Three Guiding Principles for Oral Language Development Assignment Sample

Teaching Oral Language Skills in Early Childhood Settings

Section 1

Introduction

'Principle' refers to the kind of belief, idea and rule that guides an individual. Oral language development is the process of developing the skill of spoken language among the children. In the process of oral language development, educators play an important role in enhancing the children’s ability to process speech and communication via the help of oral language development principles. The essay will outline the three guiding principles of teaching and learning of oral language development and how each one of them supports oral language acquisition. In addition to this, it will highlight one activity that can be part of the literacy curriculum to promote the learning of oral language.

Section 2

Three Guiding Principle For Oral Language Development

Oral language development is an important aspect of early childhood within primary education. Development of communication skills makes the children more confident to connect and engage with their peers, teachers, parents and so on. The three guiding principles for the effective teaching and learning of oral language in the early years of schooling are as under:

 One of the principles of oral language development outlines that children learn from what they hear the most. According to the principle, the children learn spoken language by hearing the words and sentences from people around them. It means the more language children hear, the more words they learn to produce and speak. For instance, the children learn efficiently when they hear rhymes, storytelling and so much more. This leads to helping them pronounce words in a correct and an appropriate manner correspondingly, which results in the development of oral language (Metsala et al., 2021). Therefore, the teacher in early schools focuses on talking more with and around the young children so that they hear the common words that are used every day. When children hear it, they try to speak it, which results in the development of oral language. Referring to the principle, it is important for the teacher to prepare a curriculum that includes activities which consist of social interaction and exchange of views. This in turn improves the pronunciation, vocabulary and comprehension aspect of the children. Thus, interactive learning highly contributes towards oral language development by furnishing children with the opportunities to practise listening and speaking skills in the social context.

Another principle states that children learn best in the meaningful context. Referring to the principle, context is important for children's early word learning. It has been identified that children learn greater words in situations where these words were referring to the objects children were playing with as compared to without considering the context (Suban, 2021). For instance, children learn to speak the names of colours and shapes while playing with the blocks. The block playing furnishes excellent context for the children in regard to learning the spatial words. Thus, by relating the language with the learning to the real-world context teachers can develop oral language among children. The children, with the help of the object, are able to better understand the practical application of the language as well as more likely to memorise and use new vocabulary and structures (Principles of language development, 2024). This offers assistance to the children in developing their oral language development skill, which is the first step to learning in an effective and efficient manner.

The third principle states that children learn words from the events and things that seem interesting to them. In the context of this principle, it is evaluated that children will learn the use of words in an efficient manner when they get interested. Children are considered as agents of learning and this also applies to the world as well as language learning. According to this, children learn the use of words more effectively when they are interested in a particular situation and things (Wei, 2021). Therefore, it is important for the teachers to build an interesting environment or conduct activities that fascinate the children. Further, it has assessed that children learn and speak language in the best and most significant manner according to their needs and requirements. At the time of planning the literacy curriculum, it is essential for the teacher to pay attention to the aspect of what children are looking at and accordingly support them to learn what they are interested in. This principle effectively supports oral language acquisition, as the interesting events and things motivate the children to lay more focus on the same. Consequently, it helps in memorising the words and phrases and using them. It leads to to significant development of oral language among the children.

Activity That Support Oral Language Development

One of the best activities for oral language development in early childhood and primary children is storytelling. There are different kinds of storytelling activities, such as with puppets, picture storyboarding, props, etc. (Mujahidah, Damayanti and Afiif, 2021). The teacher can undertake the storytelling activity to develop the children’s oral language skill. The activity includes the use of props while telling a story to the children. This activity effectively supports or reflects the principle of children learning the best from what they hear. The storytelling activity enables the children to learn the pronunciation of the different words correctly. In addition to this, use of props also helps in storytelling, which enables children to learn the use of language and memorise the words in an efficient manner. By this, children would become more able to learn effectively in a meaningful context. Apart from this, storytelling is one of the areas in which children usually remain interested. Additionally, the use of props also develops understanding as well as knowledge of children about the different aspects and thereby improves learning about the words or speaking language. Thus, the storytelling activity is the best learning activity that teachers should use in the curriculum for the purpose of effective oral language development within the early childhood as well as primary settings for children.

Conclusion

To sum up, oral language development is essential for effective communication skills of the children. The essay covered three principles, such as children learn effectively what they hear, and children learn the best in a meaningful context through events and things that they are interested in. Therefore, teachers should use activities while using the principles proficiently. The easy highlight is that storytelling is the appropriate activity to support language learning of children in a significant manner, as it includes the use of words and props that help the children learn via listening and meaningful context.