LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE

 LANGUAGE ACQUISITION DEVICE

       A human being is biologically equipped with an organ in his brain whose function to acquire language. Mc. Neil and Chomsky described it as the language acquisition device ( LAD ). A new born has not talked yet. He cries to communicate. He has not understood any verbal languages yet. He learns language from his mother, father or caregivers.

       How does a baby learn a language? Do you think he learns a language by studying grammar or vocabulary? That LAD works is to acquire verbal massage sent by others. LAD receives stimulation from people who talk to a baby. It analyzes, keeps, transfers and stores the information. The supporting organs which work for LAD are eyes and ears. They are visual and listening organs.

       To listen means to receive verbal stimulation. When a mother or a caregiver talks to a baby, a baby will listen and record all the words and patterns. Firstly, the brain will distinguish between verbal sound and noisy sound. Next, it analyzes the meaning and grammar of the language then it will store all the information received.

       Visual perception plays very important roles in the language development on children. Beginning from 0-3 months old, children try to follow objects by their eyes. 3- 6 months old, they extend their sight. 6-9 months old, they recognize their family member’s face. At this stage their vision has worked perfectly. 6 months old -5 years old, they recognize names of objects. Visual and verbal stimulations work well at this stage.

       How to teach our kids to be good communicators? That’s the problem we sometime do not realize. Children copy what they see and listen. We have to act and speak right in front of them in case they will learn from others who are not appropriate for their age. We should keep them away from violence and pornography which come from our TV and electronic gadgets. We have to speak in a good grammar because a good grammar will help our kids analyze the pattern of sentence. I do not mean to teach our kids grammar but say to them in full sentences. A child will say “banana” when you often talk to him “ it’s a banana” . He acquires a format sentence you say to him but he can not use the format in a full sentence. Using full sentences will help him to study language better in school. Well, let’s try to our kids to speak in full sentence and in correct pronunciation.