Language: an essential for inclusion
Can you imagine living in a world without language? Language really does make the world go around! Almost everything we do depends on language. Just imagine not being able to explain what you want or understand what you are told. Without language life would be very difficult and very dull.
It follows that the more easily pupils can handle both spoken language and internal āthinkingā language, the more effectively they will be able to function in all facets of their lives. In the classroom good language skills help to maximise learning, promote good social development and increase self-confidence and personal satisfaction.
Language difficulties
Without fluent language a child is disadvantaged socially, emotionally, intellectually and educationally. Classrooms are very language-rich environments and language pervades all areas of learning and socialisation. Teachers talk, explain, question, describe and guide using language. Peers exchange ideas, have fun, learn from each other, cooperate and develop friendships through the medium of language.
Pupils who have difficulties with language may find themselves falling behind their peers with learning, because they do not understand all that the teacher says or because they cannot express themselves adequately. Reading comprehension and written expression will be seriously compromised by poor reading skills. Pupils may also be socially marginalised and disadvantaged by poor communication. They may easily develop behavioural problems because of difficulties in understanding and/or being understood.
Your inclusive classroom
Your inclusive classroom will offer an inclusive programme that takes into consideration the needs of pupils with language difficulties, whether these difficulties are due to cultural, developmental, social or other causes. If language difficulties can be addressed, then many related problems, such as loss of confidence, poor learning outcomes and social difficulties, may be avoided.
Language is a complex skill and it follows that many pupils in your classroom will need a high level of effective, inclusive teaching, over an extended period of time, in order to be able to reach a reasonable level of competence.
What is language?
The extraordinary ability to use spoken and written language for communication is unique to the human race. The use of a system of spoken language clearly separates the human species from the rest of the animal kingdom.
Human language is a highly complex communication system, relying on relatively few ābuilding blocksā of sound to create an infinite number of meanings.
Language is more than just learning the meanings of words. It is fascinating to listen to young children beginning to use language. From their mistakes we can hear how much they have intuitively picked up about formal grammar from the language they have heard around them.
Three-year-old Madison says āI goed to the parkā, demonstrating that she has already worked out that in English we generally use the word ending ed to indicate the past tense.
Madison has overgeneralised this rule to apply to the irregular verbs:
I played, I cooked, I jumped, I goed, I runned
Madison may also have worked out that the s indicates a plural. Once again she may overgeneralise this rule at first:
my dogs, my cats, my sheeps
two hands, two arms, two feets
The acquisition of language skills is one of the major developmental tasks of childhood. The childās social, intellectual and academic development is closely related to the emergence of language skills.
All language is learnt in a social setting. While informal, incidental learning forms the ābackboneā of most childrenās language development, explicit, guided language experiences are also important to enable many pupils to maximise their language skills. This book provides a range of activities designed to stimulate appropriate language experiences for all your pupils, so that you can help them to develop their ability to use language in a variety of situations.
There are critical periods in childrenās development when they are at their most receptive to input. We know that children are at their peak of receptiveness for language input during the first eight or so years of life. Providing appropriate input or stimulation at this stage of development therefore takes advantage of this period of heightened sensitivity. However, language development does, of course, continue to progress throughout childhood and into adulthood and even old age.
There are three main types of language, all interrelated:
- Receptive language refers to the pupilās ability to take in or receive language. This involves not only understanding words, but also understanding the rules of language.
- Expressive language refers to the pupilās ability to use language effectively in speaking and writing. Once again this is not simply related to word knowledge, but also includes an ability to work within the rules of language.
- Internal language refers to the pupilās ability to use internal or mental language to think, plan and organise. Internal language not only serves as a representation of the real world, but allows the pupil to think in the abstract.
What about speech?
We need to remember that speech and language are different aspects of the same system. Speech is the ability to produce the sounds that are the building blocks of meaningful language. For a pupil to put their ideas into words a complex chain of events has to occur between the brain and the mouth. This has to occur at speed and in precisely the right sequence for clear speech to be produced.
A child with a speech difficulty might have a problem in saying some sounds, or might have trouble with the fluency of language (for instance a stutter). Speech problems can also include difficulties with production, such as being too slow or too fast and cluttered, being too loud or too quiet, or being too flat and expressionless (poor prosody).
Although this book does not specifically address problems in speech production, there are many activities throughout that provide pupils with opportunities to develop clear and fluent speech.
Let us look at how this book, Spotlight on Language, connects with the basic building blocks of language and enables you, the teacher, to provide effective, inclusive teaching for all your pupils.
