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Language learning specially for children

While our language learning process was created specifically for small children in mind, it works for all ages. What makes it unique for kids is that it’s picture based, not text-based. Therefore, it is not a prerequisite for your child to know how to read and write in English before they can learn the language of your/their choice.

In addition, some language programs focus on confirming pronunciation by speaking into a tool. Children’s verbal skills are still developing and their pronunciation may not be accurately picked up on those programs. Instead, we focus on learning how to enunciate through different people saying the phrase and at different speeds. I found that different accents would make it difficult to understand how to say it, so I often seeing how to write it in order to properly say it. With small children, this concept doesn’t work. So instead, I’ve created a way to have the word respoken by different people with different tones and a different speed of the word so that you can truly understand how to say it phonetically as well as how to say it naturally. Take English for example, if we want to say, “I’m gonna have lunch at noon”, the proper way would be “I’m going to lunch at 12pm”, but we more often hear it said “I’m gonna have lunch at noon”. It’s challenging to teach this, but it’s also challenging to hear it said this way and fully understand that “gonna” is a more casual way of saying “going to”. We do our best to take these nuances into consideration since they are the natural way of speaking a casual language and it will be easier to understand native speakers and how to speak more natively.

How to encourage language learning for kids

It can be difficult to hold a child’s attention. Memorizing vocabulary can easily get boring and when kids lose interest, they often don’t learn well. We’ve created a system that builds on what you learn so that it encourages children to want to get to the next step. When they’ve learned a new “theme” around kitchen for example, they will be rewarded with a video on what they’ve learned, with the reward being knowing what is being said. The accomplishment is the reward. As we further along their rewards, they will begin to learn new songs with their vocabulary, and they will graduate to more complex videos and songs.

What is the picture theory of language?

The picture theory of language, coined by Ludwig Wittgenstein, referred to the representational theory of languages in a non-verbal form. Spoken languages are not able to fully express the full meaning the way that a picture can. The picture theory of meaning states that statements are most meaningful when they can be defined through a visual representation.

Who is Ludwig Wittgenstein?

Ludwig Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who didn’t really enjoy philosophy. He spent much of his life trying to shut it down. Wittgenstein shared his ideas about language, logic, metaphysics, ethics, and how we should generally live in the world. His most notable books include the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus (1921) and the Philosophical Investigations (1953). Wittgenstein is most famous for his ideas on the picture theory of language, which basically contradicts the entire idea of philosophy itself. He was influenced by Boltzmann Hertz Schopenhauer, Frege, Russell, Kraus, Loos Weininger Spengler, and Sraffa.

How does the picture theory apply to language learning?

The picture theory refers to language getting in the way of fully describing what we see and how we understand. Though learning a new language, translations would also be a barrier to fully understanding the meaning of the first language. Therefore, ideas get lost in translation. In addition, there are literal translations and there are more meaningful, natural language ways of saying something.

Take Google Translate for example. If we use this to translate one language to the next, you’ll see the mechanics of the language doesn’t always translate to the full meaning.

In addition, there are certain words in languages where there simply are no equivalent word in a different language for translation. Take the word “love” in Vietnamese. Yêu usually refers to passionate love, the term typically used between partners or spouses. Thương refers to an innocent, familial love, typically used between a parent and child. In Greek, there are 8 words that refer to love: Mania: obsessive love, Storge: familial love, Philautia: love of self, Pragma: long-standing love, Agape: love for everyone, Ludus: playful love, Philia: deep friendship, and Eros: Sexual passion.

To overcome the obstacle of “translations” being inaccurate, using pictures allows us to better describe our intent. Examples of language learning software that bases its teaching style on this is Rosetta Stone.

What are some of Wittgenstein’s famous quotes?

‘If people never did anything stupid, nothing intelligent would ever get done’.

‘I don’t know why we are here, but I’m pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves’.

A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably

‘If a lion could talk, we should not be able to understand him’,

Wittgenstein argued, because the language games of lions are too different from our own to permit understanding. It is worth noting, as an aside, that Wittgenstein’s theory does allow that lions have a language, based in the social dynamics of their hunting and mating activities. The roaring of two adult male lions, challenging each other for leadership of the pride, is arguably as much of a language gaming activity as the banter of two human rivals, each attempting to outdo the other through a play of words. We are a long way from the formalistic view of language described in the Tractatus. We have left the Platonic realm of pure logic and rediscovered the world. 

To summarize, although all of his ideas up for interpretation, I believe Wittgenstein devalued language and felt it got in the way. In quora, one answer really resonated with me. It shared insight into misunderstanding when arguing over issues that likely did not have a resolution and that Wittgenstein might deduce to ‘Are we even talking about the same thing?’

If you struggle to overcome the urge to define things too carefully, or find yourself becoming obsessed about the meaning of words and their ‘true’ definition, or if you are convinced, like many philosophers, that the existence of a word logically implies some metaphysical essence, or Platonic form, that corresponds to this word, remember that what gives a word meaning is the conventional social discourse within which it is employed. By attending to the ordinary language contexts that give words their meaning, we can avoid misusing them and trying to make them mean things that they aren’t made to mean. The more that we return words to their home, seeing them in terms of the ordinary language contexts that they work within, the easier it becomes to untie the knots in language and understand what is really being said. 

Source: https://philosophyforchange.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/meaning-is-use-wittgenstein-on-the-limits-of-language/

https://www.quora.com/What-did-Wittgenstein-mean-by-A-picture-held-us-captive-And-we-could-not-get-outside-it-for-it-lay-in-our-language-and-language-seemed-to-repeat-it-to-us-inexorably%E2%80%9D

https://www.quora.com/What-was-Wittgensteins-picture-theory-of-language

https://www.quora.com/unanswered/What-is-Wittgensteins-picture-theory-of-meaning

To speak a language, you have to know the words.

The long held assumption about learning a second language is that grammar is more important than vocabulary. Second language instruction has traditionally focused on teaching adult language learners grammatical knowledge: sentence construction, verb conjugations, singular and plural forms, noun-adjective agreements, verb tenses, etc. Linguistic research, however, has demonstrated that vocabulary is more fundamental than grammar (Lewis, 2002; Nation, 2001; Barcroft, 2004; Wilkins, 1972). Meaning is primarily conveyed through vocabulary. British linguist David Wilkins (1972) puts it this way: “While without grammar little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed” (p. 111).

It starts with learning your first word

Sometimes, just knowing a single word in a language can make all the difference. In his book Vocabulary Myths, Keith Folse (2004) tells a story about not knowing the right word. Having just moved to a rural town in Japan to teach English, Folse wanted to buy some flour. He’d learned the Japanese sentence pattern “Sumimasen, ____ -wa doko desu ka?” or “Excuse me, where is the ____?” and confidently set out on his mission to the local supermarket. Yet, even with this basic grammar, he was lacking the necessary knowledge: he did not know the word for flour.

After wandering the store unable to locate any identifiable bags of flour, he spied one of his students outside. He ran outside and called out, “How do you say flour in Japanese?” Unfortunately his student replied “Hana” – the word for flower, instead of komugi-the word for flour. After being presented with chrysanthemums in the produce section, Folse left the store without purchasing flour.

He reflects: “What I needed in that situation was one word: komugi. In this experience, I learned that vocabulary is actually more important than grammar” (pp. 19-22).

Declarative and Procedural Learning

Neuroscientists have found that the human brain has two memory systems: declarative and procedural. These two systems reside in different parts of the brain.

The declarative memory system for language learning

The declarative system learns facts: words, phrases, history dates, capital cities, telephone numbers, etc. The procedural system learns skills (Ullman, 2005; 2006). The classic example of a procedurally learned skill is riding a bicycle. Acquiring declarative knowledge generally requires conscious effort and repeated exposure. Procedural skills, on the other hand, tend to be learned through doing or practicing.

For language learning, the brain relies on both memory systems. Vocabulary – in the form of individual words, longer phrases, and even short sentences – is learned and stored in the brain through the declarative memory system. Grammar rules can also be learned as facts.

The procedural memory system for language learning

The procedural memory system, on the other hand, internalizes the skills of applying grammar rules without thinking about them (Ullman, 2005; 2006). We can think of language as consisting of declarative knowledge and procedural skills.

The larger your declarative reservoir, the better.

Sufficient, repeated, and meaningful exposure to a language creates a “declarative reservoir”. Words, phrases, short sentences, and other small chunks of language are “declarative items” stored in our declarative memory. Declarative items are short enough to hold in your memory. The sum of all the declarative items you know in a language is your declarative reservoir.

A large declarative reservoir is an advantage when you are trying to communicate. Just like purchasing flour in Japan, if you don’t know a certain word in a language, you will be unable to produce it when needed or understand it when you hear it. The more declarative items you have at your ready disposal, the more easily you will learn new items and function in that language.

Beyond knowing the right words, a large declarative reservoir also enables fluency. Research has found that language consists of frequently re-occurring “chunks” – stock phrases, idioms, and common expressions – and that, in addition to individual words, we all store a large number of these chunks in our declarative memory (Lee, 2004; Nation, 2001; Sinclair, 1991). These chunks are the building blocks of language, allowing us to reduce the processing time needed to produce fluent speech or writing.

Rather than constantly referring to grammatical rules to express every idea anew, people tend to draw on pre-constructed chunks, stringing them together into longer sequences according to what chunks tend to go with what chunks (McCarthy, 1998; Nation, 2001; Pawley & Syder, 1983; Sinclair, 2004).

The nuances of translating a different language

The tendency to rely on chunks explains the puzzle of why only a small portion of grammatically correct expressions sound “native-like” (Pawley & Syder, 1983; Nation, 2001). Both “Please pass the salt” and “I request that you hand me the salt shaker” are grammatically correct, but only the first expression sounds native-like because “please pass the __” is a high-frequency chunk.

One study of adult second language learners, before and after language immersion, found that memorization of these longer, frequently occurring sequences of words explained their increased fluency (Towell et al, 1996).

Less obviously, but just as important, for adult second language learners, research shows that initially acquiring a declarative reservoir complements and facilitates grammar instruction, saving time and effort (Nation, 2004, p. 336). The saving of time and effort occurs because the larger our declarative reservoir, the more grammatical patterns and exceptions to grammatical patterns we can readily recall.

In other words, a large declarative reservoir is absolutely crucial for effective language learning and fluent communication.

Why memorizing a large set of words works

Based on all this research, the best starting strategy for any language learner would be to quickly memorize a large number of frequently-used words, stock phrases, and common expressions. That’s exactly what flashcards enable you to do. Flashcards are designed to help you quickly build a declarative reservoir in the language you are learning – with perfect recall.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barcroft, Joe. (2004). Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition: A Lexical Input Processing Approach, Foreign Language Annals, 37 (2), 200-208.

Folse, Keith S. (2004). Vocabulary Myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

Lee, Namhee. (2004). The Neurology of Procedural Memory. In John H. Schumann, Sheila E. Crowell, Nancy E. Jones, and Namhee Lee (Eds.), Neurology of Learning: Perspectives from Second Language Acquisition (pp. 43-74). Lawrence Erlbaum.

Lewis, Michael. (2002). The Lexical Approach: The State of ELT and a Way Forward. Boston: Heinle.

McCarthy, Michael. (1998). Spoken Language and Applied Linguistics. Cambridge University Press.

Nation, I. S. P. (2001). Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Pawley, A. & Syder, F. (1983). Two Puzzles for linguistic theory: nativelike selection and nativelike fluency. In J. Richards and R. Schmidt (Eds.), Language and Communication. Longman.

Sinclair, John. (2004). Trust the Text: Language, corpus and discourse. Routledge.

Towell, R., Hawkins, R., and Bazergui, N. (1996). The development of fluency in advanced learners of French, Applied Linguistics, 17, 210-233.

Ullman, Michael T. (2005). A Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective on Second Language Acquisition: The Declarative/Procedural Model. In C. Sanz (Ed.), Mind and Context in Adult Second Language Acquisition: Methods, Theory, and Practice (pp. 141-178). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

Ullman, Michael T. (2006). Language and the brain. In J. Connor-Linton and R. W. Fasold (Eds.), An Introduction to Language and Linguistics (pp. 235-274). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Wilkins, David A. (1972). Linguistics in Language Teaching. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

The Spaced Repetition System (SRS) is a learning technique that is used to help remember information for long-term retention. It works by spacing out the intervals between review sessions gradually increasing the time between each review. This allows the learner to gradually commit the information to their long-term memory. SRS has been shown to be an effective way to improve memory and recall. It has also been used in a variety of settings including education business and medicine.

Leitner system for language learning

The Leitner system is a learning style often performed by using flashcards. Newer harder flashcards are displayed more frequently while older and less difficult flashcards are displayed less often. This takes advantage of the mental spacing effect. Use of spaced repetition is proven to increase the learning rate.

The Leitner system is a widely used method of effectively using flashcards developed by German science journalist Sebastian Leitner in the 1970s. This is a simple implementation of the spaced repetition principle where cards are reviewed at increasing intervals.

In this method flashcards are grouped according to how well the learner knows about each card in the Leitner study box. Learners try to recall solutions written on flashcards. If they are successful they will send the card to the next group. If they fail they send it back to the first group. Each subsequent group was given a longer period of time before asking learners to revisit the cards.

In the original method published by Leitner in his book So lernt man Lernen (How to learn to learn) the repeated schedule is determined by the size of the partitions in the learning box. These 1 2 5 8 and 14 cm respectively. Only when the partition is full can the learner review some of the cards it contains. The learner can then move them forward or backward depending on whether they remember them.

Why the Leitner System Works Well for Language Learning

The Leitner system provides brain stimulation that cannot be achieved simply by passively reading new or complex information. By actively answering questions and recalling information we have researched the Lightner system helps us access information stored deep in our memory over a longer period of time.

When our brains take in a lot of information at the same time the speed at which we forget information varies with each concept. Often our brains cannot process all the information at once which makes us more likely to forget most concepts. The focus of the Leitner system Spaced repetition and active recall of information allow our brains to absorb information and process it more efficiently.

For some, changing a familiar approach to learning may seem like a daunting task. But the Leitner system retains the familiar core principles of learning flashcards while incorporating new elements that increase efficiency. Whether you are learning a new language for fluency or as a hobby, the Leitner system can help you achieve your language learning goals.

Language development is an important part of your child’s growth. It helps them to communicate their needs understand the world around them and express their thoughts and feelings. There are many ways you can support your child’s language development. For example, you can read together, sing songs or just talk about everyday experiences. You can also encourage your child to use gestures and body language to communicate. Creating a language-rich environment at home will help your child to develop strong language skills.

What is language immersion

Language immersion is a technique used to teach a second language in which the learner is exposed to the target language for a significant amount of time. One way this can be done is through total immersion in an environment. This is where only the target language is spoken or by using instructional materials that are entirely in the target language. The goal of language immersion is to allow the learner to become proficient in the target language by using it in a natural way, as opposed to learning it through translation or rote memorization.

How does dual language immersion work

In language immersion students learn a second language by being taught academic content through the medium of that second language. Language immersion is different from traditional foreign language instruction in which the second language is taught as a subject itself. In an immersion program, students typically spend half of their day learning in the target language and the other half of the day learning in their native language. Over time as students become more proficient in the target language the amount of time spent learning in that language can increase.

Why consider language immersion for my child

There are many reasons to consider language immersion for your child. The obvious reason is that It can help them to become more proficient in another language. In addition, studies have shown that it can also have a positive effect on their development in other areas such as mathematics and music. Additionally, it can give them a competitive edge when they enter the workforce. Language learning can also be a fun and enriching experience for the whole family.

Do language immersion programs work

Language immersion programs are designed to help participants learn a foreign language by immersing them in an environment where that language is spoken. The idea is that by being surrounded by the language participants will have more opportunities to hear and practice it. Thus, they learn it more quickly and effectively. While there is no definitive answer as to whether or not these programs are effective. Many experts believe that they can be helpful in promoting language learning.

What age to start language immersion

There is no definitive answer as each child is different and will progress at their own pace. However most experts agree that earlier is better as young children are more receptive to new languages. If you’re considering immersion for your child, the best thing to do is talk to their teachers and see what they think. Many schools offer immersion programs, and the teachers will have a good sense of whether your child is ready.