Research

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Children are constantly learning language, learning through language, learning about language.
— M.A.K. Halliday, 1978

It is through oral language that we directly interact with each other.  It is the way we try out new ideas, communicate our feelings, share information, make suggestions, and ask questions. Beverly Derewianka (1990) explains how the use of oral language is critical to the development of the understanding of ideas.

Talking enables us to pursue and explore our purposes with a speed and ease that we can never achieve with written language.  Because we use oral language to come to grips with new ideas, our talk will usually be “first draft” – lots of hesitations, unfinished sentences, tentative queries, vague expressions, and random offerings.  This ‘give-and-take’ language is particularly to be valued as it allows us to formulate new understandings” (Derewianka, 1990, pp. 25).

The benefits of rich oral language opportunities occur early in the life of a child. Children learn to create meaning and comprehend events from their social interactions with others.  Rich and varied language experiences provide a child with models for language learning and opportunities for practice in interpreting and understanding language.  There is a link between early language experience and the development of speech processing efficiency and vocabulary knowledge (Fernald and Weisleder, 2011). Additional information on this topic can be found under Making Messages.

A wide and extensive vocabulary that is used with ease and flexibility is an outward sign of successful oral language development.  Children grow in their cognitive understanding of the world at large when vocabulary learning is connected to their experiences.  Teaching vocabulary in integrated and meaningful contexts enriches and deepens children’s background knowledge and, hence, their mental lexicons (Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, Berk, & Singer, 2009). Children more readily remember and use the new words they encounter when meaningfully connected to concepts and ideas.  Vocabulary learning is not about learning words in isolation but about acquiring the concepts for which the words stand (Harris, Golinkoff, Hirsh-Pasek, 2011).  Likewise, children benefit from opportunities to use new vocabulary and “test out” their perceptions.  Shared dialogic reading is especially beneficial to the expressive language of young preschoolers (Blachowicz & Fisher, 2008).  Exposure to language in provocative and emotionally engaging text will help to create interest and desire to learn words.  Reading aloud in both the home and school setting supports student vocabulary learning (Neuman & Dickinson, 2001).

Another essential component of effective oral language development is an understanding of grammar.  Oral language, measured as both vocabulary and grammar, is crucial for early literacy.  Students increase vocabulary knowledge by hearing words in sentences, by the way they are used or the function they serve, and in natural, playful contexts, thus making vocabulary learning and grammar learning reciprocal processes.  Research shows that exposure to complex language throughout the school year can improve the syntactic comprehension of preschoolers (Harris, Golinkoff, Hirsh-Pasek, 2011).

Because language is dynamic and changing, a functional approach to language, particularly, to grammar, allows the learner to concentrate on how language enables one to do things.  Rather than focusing on a traditional set of rules about usage or a system of predetermined categories, a functional grammar approach puts emphasis on meaning. 

This emphasis is evident in the following chart that was a part of Derewianka’s presentation at the IRA World Reading Congress.

Language becomes a resource of choices for meaning making.  Grammar is functional when it helps fulfill that purpose effectively (Derewianka, 2010).
 

References 

Blachowicz, C. & Fisher, P. (2008).   Attentional vocabulary instruction: Read-alouds, word play, and other motivating strategies for fostering informal word learning. In A. E. Farstrup & S.J. Samuels (Eds.) What Research Has to Say About Vocabulary Instruction, (pp. 32-55). Delaware: International Reading Association.

Derewianka, B. (1990). Exploring how texts work. Australia: Primary English Teaching Association.

Derewianka, B. (2010, July).  Forcing grammar out of the closet [Power-Point Slides]. Keynote Presentation at the World Reading Congress, Auckland, NZ.

Fernald, A. & Weisleder, A. (2011). Early language experience is vital to developing fluency in understanding. In S. B. Neumann and D. K. Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook of early literacy research (pp. 3-19). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as social semiotic. London: Edward Arnold.

Harris, J., Golinkoff, R., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2011). Lessons from the crib for the classroom: How children really learn vocabulary.  In S. B. Neuman and D. K. Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook of early literacy research (pp. 49-65). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R. M., Berk, I. E., & Singer, D. G. (2009).  A mandate for playful learning in preschool: Presenting the evidence. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Neuman, S.  B., & Dickinson, D. K. (2011). Handbook of early literacy research. New York. NY: Guilford Press.