Football & gendered languages (Originally written for Child Language Singapore)

I had an interesting discussion with a fellow mother at the kindergarten yesterday.  She is Japanese, and mentioned that she had just enrolled her son in football (soccer) classes, organized for other Japanese boys.  She then immediately started to explain that it was actually due to concerns about his Japanese language development, rather than any desires that he already be playing sports (the boy is only 3 years old, which many parents may consider quite young for organized sports classes).

This mother mentioned that Japanese is a gendered language, in the sense that men and boys are expected to use different speech patterns than women and girls.  This family consisted of Mom, Dad, Sister, and Brother, which meant that the boy was home most of the day practicing "polite, gentle" speech with his mom and sister.  The mother mentioned that even Dad, when he was at home, used "polite, gentle" speech patterns, I'm assuming because that's how he preferred to communicate with his wife and daughter, and even son.

It can always be challenging for parents to feel they are successfully raising their children to be truly bilingual when they're living abroad.  The language spoken by Mom, Dad and family members on Skype is often at a disadvantage to developing speaking and listening skills, compared the language spoken by teachers, peers, community members, television programs, and etc.  This is especially so when trips to the home country can't occur often enough.

Language is a multi-faceted treasure of human development, and is made up of vocabulary (semantics), grammar (syntax), and functions (pragmatics).  Vocabulary, for example, is learned when speakers have multiple opportunities to practice words in different settings with a variety of speakers.  Our knowledge related to all the meanings of each individual word in our lexicon becomes richer with each experience using the word or hearing someone else use it.  Likewise, with grammar, children need multiple opportunities to practice a structure before it is truly "mastered"-- think of the irregular past tense in English.  Mastery of the range of language functions for each cultural-linguistic group also takes practice, which is why we would accept and even praise a 1-word demand "COOKIE!" from a toddler, but why, as adults this same way of asking for food would sound rude or even absurd.   In other words, the appropriate way to use language [to request] evolves to something like "Can I have a cookie, please?" or even less direct with, "Did you bake those yourself?"

Socially, males are an interesting species, and when communicating with other males in their peer group, they often do communicate using rough, abrupt, blunt, and teasing language.  With a larger difference in age, respect and politeness come into play.  It's definitely a complex process in social education, as related to gender...

Evidently, use of the gendered forms of language can be considered stylistic in Japanese, and is not obligatory.  So, a man or woman can choose to use as much or as little of the gendered language as they want, and either way, what they say is still "grammatically-correct."  However, a little boy using "gentle" speech patterns with another little boy, during an argument at school over a toy, would be at a disadvantage linguistically.  So, this little Japanese boy was lacking in opportunities to practice the "vulgar, rough, abrupt, and blunt" speech style that is so characteristic of the way males speak to members of their peer group. 

So, what to do, when living abroad and your child is learning the "mother tongue" in a similar manner to a "second language"?  You have to create naturalistic opportunities for the child to practice the language skills that you want him/her to acquire.  In the case of this Japanese family, they decided that the most natural way for a little boy to learn "boy speech" would be a nice, long session of rough play with other little boys. 

Gives new meaning to the saying "boys will be boys"...


To learn more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_spoken_Japanese
http://www.epochrypha.com/japanese/materials/genderspecific/
http://www.tofugu.com/guides/japanese-gendered-language/

1. Written in 2013, Singapore

Heckedy Peg (Post originally written for Child Language Singapore)

Title: Heckety Peg 

Author: Audrey Wood

Illustrator: Don Wood

I was already a fan of the (husband & wife) illustrator & author team of Don & Audrey Woods, from having used the Spanish version of The Napping House often in language therapy activities. We just accidentally stumbled on to Heckedy Peg at the library, from one quick look at it, I knew it was one we had to take home.

Heckedy Peg tells the story of a family whose world is turned upside-down when a witch visits their cottage, and turns the children into food. 

The beautiful illustrations are immediately enchanting, depicting life in a non-modern, agricultural world-- a nice change of rhythm for children being raised in an urban or sub-urban environment.  Don Wood also managed to perfectly capture the characters' emotions of joy, terror, and despair in his oil-paintings.


Here are some areas of expressive language that can be targeted with this story:

Basic academic concepts
The seven children are named after the days of the week, which makes for a nice, indirect way to incorporate this functional, academic concept.  And your child's teacher would also be pleased!  


Semantic associations
As the mother breaks the witch's spell by matching her children [turned into food] with the food each has asked for, there is a great opportunity for discussion with your child as to how the items go together.  For example:
-  "bread wants butter".  Why does bread go with butter?  Because we spread butter on bread.
-  "pie wants knife".  Why does pie go with a knife?  Because we use a knife to cut the pie.


Sequencing and prepositions of location
Audrey Wood, the author, divides Heckedy Peg's journey into distinct parts, which Don Wood illustrates beautifully.  It is beneficial expressive language practice for your child to use prepositional phrases in the correct order to describe the witch's journey home--  "... down the road, over the bridge, through the town, across the field, and deep into the woods."

Perspective-taking

For children who would benefit from practice with social language, adults can take time to discuss what the characters are thinking and feeling, and what each person or animal knows, in relation to the others.  Here are some ideas:

- First-order false beliefs-- The understanding of one person's beliefs about something.  For example, in Heckedy Peg, since the little bird was witness to the witch casting her spell, he knows where she has taken the children.  The mother does not know where her children are since she was out at the market.  Different characters think, know, and feel different things, and it can be worthwhile to actually discuss this with your children as you read the story.

- Second-order false beliefs-- The ability to understand one person’s beliefs about another person’s beliefs.  For example, the witch knows that the children in the story think that she is just an old lady in need of a light for her pipe.  Readers who have difficulty interpreting others' feelings and guessing their thoughts may really need an adult to talk about this in as simple terms as possible, even drawing simple pictures with "thought bubbles" to make it clearer.

Finally, mothers will especially love this one, since the main "moral" would be...

LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER!!!!!

Find Heckedy Peg at the Singapore NLB under Fairy Tales, Witches Fiction.
Enjoy the story!

Written in Singapore, April 2013

Nasal airflow (Originally written as part of Child Language Singapore)

I'm currently reading Pam Marshalla's Apraxia Uncovered.  In case you don't know her, Marshalla is basically a living guru in the field of speech therapy, often associated with innovative treatments in the areas of apraxia, articulation, and oral motor. 

The book walks the reader through the 7 stages of phoneme development.  We learn how typically-developing babies must learn the "action skill" (among many others) of Differentiating-- learning how to differentially channel airflow through either the mouth (oral pathway) or nose (nasal pathway).  This is important to speech acquisition, since some phonemes are produced through the mouth (e.g. /a/, /t/), and some through the nose (e.g. /m/, /n/).

Marshalla proposes that a typically-developing baby would naturally start to learn about nasal sounds when the tongue, which is very large in babies relative to the size of the mouth, naturally falls back toward the velum as they vocalize while lying on their backs, which they do quite a lot before they can sit up on their own.  The "ng" sound (a nasal consonant) is produced inadvertently. 

In speech therapy, when therapists are working with older children who still haven't learned how to differentiate and control air flow through the mouth and nose, therapists may use mirrors placed close to the nose (because when air flows through the nose, a fog is visible), or other tools like flexible tubes or nose flutes to help teach this skill.

On a different but related note, my 6-month old baby is battling her first cold.  Lately, she can be fussy, bothered by the clear mucus draining from her little nose.

But... there are other moments when she seems to be playing with nasal airflow,  now that the runny nose makes air flowing through it much more audible than normal.  Quick, slightly forceful exhalations through her nose where you can even see her diaphragm moving inward to push the air out.  Longer, more drawn out exhalations through the nose when there is more movement of mucus to give her that audible feedback of what's happening to the air.

eeewwwwww...

And I wonder... should I visit www.pammarshalla.com, tell her all about my daughter's discovery, and suggest this be included in her list of ideas for therapy??

(Actually, as I write this, I'm thinking that my daughter probably isn't the first child in the world to play with nasal airflow in this manner.  Along our paths of acquiring all the skills we need to learn to be functional adult humans, I'm sure there are countless "accidental" learning experiences that actually teach us much more than any parent or teacher could ever do.  Let's celebrate colds, mucus, and learning!)

Addendum, 5/4/2013--
I think Baby did learn about nasal airflow, because later that day, the day she had so much mucus, she produced a prolonged, definite /m/.  Wow!

Visiting your local library (Originally written as part of Child Language Singapore blog)

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Those of us who live in Singapore** have a real treasure with the National Library Board. In my experience so far, it's easy to find a branch that's close to your home, work, or children's school.

Sometimes, however, when you walk into the Children's section of a library, you may feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of titles on the shelves. How is a parent to decide which books will be worth carrying home? You know, things made from the trunks of trees do get heavy if enough of them are piled into a bag. :)

Here are some of the things I look for when spotting books that can be useful in language therapy with children at 2 to 7 years old:

• Simplicity:

  
  
  • in terms of Language. The language level used in the book more or less matches that of my child audience. Think of the types of sentences your child says and the language they understand. If your child seems to lose interest, and you suspect that the book is written on too high of a language level, simplify what you say. Try shorter sentences, simpler vocabulary. You can even slow the pace of your reading. When you're ready to expose your child to new vocabulary, remember to present the new words alone (e.g. labeling pictures) or in simple sentences. 
    
    
  • In terms of topic. The story typically relates to experiences that are familiar to the child. I mean activities such as mealtimes, waking up, nighttime/going to sleep, injuries, work (e.g. cleaning up the house, going to school, building), and play. Even very young children typically have a solid understanding of these events-- which are actually multi-step processes in and of themselves. Reflecting on and talking about these activities with an adult gives children an opportunity to expand language skills on a solid foundation provided by their own knowledge of these very familiar processes.
    
    

• Predictable patterns and repetitive words or phrases. 

  This aspect is extremely important to me when selecting books for language therapy. The author creates a language structure, which becomes predictable because it repeats itself. Because it's the structure that repeats itself, not the exact words, the book actually becomes more entertaining, rather than boring. This structure, or scaffolding, supports the child's language as s/he reaches towards the next level, much like the metal scaffolds of a building being constructed. The element of repetition makes the language in the story more accessible to the child, and the child is more likely to try out some of these language structures in his/her own sentences.
  
  
  We see this type of language scaffolding used across the plots of a whole series of books (e.g. The Ted series, by Beaty and Lemaitre, which I will review later), and also at the level of sentences within a single book (e.g. Eric Carle books, such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar: “On ___DAY, he ate through NUMBER, COLOR, FRUIT. But he was still hungry.”).

• Clear plot and storyline. 

  When reading the story, it is clear who the main characters are, where the story takes place (setting), and that there is a beginning (usually with a “problem” that the main character faces), middle (what the character does to try to solve his/her problem) and ending (some sort of resolution or consequence to all that happens). And, as stated earlier, for younger children, all of this would ideally be related to some life situation that they have direct experience with.

• Something that your child finds entertaining and interesting, and that you, as the parent and reader, are able to enjoyably read and discuss within your own realistic time frame. 

  Children can perceive when the adult is really putting energy and enthusiasm into the telling. It makes a big difference when we rush through a story in monotone, vs when we are able to put emphasis into key words and expressions, using funny voices for characters, changing the intonation and volume of the voice as necessary. Children also feel validated when the adult seems to also enjoy reading the story they ahve selected. But, let's be honest, it is difficult to give it all we've got at storytime if we find the book too long for the time we have. Consider realistically your child's and your own attention span, energy level, and time available for reading stories, and do your best with the resources you have!

The benefits of reading to our children are clear. In subsequent entries, I will be sharing with you some of the wonderful books I've stumbled upon at the NLB, organized and presented by author, which, I hope, will make them more easy to locate in the libraries.

Sources:

Darian, Shea. (2001) Seven Times the Sun: Guiding your Child through the Rhythms of the Day. USA. Gilead Press.

Miller, L., Gillam, R. B., & Peña, E. (2001). Dynamic Assessment and Intervention: Improving Children's Narrative Abilities. Austin, TX: PRO-ED.

Pepper, J. and Weitzman, E. (2004) It Takes Two to Talk. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Hanen Centre.

Weitzman, E. and Greenberg, J. (2002) Learning Language and Loving It. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Hanen Centre.

** written in 2013, Singapore

Singaporean toddler refusal (originally written for Child Language Singapore)

American parents are well familiar with the NO phase-- a typical feature of toddler-hood.

My third experience of mothering a toddler is here in Singapore**. He has taken that step to be able to use verbal means to express REFUSAL. What's really funny is, he's learned to run right at the same time (as if he wants to refuse something and then run away from you).

But, Instead of "NO" what you'll hear over here is:

"DON'T WANT!"

Which with the unclear but ever so cute speech of a toddler sounds more like "duh-wan!"

WANT is typically considered an obligatorily transitive verb in English. Meaning, an explicitly stated direct object should follow if used in a grammatically correct manner, for standard English. Think of:
carry-- I carry [the bag].
take-- He takes [the bus].
wash, devour, wear, hold, say, etc etc
These verbs sound funny to an American ear if used without a direct object. It's like in Rocky Horror Picture Show, the open mouth there waiting with "Antici..........pation."

Other verbs are transitive, but not obligator-ily so. In other words, they can carry an object ("I'm eating candy") but they don't have to ("I'm eating"). That is, the direct object can be implied, and it's still considered grammatically correct.

When my little one says, "don't-want," part of the reason it sounds so cute is beccause want is usually one of those obligatorily transitive verbs. "I want it. I want that. I want some. I want [specific direct object]." But in Singaporean English, you will hear preschoolers eagerly repeating "I want! I want! I want!" with their hand up as they reach toward the desired object. Or, emphatically repeating "I don't-want! I don't-want!" arms crossed across the chest, a scowl on the face to refuse whatever is being offered or imposed.

Something else I notice about "don't want" is the use of PRO-drop. Singapore Colloquial English, like many other languages (ex. Spanish, Italian, and many more), uses PRO-drop, which is the dropping of the subject pronoun when the subject is obvious from the context. If I know you're talking about yourself, and you know that I know you're talking about yourself, you don't have to use I. PRO-drop can be truly confusing at times, and, I'll be frank, annoying when you hear older children do it (I'm like a broken record: "Let's try to talk using all the words. Let's say things in a way that our family will be able to understand when we go visit-- with all the words.").

But while the baby is still little and the novelty hasn't yet worn off, I think I will enjoy this cute little, Singaporean way to refuse things like wearing a diaper, eating dinner, or sharing toys with siblings.

** post written in Singapore, 2011

What happened to the verbs? (originally written for Child Language Singapore)

There are times when I just have to wonder, as I listen to my preschooler talk...
What happened to the verbs??? What happened to their morphemes? the past tense? the third person -s marker? the auxiliaries?
And the subjects, where are they? And the word order?

There may be other mothers out there, raising their children in a diverse linguistic environment, who wonder the same thing. Here are some languages samples to show you what I mean, and what she means in Standard American English:

A little bit draw my arm. (I drew on my arm a little bit.)
Why that baby cry? (Why is that baby crying?)
Why you laugh? (Why are you laughing?)
You see my hand? (Do/can you see my hand?)
This one go here. (This one goes here.)
This one wrong side. (This is the wrong side.)
He don't want pancake. (He doesn't want a pancake.)
How to close this up? (How do/can we close this up?)

Well, I can't really tell you where the verbs went. I guess that they're still in her head, but often hide there when she's at childcare all day, immersed in Singaporean** [childspeak] English. I know that they're still in her head, because I take it upon myself to use focused stimulation techniques to give her multiple models of the Standard English forms, and to hopefully elicit her use of them. I wanted to pass this along for any parents/teachers/caregivers/etc who want to know how to encourage bidialectalism (yes, this is a real word. I even looked it up to be sure I wasn't just making it up), without overwhelming yourself, your child, or making the child feel as if they're speaking "wrongly" when they use the other dialect.

A brief note here-- I don't mean to pick on my 4 year-old daughter in all of these posts. She just happens to be a very dynamic moment of language development. It would be fascinating to observe her language development now anyway, even if there weren't multiple languages and dialects involved. The diverse linguistic exposure only adds a little "spice." I have had to use similar language enrichment techniques with my 6 1/2 year old son, but basically they "worked," so he can switch back and forth between American and Singaporean English with great ease and fluency.

Following are some sample conversations my daughter and I might have to demonstrate use of the techniques. They basically involve:
- multiple repetitions of the desired form
- highlighting the target word (ex. saying it a bit louder, and/or with higher intonation, slowing down your rate of speech)
- demonstrating use of the target form in many similar but slightly different sentences and questions
- talk to keep the conversation going on that topic, because more often than not, the child will comment on what you said about what s/he said... but now using the desired form.

It ends up to be a very natural way to elicit use of the specific language target.

Child, "Why that baby cry?"
Adult, "Why IS that baby crying? I don't know. He IS crying."

Child, "You see my hand?"
Adult, "Yes, I DO see your hand! I DO. I DO see it. DO you see mine? I think you DO!"

Child, "This one wrong side."
Adult, "Oops! That IS the wrong side. It IS. Ah, look-- this IS the right side."

Child, "He don't want pancake."
Adult, "No, he DOESN'T want A pancake. He DOESN'T, no, he DOESN'T."

It may look a bit awkward, but I find that if you maintain eye contact with the child, and keep your voice animated about what you're saying, it ends up being quite natural. Conversations with children are different from adult conversations anyway. If anything, a child with typical language development will talk over you, especially if you try a lot of repetitions.

It may be tricky when the 1st and 2nd person forms are used. For example, "Why you laugh?" Is it better to repeat what the child says in 2nd person even though s/he was talking to you, and you should technically use 1st person to refer to yourself? Or is it better to model the language form in 1st person?

I usually end up stepping out of the indirect, naturalistic mode, and go towards a more explicit practice. I'll say, "You say, 'Why are you laughing?'", with a slowed down rate of speech, and then ask the child to repeat the question to me that way. I also often feign misunderstanding because "not all the words were used and I don't know what she means." So the child basically learns that sometimes, things have to be said in a specific way in order for understanding to occur and for the conversation to continue as desired.

I don't want my children to end up self-conscious of their speech & language. Or feeling that there's a cultural divide between them and their parents, who spent their childhoods on other sides of the planet, and had very different linguistic and personal experiences as they're having. But I do think that it's important for them to get practice using Standard English forms. Standard English is what they will encounter in school (and what will be expected of them in writing tasks). The should use Standard English in the future when looking for a job.

I try to encourage my children to become good communicators. I'm proud that they've been able to acquire the local English so that they're effective communicators with their peers and teachers. But I also want them to communicate effectively with English speakers outside the island... namely, their family "back home"! Experiences with learning language must include listening to language as well as multiple opportunities for practice; using these techniques allows us to do both.

** post written in Singapore, 2011

To take or to take off, that is the question (originally written in Child Language Singapore)

I was in a bookstore** a few weeks ago, and I saw a mother there with her daughter, who looked to be about 3 1/2 years old. While the mother calmly leafed through some books, the little girl also took the liberty to take some books off a shelf and look at them. Her mother called her so that they could leave, and the little girl started to try to put the book back on the shelf. But she couldn't, because the other books were there and the space was too tight. She started to get frustrated, and her mother called her again, also getting a bit frustrated that the girl hadn't yet come to her.

Finally, the little girl shouts, "Mama! Help me to put!"

It was such a cute little utterance to me, and so perfectly demonstrated a feature of verb usage here that I had been noticing-- for what are typically phrasal verbs in "my neck of the woods" (Southern USA), the use of the corresponding preposition is optional, OR the verb is substituted for a non-phrasal verb.

You may be thinking-- What???

OK- I've just discovered a lovely website called englishpage.com, with some very useful definitions, examples, and lists of English grammatical structures. They define a phrasal verb as "a verb plus a preposition or adverb which creates a meaning different from the original verb." It may help to think of the following examples:

to cut
to cut off
to cut in
to cut out
to cut up

Think of the variations of all the completely different meanings of "to turn" when you add different prepositions. Think of "put", "put up", "put with", and "put up with." Interesting, right?

Evidently there are separable and inseparable phrasal verbs. This distinction explains why it "sounds funny" to say "leave off it" rather than "leave it off." Leave off would be a separable phrasal verb. By the way, there are also phrasal verbs that don't really have a preference as to position of the object.

I had noticed that in Singapore, many of the phrasal verbs I typically grew up with are used differently. This list will be far from comprehensive, but it may be interesting and amusing to read for you Standard [Southern] American English speakers out there.

put on- wear ex. "Wear your shoes."
take off- take ex. "Why you take the hat?"
clean up- keep ex. "Children, keep the toys!"
hold on[to]- hold ex. "Hold your dog!"
take off- remove ex. "Remove the paper from the table."
pick up- carry ex. "I want to carry the baby."
pick out- choose ex. "Everyone may choose 1 color."
look at- see ex. "See the squirrel."
throw away- throw  ex. "Throw the tissue."

**keep can be particularly confusing at first-- since keep to me means to keep on your person, and usually here it means to put the object in its place, away from your person


I'm not saying that people NEVER use phrasal verbs, or implying that they don't use them "correctly"; it's just a tendency that I have noticed. And honestly, I believe that any Standard American English speaker would look at the above list and say that yes, put on typically means wear. I agree, but I admit that my ears perk up when time and time again, young and old, in formal and informal situations, it seems that the non-phrasal verb is preferred.

For some reason, it can be comforting to venture out and learn a new language, but to still see similarities with that new language and your native language. The first foreign language I studied was French, and while it was interesting to get to know what a rich verb morphology was like, what you could do with gender aspect on the noun phrase, part of me wondered why my best friend next to me, who had grown up speaking Spanish at home, was always exclaiming in wonder, "This is just like Spanish!" It was like she got to rediscover her native language as she studied the foreign language.

I finally got to experience this feeling when I studied Swedish in Sweden. Suddenly, English had roots and relations and a history that was fascinating to imagine. I was similarly reassured when studying German in Germamy, when we learned about trennbare Verben. These verbs reminded me of phrasal verbs, but with the complicating addition of CASE (dative, accusative). What had for so long seemed like a clumsy, awkward, and easily errored structure in English suddenly had a place in the history of languages. I could now claim to be staying in touch with my Germanic language roots by using sentences such as, "Put it up!" Forget the whole rule about not ending sentences with a preposition.

Hm... I admit, though, that as I use phrasal verbs to the best of my ability, I often wonder about that rule. It's like this guilty-conscience thing those of us have who've studied the English language or literature. How do we say it then, when the most natural way has the preposition at the end??? Maybe I should adopt the Singaporean English way and just avoid the use of phrasal verbs. If I did that, this is how my first paragraph would read:

I was in a bookstore a few weeks ago, and I saw a mother there with her daughter, who looked to be about 3 1/2 years old. While the mother calmly perused some books, the little girl also took the liberty to remove some books from a shelf and examine them. Her mother called her so that they could leave, and the little girl started to try to replace the book on the shelf. But she couldn't, because the other books were there and the space was too tight. She started to get frustrated, and her mother called her again, also getting a bit frustrated that the girl hadn't yet come to her.

Not too different, but changed enough to notice the difference.


** written in Singapore, 2010