From twelve to thirty-six months
(1 :00-3 :00)
At 1 :00 the child is now a self-directed learner. He
learns how to walk and to do things himself.
Apart from this, he is imaginative and absurd. He enjoys
telling stories in interaction with others. He is keen on drawings, and
experiments whatever he finds on his way, be it a piece of wood or mud, to
express himself artistically, as put by Kamanyula (1987 :4)
During this period, therefore, he needs from his parents
proper materials which can make his imagination develop more. On the other
hand, parents' short questions on what their child is doing can help him
improve his language.
From thirty-six to seventy-two months
(3 :00-6 :00)
As said earlier, at 3 :00 years, the child is
imaginative. At 4 :00 he becomes talkative since his mind has developed
more. At 5 :00 years he is noisy and strong.He makes plans of his own
which he absolutely wants to execute. In the household, he is seen setting the
table, washing plates, etc....
When he works with pencils or sheets of paper and pairs of
scissors, he knows what he is going to do before he does it. The result of all
this may seem childish, but to him it is an exact fulfilment of his task.
Socially, it has been proved that children of 5 :00
enjoy group activities. They always want to be with people and in the
surroundirgs they know. It is in these groups where a child picks out most of
his language. Weeks (1979 : 6) goes on writing that
« In the neighborhood and in peer groups,
language
is used to define and consolidaste the groups, to
exclude and to include, to make clear just who
belongs to the « in group. »
He uses this language to tell the group how things appear to him
even if he is not the best observer of the world.
The six year-old child is our last concern in this section. He is
likely to try older people's activities. His eagerness for learning is high in
degree. He plays and works very hard, and yet he is easily tired.
Self-confident, a six year-old child finds hard to play with
others since he wants to be always the first. He is selfish and self-centred,
thinking that what he often wants is all important. Psychologically, he seeks
praize and, as to paraphrase Gratiot, H. (1987 :5) quoted by Kamanyula
(1987 : 5), he is content with expressions of the kind « good-good,
very nice,.... »
Actually, this is the age when he enters primary school.
1.2. Language development in the child
1.2.0. Introduction
This section is about children's language development. In fact,
since a child has sociolinguistic abilities as well as psycholinguistic ones to
acquire a language in order to be capable to use it in particular contexts,
language development is then social and innate. But those two factors are not
alone sufficient. The development of a language competence is also a process.
Romaine, S. (1986 :xi) writes that
« ....language development is an ongoing process
which
begins (arguably) even before the child starts to
speak.... »
This section will thus be concerned with language development
from birth up to the age of six when the child enters school. This is to avoid
being so vague and ambiguous. Because, as pointed out earlier, our data concern
children's language development of these ages, the assumption is that
children's language development can shed some lights on their future language,
once adults, and on second or foreign language acquisition.
Because children's language development is an ongoing process,
this section, following Kambale, M.B. (2003/4), will be looked into through the
following stages :
- Crying and smiling
- Body movements
- Babbling stage
- One -word stage
- Two-word stage
- Three-word stage
- Increasingly sophisticated language
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