This week, I learned about the issues in first language acquisition. This phrase is something new to me and I found it hard to read all of these terms in the textbook. The first thing, is the language, and the use of vocabulary in the book were complex and can't get the message across. I had to keep on reading many times as I can, to make sure that I understand what it really means.
What I understand about this chapter, is that language acquisition is where children acquire their first languages. All humans have the innate ability to acquire more languages. Therefore, children can learned one or more first languages. Upon my personal experiences, I grew up in an environment in which only English is spoken and heard will acquire English as my first language acquisition. I basically come from a family of English teachers. Nevertheless, there are quite a number of children who grew up in which English and Tamil or English and Chinese are spoken and heard equally. This is also known as bilingualism. For example, there are two of my classmates who grew up in a bilingualism environment. One of them spoke and heard English and Tamil, so she also acquire both English and Tamil as her first languages. Other classmates of mine also share their personal experiences regarding their first languages and how they acquired them.
Then, we learned the Issues in First Language Acquisition. We were assigned to work in pairs and explore the issues in the first language acquisition. We asked to choose three issues that affect us when we are growing up and acquiring our first language.
As for me, the three issues that suits me are imitation, input and practice. The first issue is imitation, where I imitate my parents, where I hear them speaking, telling stories and singing to me in English. For me, I can easily grasp some of the I also get to learn English grammar by memorizing the words and sentences of the language. I also tend to make consistent errors that cannot be attributed to mispronunciation and still not heard the way the adults uses grammar. I sometimes make errors like "drawed" instead of drew. Back then, I was really confused with these two words. For me, I really can't memorize all the words that is used in the English Language, and so as other children.
Moreover, input is another issue in acquiring my first language acquisition, the form of input that I get at home is my parents, uncle, aunts and grandparents seems unlimited, constant and variable in terms of quality and quantity. Sometimes, it is a formal language, chatty, and also informal language. I remember that my mom used to correct my grammar and sentence structure, where I was confused when to use the terms ' has' and 'have'. My mom will always keep on reminding me when to use these terms correctly. So as I constantly practice using these terms correctly, I slowly became competent in using the language, where I gained new skills and also when I interact with my peers and teachers in school.
The third issue is practice. You know kids, they just love to play with the languages they acquire when they do with other objects and events around them. I remember that my mom use to buy me the Seven Dwarfs from the Disney movie "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". She used to read to me every night until I get to grasp the words that is being used to describe the story. As I get older, I practice telling stories using the "Seven Dwarfs" toys that my mom got me. I was not using it to tell the same story, but I created on my own. It is like a make- believe play. From there, I started to use some of the simpler words in English to describe my story, by using the objects " Seven Dwarfs" toys. When I get into my primary school, I learned to practice my English is through comprehension practice, read, and do lots of English exercises.
To conclude, I have gained a lot from this week class. New knowledge, share your experiences with your classmates and teachers and I start to understand this chapter well with a help of my peers. I learned something from them and how they acquire their first language acquisition.
Imitation
Parental Input
Practice
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