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Ties language training to daily use ByTEItI FIIJIJ of The Examiner Schools teach but when providing language training for children teaching may be the wrong approach Some educators are promoting acceptance of an approach to language development in direct contrast to traditional methods Rather than use lessons designed to promote the use of language prepared and presented by the teacher they are suggesting the child be helped to learn through the creation of classroom atmosphere which forces him to develoolanguage Its only in the past few decades that we have begun to discover how child learns language says Dr John Mclnnes of the Uni tario Institute for Studies in Education We are now studying how he comes to understand language and how he makes decisions con cerning itsiiux Evidence gathertd by linguists concerning the acquisition and development of language shows he says that it is only developed when language training is tied to the childs dayrtor Psycholinguistics is Hy SIllllllIN ltllttlls Of The Euiiiiiner The blood toll is high this year More than 80 bodies have been pulled from mangled steel on area highways since New Years Day City police pryed two more from wrecks on Harrie streets The number of persons injured In traffic accidents in this district now exceeds looo and police expect it to climb much higher before the year ends But the blood spilled on local roads is needless Police say the fault lies with motorists who drive too fast or are just plain careless OPP Sgt Andy Austin says the traffic ac cidents iii Simcoe tount this year are away up Its speed and carelessness to blame most of the time were finding he said Sgt Ken McKenzie Barrie city police blames many accidents on impatient drivers They just get impatient and then they get careless he said In most cases they just are not paying close atgntion to what theyre doing novel educating children it throws out many of the Accident toll rises police blame drivers day experience 1t the lesson has nothing to do with the child it has no meaning for hime and will not attract him OISE colleague Dr Frank Smith says The approach they and others are pro moting is they say philosophy as opposed to being classroom method which is the do main of the teacher The phrase used to describe the philosophy is phycholinguistics simply the study of the relationship between thought and language lts simple equation We need language to exist The acts of thinking and then comr municating those thoughts are linked to the dependency of one on the other and should be linked in school it child is to be evpected to learn language properly Smith Yet he adds our education system is preoccupied with teaching child decoding skills which are used to break approach in 18 PER IIN IlNli The eight tlll detachments in Simcoe County reported total of It 73 traltic ac cidents from January to the end oi tltlolct this year That represents tlt percent in crease over the number ot accidents during the same period in 1970 Accidents increased most in the lltliilt and Midland areas Alliston accidents rose by 41 per cent to tlit collisions Midlaiids rose to on from 480 Iii per cent increase Barrie OPP handled 774 accidents in the 10 month period only eight per cent higher than 197R Barrie city police investigated 1532 at Cidents to Nov 29 Last year they handled 1450 to 1500 said Sgt McKenie Seventeen persons were killed in ac cidents on roads near ltarrie That is double last years figure Barrie ttll injury list lli creased to lltitl from Mil Sgt Austin says speeding is at fault for many ot the fatal and injury accidents If you cut your speed youll cut the number of accidents said Sgt Ausin Carelessness may cause collision traditional methods down language into smaller and smaller pieces such as syllables letters and sounds which are in themselves devoid of meaning The child is then asked Smith says to con struct language using these pieces But we have not recognized the fact he says that child doesnt learn when confronted with language that has no meaning for him While many people are quick to suggest child will learn to read and write in school Smith is prepared to chalk that small success up to happy accident rather than result of Classroom work It is more likely he says the child learns more about language outside the school through normal social intercourse Says Mclnnes Its obvious and basic If child is going to learn new language he must be invole in whatever he lgt doing at the tune Injecting meaning in language training is important because it makes the child think and thought and language go handinhand they say In developing one the individual automatically developes the other If we have not as thev suggest ensured children language Examiner Photo by Peter Robertsl used to teach iliit speed can turn property damage crash into personal injury accident It can also turiian injury accident intoa fatality People just drive too fast to the road and weather conditions says Sgt lclien 7ie Snow catises lot of problems but well also get pile ot accidents in raiiiy weather SIIRICISIIII tity police sec speeders through the city but particular speed strips include Shan ty Bay Road Hayfield Street North Blake Street Little Avenue Sunnidale Hoad Duckworth Street and liakeshore Drive 01 in this district laid 24000 speeding charges by Oct 31 compared to 23000 tor all 1979 The average highway speeding violation is lokin hr said Sgt Austin Local police say they lack the manpower to intensify traffic control programs so drivers must tak it upon themselves to make roadways safer Slower speed and attentive driving will reduce accidents say police The annual highway slaughter rests in the drivers hands language training has meaning for the child or successfully merged language and thought question arises have we prevented children from realizing their full potential goal not easily defined While both Mclnnes and Smith believe the psycholinguistic approach will ensure the child is afforded the opportunity to realize his potential neither is prepared to say the ex isting system has limited childs scope However another prominent of the languagerthought approach to education Frank lcleague of the York Board of Education Ioronto says the system that ex ists adversely tllttr children Its simple llltlllllll Re need language to XtSl And ll we are not as good with language as we could be we are limiting our growth The system he adds tends to turn children away from education and supplant our natural curiosity with apathy The bright kid sometimes senses there is something arbitrary and dishonest here and chooses not to commit himself to the pro cess Mcleague says You cannot condition people to use language Beyond the question of whether the system undermines childs education the three agree that we generally underestimate his ability to lean landing and tail at providing an illllltlllltt conducive to improving that ability livery human feels the need to coin inunicatc and though childs world is coir ltlllfl it is new and till oi little mysteries that the examiner Thursday Dec 1979 an must be worked out He is curious attracted by the unknown and questions result Language aquisition is not far behind Studies show that language use evolves naturally you cannot condition people to use language because it is created through experience McTeague says We should teach kids language by attemp ting to further their understanding When child at age five suddenly shows up at the door of the school he has already had several years of informal but intense language training Kids are more serious in their language than we have given them credit for Itlclnlt nes says Some of them speak better and understand more than adults The three educators also agree that language use is creative It is the art which results from an individuals dealings with society in variety of situations school churches the work place the market place the pub Though you rarely find child in pub the same principle applies The key to helping child develop his ability to use language is by exposing him to new and varied situations they say You only learn language when placed in situation that tests you says Mclnnes Children they argue should be encouraged to interact with each other and the teacher he placed in an environment that stimulates them and be encouraged to try new things The teacher should also Smith says help them team to read in part by using resource material written about children and not just for them Further the child should be made to feel comfortable and not selfconscious over mistakes Learning is process of trial and error and Smith says if the child is taught that making mistake is wrong it could pre vent him from taking chance out of fear Its incredible that we actively teach kids to think of themselves as being poor in language use McTeague says We have to reexamine the whole concept of language training Having examined the system the three men are convinced alterations must be made taking into consideration the relationship bet ween language and thought and the processes employed in the acquisition of language Though some teachers Smith says ap proached language from psycholinguistics pointolvview long before the phrase was coin ed they must be made more aware of language Programs and resource material must also be developed for the school boards which would then be in position to look more closely at the language issue Teachers have never been required to study language before an obvious first step AlcTeague says And no one has ever really taken the time to assess the use of language and devise proper programs for teaching government document entitled language across the curriculum which establishes as policy the view that language training should not be confined to English classes is valid first step toward altering our approach but very small one he says More important says McTeague is the realization that the four facets of language use reading writing listening and speaking should be taught as one package The failure to integrate the four has been the major obstacle standing between the child and language proficiency he says We must recognize the needs of the child and see to them McTeague says Simcoe curriculum head believes in new approach Sometime niir hc lttgllls school the child who came iilled with enthusiasm gets turned oil and its inie says the superintendent of cirriculuni tor lllt countys separate school board that we XilltilHtl this phenomenon The child wants to come to school wants to learn but tiod bless us twlucutorsi we kill the urge says licstarroll As result ot his litliel tarroll is promoting acceptaiici ot philosophy that deals specitically with language training which could make tllllyltlttt throughout the Stlliiill ltll The philosophy priiius from the study of Dtllltllllt£ill which is the relationship between language and thought equal party iters say arrolt iii thiv development of the mind lroponcnts of the lltllttllllflllllt apr proach lwlievc the system employed to teach language must lie ilter wt to ensure language learning has lllttillllltl tor the child and not simply sigiiiitaiicc to those teaching language In the past they say stliisils have leaned too liiuiv ily toward language programs based more in rote nnimagiiiative teaching pracr tices Further they argue we have ignored the childs natural abilin to learn language and llitt tended to assume he is illiterate when he irst ilks through the schools door The child comes to school as fully fledged little individual and we must begin building rpm that point says artoll lltlttill teacher and principal he joined the Simcoe iiiiity lliillttlll tatholic Separate School lZoard administration in 107 High teen of hi 10 years as an eductor have been spent it Simcoe ounty primarily in the llistoii iii tzirroii ltlpl ltttttlllt interested in psycho linguistics wlute lllllllL at the liiitario Iii stitute ot Sillillt lll lilducation iii 107 lllltl lilttgl It KLY was immediately intrigued by the in tei action between language and thinking and how each interacts with the other he says But beyond language training he believes the overall approach places more emphasis on the child and makes him the focal point of the system We should acknowledge what child br ings to school because he is instrumental in Accidents ore woy up in Simcoe County this Des Carroll curriculum superintendent his own development In the past we have not accepted the contribution he can make on his own behalf Carroll says To bring about change however teachers must become involved in the process arroll says Because if teachers will not have anything to do with the new approach it will never find its way into classrooms the educa tioii systems version of the trenches Friday teacherrepresentativcs from each of the boards schools will meet with ar roll who is ready to put the philosophy to work The meeting he hopes will sow the seed Other meetings will likely follow and the teachers who take part will be asked to take back to the respective schools information and resource material provided by Carroll What specific changes the shift in outlook might bring are difficult to predict he says because the methods used by teachers and the material available for classroom work year OPP Sgt Andy Austin says Carelessness is blamed for many Examiner Photo will change little if at all NENIINS ALTEREI The idea Carroll says is to alter the tradi tional view of classroom learning to take into account the natural ability and desire to learn contained in children An environment rich in stimuli will help the child learn we have to introduce noise to the classroom and encourage communica tion silent classroom is one where no learn ing is going on Ill be asking the teachers to look into their own backgrounds and question the ways they were introduced to education he says Carroll also expects parents to be included eventually in the further development of the phisosophy It underpins the whole curriculum not just English or language It represents what learning is all about the growth of the in dividual