necessarily say, 'a book'. So they'll chant:

Teacher: 'What's this?'
Students: 'a book'

And there is another point of view which says: they should chant:

Teacher: 'What's this?'
Students: 'This is a book.'

My question is that if we make a system in the first manner is it wrong?

Personally I believe the first way is likely to learn much easier, and hence more interesting for all the kids, with different IQs. You know the first and the most important factor of a system is to be interesting to kids. If it makes the kids interested, they'll continue themselves (internally).



Thank you again,

 

[Barb_D]

I can't imagine how chanting a word over and over would be even slightly interesting to kids.

However, since many languages do not have articles and articles are important in English, I'd definitely include the article. It sound very unnatural to omit it.

 

[Skrej]

I think you're mixing up a few things.

Teaching students a second language is a very different process from how children learn their native language. Very young children aren't normally formally taught their first language - they acquire in mostly by mimicking and repetition. They learn the grammar through trial and error, and adult correction, but not formal instruction. This is true for any language, not just English.

Later on, as they reach schooling age (around 5 years, although that of course varies widely by country and family), they may then start to get some formalized education in the nuances of their native language, but basic vocabulary is picked up far earlier, normally around 9-18 months.

You can find a plethora of information by looking on the internet for "first language acquisition", but here are a couple of basic links to get you started.

Child language acquisition.
First language acquisition

It seems like your friend is talking about 2nd language instruction for children, which has again a whole lot of different methodologies and pedagogies. Your friend's approach sounds similar to various chanting approaches, as well as the age old process of repetition.

I recently attended a brief workshop on vocabulary instruction, based on the methodologies of Jim MaDiarmond, and his Development Language Process, which focus on installing language into long-term memory.

I highly recommend checking out the his site and purchasing his book called Replacing Thingamajig. It has many elements of another approach referred to as "total physical response", which utilizes physical movement as part of the memory process.

Here are a few videos to give you an idea.
Video #1
Video #2
video #3


Here's another video, which starts with the basic vocabulary, and works up to the entire sentence. If you look carefully, you'll see the flash cards actually include the article, but when articulating, she doesn't include the article, but introduces it later. She's also using elements of physicality in her instruction.

Video one- vocab intro
Video two - the sentence - You'll note she introduces the articles here.
Video three - the question form

 

[Raymott]

If you're just teaching vocabulary, in English the article isn't necessary, because it's always the same - as opposed to many languages which have gendered nouns. However, an exception to this is words starting with a vowel, and that might be justification enough to teach with the indefinite article: An antelope, a bee, a cow, a duck, an elephant....

 

[emsr2d2]

I would say that the frequency with which (British) toddlers can be heard saying, for example, "Look mummy - a elephant!" demonstrates that they pick up the noun first, later learning (through experience rather than formal teaching), that it's "an elephant".

 

[monaliza23]

Not a teacher

you can repeat the word over and over and you can sing it , i did it to my kid and worked

 

[emsr2d2]

Not a teacher

You can repeat the word over and over and you can sing it. I did it to my kid and it worked.

Monaliza, please note my corrections to your capitalisation, punctuation and spacing. Also note that I have added "Not a teacher" to the top of your post. You are welcome to try to help other learners but you need to state that you are not a teacher when you do so.