Assessment 1 : Podcast - Oral Language

The podcast discusses the importance of oral language acquisition in early childhood. The speaker reflects on their own experiences as a bilingual child and adult, emphasizing the role of parents in language development. Singing, storytelling, and frequent interactions help children develop their oral language skills. Being bilingual has been a positive experience, broadening vocabulary and narrative skills. Cultural influence also plays a significant role in language acquisition. The brain is naturally wired for language learning, guided by environment, social interaction, and culture. Welcome to the Wanda in Learning podcast, a podcast designed to discuss our wanderings in early childhood. A podcast to help us critically discuss and reflect upon how we can embed best practice each day. Today we'll be exploring the world of language and literacy, but more precisely, my own oral language acquisition as a bilingual child and adult. So where did it all start? Have you ever heard a song or read a story, and it brought you back to your earliest memories? Those that make you stop and often make you want to go back in time when life was simpler when we were little. Well this happened to me a few weeks ago when my sister started singing one of the French Mauritian nursery rhymes called Au Coeur de la Lune to her little boy and it brought me back to my fondest memories. Here is how it goes. Au Coeur de la Lune, mon ami Pierrot, prête-moi ta plume pour écrire un mot, ma chandelle est morte, je n'ai plus de feu, ouvre-moi ta porte pour l'amour de Dieu. This made me ponder and pose this question. What is oral language and how was my oral language first acquired? Oral language enables us to both comprehend and use language to understand our world. It all starts at home. Young children develop their vocabulary, sentence length, speech patterns, and even duration of their conversation based on what they've heard from their parents. We need to acknowledge Victor Wooten in his TED Talk who mentions how language isn't taught, it is naturally acquired. This comment confirmed my belief that home is the most significant setting for children to learn language by their first and most important educators, their parents. Having a one-on-one spontaneous and frequently initiated interaction between child and adult will provide more opportunities for children to be exposed to oral language. Why did this song trigger my memories so much? Well, having not heard this song in years reminded me how much French nursery rhymes form my identity and gave me a sense of belonging. Growing up in a bilingual home where both English and French were spoken, read and sang, I was exposed to two different languages often used at the same time. Since French and Mauritian songs are a big part of our culture, different generations of singing together at gatherings aren't uncommon. The REGRA approach reminds us that learning is a collaborative approach. This can all be seen at home and in the family environment where oral language is developed through different languages and mediums while sharing, collaborating and interacting with others. So how does talking, singing and listening to stories in two different languages contributed to my oral language as a child? Well, oral language is about expressive and receptive language. This has enabled me as a child to use language to understand the world around me. Language is made up of five components, so let's break it down. Within the five components is the morphological skill, which is the understanding of the smallest parts and their meaning, followed by semantics, which is the understanding of the meaning of the words, phonological awareness is the understanding and becoming aware of sounds such as rhymes, syntax is the understanding of word order and grammar and finally pragmatic is the understanding of the meaning of the words and phrases. Singing, storytelling and frequent interactions may often provide repetition, which helps further develop children's oral language as it has been proven that for a child to be able to remember a word, it has to be said 500 times before they can memorise it. Isn't that fascinating? So let's dwell into those pre-literacy skills. According to Van Der Noomp, fostering bilingualism has shown to have beneficial effects not only in children's oral language but also in other domains such as attention span, working memory and their overall executive functioning. This is generally referred to as a bilingual advantage. Growing up in a bilingual home has been nothing but positive. I've always been able to switch from one language to another and think in one language and speak and understand another. What I find mind-blowing is that when I am in Mauritius, I always think in French and when I'm back in Australia, I always start thinking in English. Being bilingual has been an absolute superpower. It has allowed me to meet people who spoke either language, to read books and listen to radio and songs in two different languages. This exposure and knowledge have broadened my vocabulary and narrative skills. As you can read above, it has never hindered any part of my oral language but instead has always facilitated and further extended my overall language development. So what about culture? My cultural influence is oral language. Well, my Mauritian culture has definitely influenced my oral language acquisition by having kept the dialects commonly used in Mauritius. My experiences with French and English songs and stories have provided great opportunities for me to preserve my cultural heritage as beliefs and rituals have been communicated from one generation to the other. And to end this podcast, I will leave you with this thought-provoking statement by fellows in Oakley who believe that we are neurobiologically wired. Therefore, our brains are naturally structured for language learning as our brain is guided by environment, social interaction and culture. Thank you for listening to my podcast. I hope you enjoyed it and I can't wait to have you on again. Goodbye. Bye.