RR #8

As I read Pinker’s article, I became intrigued with his ideas of language and thought.  Language is a vehicle we use to communicate ideas and thoughts to others as well as a tool used to assist in our own retention of material.  Pinker continued to describe how infants and animals thought without formal language and the fact that I could not recall verbatim every word from the last page I read but instead just remembered the main points.  In his third discussion point on language, he stated, “We often grope for words, are dissatisfied with what we write because it does not express what we want to say, or discover when every combination of words seems wrong that we don’t really know what we want to say. And when we get frustrated with a mismatch between our language and our thoughts we don’t give up, defeated and mum, we change the language” (p. 210).  This passage made me think about children in our classrooms.  How does language create a barrier to learning for children?

When talking about language barriers in classrooms, many are quick to assume that English language learners and students with special needs are the only students who may have trouble communicating.  As a former classroom teacher, I remember working with bright students who did not have the advantage of growing up in homes where they heard academic language spoken.  This did not mean these students were not intelligent, but simply lacked the academic language necessary to be successful in school.  How frustrated I know many students are, sitting in classrooms and having the knowledge of understanding concepts but not the language to express this understanding either written or verbal to the classroom teacher.  As teachers, we need to make sure we are teaching domain specific vocabulary and other academic language for children to have the tools they need for communicating their understandings of concepts and skills to both teachers and peers.  We also must remember to provide students time to think, gather the words in their mind to express what it is they desire to say. 

William James would agree that a child understands and remembers better, when associations are made.  Students need to associate specific language to content to have a clear understanding and the ability to communicate their ideas.