1. Our Language System
“If we went out on the street dressed the way
we talk,
W e would be arrested for indecent exposure”
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2. Ways with Words
 Robert Frost, in commenting on his trade , once wrote,
“A poem…begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a
homesickness, a lovesickness…It finds the thought, and the
thought finds the words”
 Frost was describing a miraculous and mysterious
process, namely the constant back and forth exchange
between words and thoughts.
 The establishing of this flow is one of school’s most
daunting demands.
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3.  Students struggle endlessly to get their thoughts
into words and just as often to use words to construct
their thoughts.
 That’s where the language system comes in.
 Language is a close partner of memory –
translating facts and ideas into words( especially their
own words) helps kids retain information.
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4.  Language even helps provide some internal control
over a child’s behaviour, it is known that talking
through conflicts or temptations, using inner voices,
often prevents a child from being rash or lashing out.
 Verbal demands intrude on less obvious academic
territories as well. For eg, using words bolsters
mathematical understanding, especially when
combined with visualisation.
 Language even gets into the game
when it comes to sports – understanding
a coach’s rapid fire commands makes demands on our
language systems.
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5. Automatic versus Literate Language
 Automatic English is the English spoken at the bus
stop, in the staff room, and at the mall. “Hey, like, I’m
gonna chill out instead of goin’ to the party, like,
whatever yaar”. It is the English of everyday banter
and interpersonal dealings.
 Literate language, on the other hand, includes
sophisticated classroom talk as well as academic
reading and writing; it’s the verbal ‘craftsmanship’
and ‘showmanship’ that is exhibited when one is
studying or expounding upon concepts like “due
process” or ‘energy resources”.
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6.  Needless to say, Literate language is harder work.
 Often it is decontextualised, that is, removed from
everyday familiar background settings, dealing,
for eg, with major differences between the last four
Chinese dynasties rather than, “what I most like to do
on weekends.’
 Often ‘fluent’ speakers are mistaken as having no
language problems. But, despite being so articulate in
‘automatic language’, they might still have virtually
no ‘literate language’.
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7.  For eg – when a child with literate language
dysfunction is asked to read this sentence ‘Linda’s
dog chased the kitten and ran away” – and
when asked, who ran away, are apt to say – the
kitten.
 Since children with weak literate language have
difficulty with sentence comprehension, there is
confusion when asked to respond to an instruction
such as :Put a circle around the small X that is
farthest away from the small square.
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8.  Often, then, children with language problems start
tuning out of the academic program and look as
if they have attention deficits.
 Attention needs to be nurtured and such children’s
attention controls are tuned off by language.
 Children with literate language dysfunction may
initially go undetected but the discrepancies
become increasingly conspicuous in middle and
secondary school.
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9. Concrete versus Abstract Language
 Concrete language has meaning that comes
directly from our senses. It portrays things we can
picture, feel, smell or hear. The words “cat”,
“perfume”, “spiciness” and “noisy”
are all concrete words.
 Abstract language, on the other hand, is language
that can’t be deciphered directly through a sensory
pathway. It includes words like “elite”,”irony”,
“symbolism” and “sportsmanship” – terms resistant
to instant visualization.
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10.  As children advance through school, an increasing
share of the language inflow is abstract, disconnected
from immediate sensory transmission. Thus, students
experience severe academic stress as words and
sentences become less concrete.
 Mounting levels of abstract terminology pervade the
sciences, literature, and mathematics. That
commonly leads to a decline in the grades of many
students with language dysfunctions.
 Students can be encouraged to keep a
personal dictionary of the tough abstract terms and
review them periodically.
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11. Receptive versus Expressive Language
 Receptive language comprises a child’s
understanding of verbal communication
( spoken or written ) This would include her ease at
understanding the moral of a story or get a friend’s
pun.
 Expressive language is the language production,
the means of translating thoughts into words,
sentences and more extended messages. This
happens when a student has an idea and has to put it
into sharp words during a debate.
 Receptive language is the stuff of reading.
Expressive language is ‘writing’s code’. 11

12. Language levels – Word Meanings
( Semantics )
 What are the differences between an equilateral or
isosceles triangle? What is an adverb? What does
refraction and reflection mean?
 Such questions reverberate from the walls of every
classroom every day, as teachers pound away at the
meaning of key words, which, in turn, provide access
to critical knowledge.
 Semantics is the knowledge
or study of word meanings.
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13.  Some of the heaviest sprays of new words occur
during preschool ( ages 2 to 5 ) and then in high school.
 Academically successful students do not necessarily
have larger vocabularies than their classmates.
 What really differentiates many top students is that
they know the meanings of the words better
than other students. They may learn the meaning
of ‘altruism’ and rather than simply memorizing its
definition, they note that the word represents a form of
kindness and that it is related to charity. They may
also note that altruism is the opposite of selfishness.
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14.  It is common to encounter neurodevelopmental
dysfunctions that seem to blunt or stunt word
meanings for certain students.
 Parents should be suspicious when an elementary
school child uses only everyday high frequency
words and does not seem to be incorporating in her
speech the kinds of vocabulary she is learning in the
school.
 As the child progresses, learning a foreign language
may present serious problems, as trouble acquiring
vocabulary in your first language portends
even more difficulty trying to do so in a
second language
( English as a foreign
language ) 14

15. Strategies :
 To help students expand their semantic
capacities, adults can include:
 Crossword puzzles
 Word games
 Semantic maps A d j e c t i v e w it h S o m e t im e s S to r ie s w it h
‘w ild .....c h a s e ’ p a ir e d w it h ‘s illy ’ w o rd “m o th e r’
K in d o f b ir d T h e w o rd R e la te d to
a n d w a te rfo w l “g o o se ” duck/sw an
S o m e t im e s a C o m p o u n d w ith
n o t s o n ic e v e rb ‘b u m p s ’ ‘s te p s ’
 Word meanings become greatly enhanced
when they are embedded in context.
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16. Language at the Sentence Level
( syntax )
 There is an important difference in meaning between
“ That boy who shoved Mary went tumbling
down the stairs” and “Mary, who was shoved by
that boy, went tumbling down the stairs.”
 The syntactic difference will determine which child will
require an X ray !!  Syntax refers to the effects
of word order meaning – which in turn is governed
by a complicated set of language laws – which we call
grammar or grammatical construction.
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17.  As students progress through school, sentences gain
weight steadily, acquiring what are called embedded
clauses which don’t necessarily remain constant.
 For eg – a noun closest to a verb does not have
to be the one acting on the verb ( The man
driving next to my sister skidded into the tree )
 The meaning of questions depends a lot on
the meaning of the first word ( Why is he visiting?
Whom is he visiting? Where will he visit?)
 Sentences can have more than one possible
meaning ( It is too hot to eat. She wondered how the
fish smells)
 Sentences can have figurative meanings ( She
went out on a limb for him )
 Sentences can be ironic ( You can have a ball
studying for chemistry quizzes ) 17

18.  Students differ widely in their ability to surmount these
linguistic hurdles.
 Imagine for instance, what is must be for a child who
has trouble understanding different kinds of
questions. He won’t be able respond t questions in
science not because he doesn’t know the
answers but because he cannot decipher the
questions – a frequent, scary, misunderstood
predicament.
 Students are exposed to a seemingly
arbitrary and threatening set of rules
that teachers refer to as ‘grammar’.
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19.  Some students with background language ability
are able to at times memorise the rules and benefit.
But then, some students find the rules totally
confusing, for as language progresses through the
years, these rules keep changing.
 Some are intuitive in their sense of sentence
construction – a sentence simply sounds right to
them.
 But there are those who have neither sentence
structure intuition nor a very good grasp of
the rules. They suffer a neurodevelopmental
dysfunction at the ‘sentence level’ of language.
They flounder at school as a result.
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20.  As students are expected to make use of higher
language, the demands at the ‘sentence level’ grow
more stringent. They have to draw ‘inferences’ –
they meet up with sentences that are ‘ironic’, that
express ‘a point of view’… higher order sentences
like these become a deflating ordeal for some
students.
 Here is a case in point between Dr Levine and Robin :
 Dr : Jim thinks Tom is good at sports. Is Tom good at sports ?
 Robin : Yup ( should have been ‘maybe’)
 Dr : Maybe the band would have played last night if the drummer
hadn’t quit. Did the band play last night?
 Robin : Maybe ( ‘No’ is the right answer )
 Dr : Mary and Sue love to play with each other every night after
school. But each night, before going to bed, they keep arguing and
fighting. How do Mary and Sue know each other?
( what might you answer to this question?) 20

21.  When asked to make a sentence using the words
‘walk’, ‘road’ and ‘until’, he finally said ,”Walk the
road until I tell you to.” Thus, both the building
of sentences and interpretation were a problem
with him.
 Interestingly, Robin had no language difficulty till grade
2. In fact, he was at the top reading level in his
class. That was because he had no problem with
phonological awareness and visual memory.
But when complex sentences were introduced in grade
3 and 4 , he was sunk ! This means that language
problems may emerge at any point along the way
as verbal demands intensify,and different
languages become accentuated in the curriculum.
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22. Strategies :
 Reinforce by giving ‘key words’ and getting students
to make sentences with them.
 Read to the students – one or two sentence jokes
 Puns
 Riddles and absurdities…
…and ask them to explain them
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23. Language in Big Chunks - Discourse
 Understanding discourse calls for active working
memory. Readers and listeners need to remember
what they are interpreting while in the process of
reading or listening to it.
 They have to be able to extract meaning from a
particular sentence without forgetting the
information or events that led up to it.
 Discourse has its expressive side. Students
should be able to go beyond the dispersal of
simple phrases or sentences while speaking
or writing.
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24.  Speakers need to make use of a kind of verbal
organisation where they need to sequence their
ideas in the best possible order.
 They need to think about topic sentences, concluding
sentences, and appropriate sequencing of their
thinking.
 Not surprisingly, students who harbour
neurodevelopmental dysfunctions at the discourse
level of language are unlikely ever to be caught
reading for pleasure !
 They become bored and restless when expected to
finish a novel or listen to a prolonged
explanation in class.
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25. Challenges of language production
 Effective oral serves an abundance of purposes. For
one thing, it correlates highly with writing skill.
 Quite understandably, “If you don’t talk so good,
it might be you’d not write too good neither.”
 Children with expressive language problems come up
with communication barriers at home and at school.
They need plenty of practice. They need to build
up their language ‘muscles’.
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26.  They should be encouraged to tell a lot of stories
and describe experiences, even if it is hard for
them.
 In school, they need opportunities to make oral
presentations, especially on topics that excite them.
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27. Two languages
 Most often children who fare poorly with second
language harbor ( knowingly or unknowingly )
neurodevelopmental dysfunctions in their first
language.
 A child who has never fully managed to absorb
completely the phonology, semantics, or sentence
construction in his native language is likely to
encounter even more serious problems doing so in
English.
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28.  In many cases with bilingual children, it is best to
stress English in school and work hard on the
language levels while maintaining for at least
a portion of each day the native language for
everyday conversation at home.
 English speaking children with language dysfunctions
should postpone foreign language learning
until they show substantial progress in
English.
 In fact, it is fair to say that you shouldn’t be
speaking a second language until you are
reading and writing well in the first one. 28

29.  Incidentally, the myth abounds that very young
children pick up foreign languages faster than do
middle or high school learners.
 This is not the case !!
 In fact, several recent studies have shown that 14
year olds learn foreign languages much faster and
more effectively than do 5 or 6 year olds.
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30. Keeping a watchful eye…
 Oral language needs to blossom progressively in all
children – and we can help it along through rich
verbal interactions.
 Children should be encouraged to elaborate, speak
in full sentences, avoiding conversational deterrents
like,”stuff’,”thing” and “whatever”.
 Parents should be mindful to what extent a child’s
entertainment and recreational life is monopolized by
visual motor ecstasy and non verbal activities.
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31.  Children need to see their parents reading, and they
need to be read to as early as possible.
 Children can benefit from language oriented out-of-
school entertainment such as scrabble, crossword
puzzles and word building games.
 Keeping a diary is another good way to promote
language skills.
 All students need to work on their summarization
skills - since this works as a perfect bridge between
memory and language.
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