 |
|
| |
|
Language and Storytelling Montessori wrote: "Human intelligence today is no longer a natural intelligence but a mathematical intelligence. Without a mathematical education it is impossible to understand the progress of our time or to participate in it. In our time, a mind without mathematical culture is comparable to that of a [person] ignorant of the alphabet... In its natural state the human mind is already mathematical: it tends toward exactness, measure and comparison."
Language Development: Prenate to Toddler
Language Development: Children's House
Language Development: Elementary I
Language Development: Upper Elementary
Language Development: Junior High
Language Development: Prenate to Toddler by Ann Luce and Millie Dosh Our essential concern with infants and toddlers must be to establish a foundation of love and support - a relationship with our children nurtured by listening, storytelling, assisting them to clearly articulate their feelings and needs and helping them name everything in their world. This Support will equip them with skills to establish friendships, to learn from others, to claim the world as their own and to tell their own story. They will become competent and independent, able to bless the universe with their gifts and energy.
In a positive womb-world, a developing baby hears music, noises and voices, particularly its mother's voice, and begins as early as 24 weeks to assimilate basic language structure, sounds and rhythms of the mother tongue. If the baby is spoken to, it may begin to respond with movement and to learn the give and take of conversation. A biochemistry of love and pleasure will become familiar, satisfying and desirable. These early impressions lay the groundwork for learning language and give children orientation and reference points that will be useful after they are born.
From conception to three, the child is in a period that we call the absorbent mind - gathering experiences, sounds, smells, words, feelings, and associations like a sponge. Early language is "receptive language." Expressive language cannot occur unless the child has first heard human language. The richer the reception, the richer the expression. For the deaf child, alternative language, such as signing, must be paired with vocalized language for language development to occur. The deaf child will be able to first babble and then speak in signs.
By 6-10 months, a baby is internalizing the structure and specific phonemes of the native language (or a second language if the child is adopted from another country).
By 8 months, babbling becomes purposeful. Babies now have something to say. This is an excellent time to introduce a second language if the child is to speak it without accent. The child now uses only those sounds needed to communicate in the language it is learning.
At 10 months, the child understands that language has meaning and power. The first intentional words are met by everyone's delight, and this encourages the child to say more. One name is often used for many things. For example, "dog" might mean any moving creature.
At about 18 months there is a language explosion. In a few children, a complete sentence structure is expressed. The child is word-hungry, especially for names of objects. At this point, a child may say a lot, but the adults may not get it. Tantrums can result. Adults need to remain calm, trying to piece together information by prompting so that the child can succeed. Remember: the child's receptive language is always more extensive than expressive language.
Daily reading aloud enriches a child's receptive language. From earliest years, reading good literature and expressive storytelling will bear fruit later in oral self expression and clear writing - an easy investment which reaps a lifetime of rewards.
The child sees the self as an individual when he begins to use the pronoun "I." The absorbent mind that was unconscious is now conscious. The toddler has internalized a secure base from a loving early symbiotic relationship with parents and will expand this base to form friendships on his own terms in an ever-widening world of experience. Language, bound to these early secure relationships, will be used to function well throughout life.
Language Development: Children's House by Jean Melom Dr. Montessori lived and worked at an exciting time in the intellectual life of the twentieth century, and she was always in touch with the new discoveries and ideas that swirled through the sciences. When she observed the learning patterns of children, she was reminded of the biological concept of sensitive periods that operate in the development of animals. She described a sensitive period as "a special sensibility which a creature acquires in its infantile state." Some aspect of the environment exerts a powerful attraction at a particular point in an organism's development. As a result, the organism's own activity produces a new characteristic. Montessori stresses that the sensitive period is transient. It disappears at a certain time, whether or not its aims have been accomplished.
In a similar way, a young human has strong attractions to numerous aspects of its environment at different times during its development. You can observe this for yourself. A sensitive period causes a child to focus her attention intensely on some part of her environment. This focus is accompanied by new activity, often of a repetitive nature. If something prevents the child from enacting this activity, she is very upset. The child's attention and activity produce a new characteristic - a new behavior or capability. Finally, when this new characteristic is established, the sensitive period disappears along with its focused attention and repetitive activity.
In the area of language, the child shows a strong and long-lasting sensitive period that you can observe in children from their first weeks. By the time the child joins us in Children's House, she has already achieved incredible accomplishments. She has built her ability to use her native language in its complexity and subtlety. She hears and pronounces its characteristic sounds; she understands and uses a large vocabulary; she constructs full sentences according to its grammatical rules. The power of the child's sensitive period to language has already created this new and specifically human behavior - the ability to communicate through speech.
But the sensitive period for language persists into the Children's House years. We find a child who is hungry for words - who wants the names of everything: shapes and animals, continents and kitchen implements. No word is too long or difficult - if you want proof of that, find a four-year old dinosaur fan. We also find a child who can pick apart the individual sounds of words, who loves words that rhyme or that start with the same sounds. We find a child who loves the sounds of language in songs and conversation, stories and poems. We find a child who is stimulated and enriched by all the language in her environment.
In responding to the needs of children who are experiencing a sensitive period to language, we create a rich and orderly language environment. We are conscious of providing an ever-expanding vocabulary and of using words accurately. We remember not to over-simplify speech and not to use baby-talk because we respect the seriousness of the child's interest in language.
In the area of spoken language, we ourselves are the learning materials and provide the child with the most beautiful and complete spoken language just as we would provide them with the most beautiful tools for a practical life activity.
Another way in which we aid the sensitive period for language is in encouraging the child to focus her attention on the sounds of speech. We can help the child listen to and analyze the component sounds of words and to play with the music of speech. The child's ears are especially sharp during this sensitive period, and she can make finer distinctions than we sometimes think possible.
As we do all this on the spoken level, we also begin to introduce written symbols for sound - letters. It is the power of the sensitive period that inspires the child to use these symbols to express her passion for language in a new form - written language. Children begin to use movable alphabet letters as markers to show what sounds they have heard in a word, and at this point, they are essentially writing. Inevitably, the idea occurs to some child that the process can be reversed - that strings of letters can be given voice - and a word is sounded out. Again and again, the children learn written language in our Children's House classrooms in the same spontaneous, explosive way described by Dr. Montessori in her books.
It is the existence of the sensitive period for language that necessitates our intense work in this area - not just a wish to provide the child with the tools to write and read at an early age. We remember that all sensitive periods are transient. It is our hope that we can encourage all our children to fully realize the directives of their inner guide, the sensitive period for language.
Language Development: Elementary I by John Mullin There is no part of a child's life that is not touched by language. One of the earliest lessons of the year presented with children new to the elementary is to ask them to search the room for something without a name. "Can you think of something that does not have a name?" If a person can see it, touch it, imagine it, smell It, we can name it. Language is a function of intellect. You cannot think without using it. Language is the focal point of culture and the creation of society. You cannot communicate with others without agreeing that we call a rock a rock and a tree a tree and the order that words go in to make sense. These are the very beginnings of rules that we use when dealing with each other.
In the Children's House, the child learned the names of things. In the elementary she is ready to explore the whys. Where does the word rock come from? How do we use our words to express ourselves both written and orally? How have others expressed themselves and what are the rules that we all agree to when doing this? These questions are basic to the five areas of language in the elementary that the child explores. They are the history of language, written language, spoken language, literature and grammar, and syntax.
Everything in the elementary begins with a story. It is the way that human beings have shared information for over 3 million years. And in that time many ideas have been traded and information and histories recorded that we can still learn and read today.
Children are interested in beginnings. A child might be interested in how language began. Who invented letters, and how did they take their present form? What did people write on and with? What inventions have changed the way we communicate? Question after question is encouraged as the child discovers the history of human beings. The aim is not to make them linguistic scholars but to intrigue and inspire them with language of the past and the steps of language that have developed.
Language is creative - it shows the human spirit and the human intelligence. Written and oral language are rooted in the past. The Phoenicians carried marks in clay instead of elaborate pictures to keep quick clean records of their wares as they traveled the Mediterranean. This alphabet would eventually become a source for the one we use today. We can express ourselves over great distances or through time by writing our thoughts down. A child in the elementary is encouraged to share who she is, just as ancient people did.
Language is an expression of need. It is my thoughts, my ideas, my reason, and my judgments, my ability to repeat to others, my ability to find out what and why. Children are asked to express this themselves through stories, reports, poetry, drama, letters, dialogue, debates, song and other forms of imaginative expression with the hope that they will find their own voice and can confidently express their thoughts.
Literature can help in this process. By being introduced to what others have written, children absorb food for thought. Stories spark interest in new ideas and possibilities. With the use of their imagination the child needs not only stories rooted in fact but also ones that are full of the possibilities of fiction. We introduce literature: fairytales, short stories, anecdotes, novels, historical episodes, fable and myth are thrown out like sowing seeds so the child can embrace and internalize the stories and patterns of literature from other times. Throughout all this the child is also learning the rules that we use to communicate.
Grammar and syntax are presented in three parts. First it is presented in word study, which includes affixes, prefixes, suffixes, compound words, homonyms and antonyms. Second are the parts of speech that are presented by grammar boxes. Then logical analysis presents the understanding of the functions of a sentence, the direct and indirect object and adverbial clauses. The aim of this material is not only to teach what is a noun and what is an adverbial clause but a love for what words do.
While working with these tools children hear voices of the past. They come to understand the rules that we have commonly held in order to share our ideas with one another. They strive to express their thoughts clearly and with their own voice, and our story goes on.
Language Development: Upper Elementary by Pat Schaefer In Spontaneous Activity in Education Dr. Montessori reflected on traditional education: "We make them speak, write, narrate, compose and discourse when they have nothing to say." Then as her solution to this dilemma, she said, "The child must create his interior life before he can express anything; he must take spontaneously from the external world constructive material in order to 'compose); he must exercise his intelligence fully before he can be ready to find the logical connection between things. We ought to offer the child that which is necessary for his internal life and leave him free to produce."
At the upper elementary the question is how do we aid, how do we access the interior life of the child? There is a phrase we use: "Speaking the culture from the heart." This requires that an adult engage in discourse with a child from the conviction of her own interior life. It cannot happen through an electronic screen. It is the encounter of the human voice and the human heart with that of the child that is meaningful.
Montessori was very interested in the wild boy of Aveyron, the wolf child. The story of an abandoned child raised by wolves and who could never learn human language was a powerful lesson of the importance of the human voice in the development of language.
We need to consider both the form and content of the development of language in the human child. The form of "delivery" is through the voice and experience of the senses. Cleverly Montessori developed materials that isolated the difficulties of the process, that analyzed steps, met needs and then allowed the child to be free to produce.
Examples of some of these materials would be the amazing word-use symbols in many shapes and colors that the children place above words of compositions and literature. Children create their own chart of all the different symbols for parts of speech that even include verbals such as gerunds, infinitives and participles. The work of logical analysis of words in relation to one another in sentences is also brilliant. Central to the exercises are the questions about the words and their relationship to each other. The questions are always asked in the proper order, which is, above all, an invitation to think. Writing is thinking.
Another aspect of our work with language is the call to think and admire the structure and beauty of language. Montessori understood that language is connected to the most profound aspect of the development of the child's personality. The child is deeply in need of pursuing the most basic questions of why she is here, how did this all begin. In answer to this need, Montessori understood the role of story and the importance of telling about origins. And so with the Great Lessons of the beginnings of the universe and the gifts of life and humans, we ground the children and uplift their imaginations and spirit through story.
Thus through passion and interest, content emerges and the child has "something to say."
Language Development: Junior High by Karen Noll In an article called "Verbicide," David Orr, who directs the environmental studies program at Oberlin College, begins with a story about a first year student at Oberlin.
"He entered my office for advice sporting nearly perfect SAT scores and an impeccable academic record - by all accounts a young man of considerable promise. During a twenty-minute conversation about his academic future, however, he displayed a vocabulary that consisted mostly of two words: "cool" and "really." Almost eight hundred SAT points attached to each word. To be fair, he could use them interchangeably as "really cool" or "cool really!"
Dr. Orr goes on to argue that our culture is suffering from a national crisis, not of illiteracy, but rather of diminished literacy - an epidemic of incoherence. This young student represents, according to our nation's standardized tests, the best our academic culture has to offer. Observant critics like ourselves conclude, of course, that his habits of language were not nurtured by his high school AP Literature teacher; they were nurtured by the media. David Orr's further commentary on this epidemic of incoherence includes a haunting metaphor - he refers to our nation's children as being "marinated" in the messages of public discourse, street talk, movies, television, music, and the Internet. The juices of media language are not a layer which can be removed. They have been absorbed.
Charlene Spretnak claims in her book, The Resurgence of the Real, that the working vocabulary of the average 14 year-old has declined in the last fifty years from about 25,000 words to 10,000. And I am here to teach language to your adolescent children.
Maria Montessori's vision for the adolescent has a deep connection to the land. In her series of lectures which we refer to as the Erdkinder text, Montessori proposes that the best place for an adolescent to achieve "valorization" or "normalization" of her personality is on the land. Clearly "the physical" takes precedence over "the rhetorical" in Montessori's vision. She mentions language as an occupation rather than a discipline, thus placing emphasis on the action of language and its role in character formation, rather than the specifics of language - vocabulary, spelling, grammar, clarity and organization. She places language into three roles in the adolescent curriculum.
First, she says that language is the medium for self-expression. The adolescent should learn and practice the art of diction and elocution which then increases his ability in acting, public speaking, and open discussions. Self-expression also includes storytelling. There is a developmental need at this age to nurture one's voice, to try out more than one voice, to observe reactions of peers and adults in the experimentation. The adolescent wants to practice these voices formally and informally. Conventional teachers of English would call this the skill of speaking.
Second, Montessori says that language is the medium for developing the personality, the self. She emphasizes the role of words in human history and personal history. In this context, language has been mastered to a degree of competency which allows deeper probing of personal and academic issues. The adolescent is, however, an awkward novice with respect to this type of language. Errors in language use are common as these students experiment in idioms, philosophical dialogue, and academic abstractions. Because it can be embarrassing to fumble in front of one's peers, this is a time of turbulence for the self and language growth. Conventional teachers of English might call this fluency.
Third, Montessori writes that language serves in the preparation for adult life. These Lake Country School adolescents will soon enter high school programs: preparation for adult life. Many high school teachers will praise a piece of writing for its cosmic and creative brilliance but will also criticize it for its lack of technical merit. To help our adolescents with language expectations for adult life, these students must know the difference between a real sentence and an impostor. Conventional teachers of English might call this the discipline of academic writing and reading.
Certainly adolescents need to read, write, speak and - perhaps more urgently than ever - learn new vocabulary. Where Montessori emphasizes the role of language in helping the adolescent to find her place on the land and in the cosmos, I would like to emphasize the need for the adolescent to learn also about beauty in language, to learn to distinguish between the vague and the articulate, and finally to apply beauty and articulation to the art of speaking and writing.
This article appeared in the Fall 2000 issue of the Lake Country School CourierLCS Home Page > Parent Resources > Articles > Language and Storytelling