The Stages of Language Acquisition for ELLs

April 1, 2021 | English Language Learners

Language acquisition is perhaps the most important education goal of any English language learner (ELL). In order to
ensure ELLs are on track, it’s crucial parents and teachers understand the stages of language acquisition for ELLs and
how they differ from the stages of first language acquisition. Let’s take a deeper look at the stages as well as techniques
for teaching at every step of the way.

Stages of First Language Acquisition

When we talk about ELL stages of language acquisition, a common point of reference is the stages of first language
acquisition that nearly all babies go through. While the two processes differ significantly, having an understanding of
how children learn a language is key to ELL success.

PRE-TALKING

This stage takes place from birth to around six months of age. During this time, the child does not speak, but is beginning
to understand short words and phrases that are central to their needs and interests.

BABBLING

The babbling phase occurs from around six to eight months old. In this phase, the infant begins to “babble” and makes
noises and syllables that are not yet words. Physically, teeth begin to appear and the muscles in the mouth required for
speech begin to develop.

HOLOPHRASTIC

The holophrastic stage is significantly longer, occurring between nine and eighteen months old. During this phase, the
infant begins to learn and speak single words. In the beginning, these words are strongly centered around basic needs
and interests as well as names or identifiers like “mama” and “dada.”

TWO-WORD

This stage takes place from eighteen to twenty-four months old. Once children have developed single word speech, they
begin to pair groups of words together into mini-sentences and phrases like “I want” or “give me.”

TELEGRAPHIC

The telegraphic stage takes place from two to three years old. Over time, children begin to expand their two-word
phrases into short sentences. They also begin to utilize lexical morphemes to make the words they use fit the sentence.
For example, they understand to use the plural “boys” instead of “boy” when referring to a group of boys.

MULTIWORD

Past the age of three, most children fall into the multiword stage. In this final stage of language acquisition, children now
learn to use functional morphemes to change the meaning of the words they use. Examples include the words but, in,
the, and that.

A boy raises his hand during a virtual class.

The Stages of Second Language Acquisition

Now that we’ve reviewed the basic structure of first language acquisition, let’s take a look at the four stages of language
acquisition for ELL students. Much like with first language acquisition, there are general time periods associated with
each stage.
However, these guidelines are much looser than those for first language acquisition and can differ greatly based on how
immersed the child is in the new language. Every student is different and depending on these factors, some stages may
take longer or shorter than expected.

PRE-PRODUCTION

For ELLs, the pre-production stage or “silent period” occurs during the first six months of exposure to the language.
During this stage, students have no spoken English skills. They have minimal comprehension and listening skills and often
utilize gestures like nodding, pointing, and drawing to explain themselves. This stage is somewhat comparable to the
pre-talking and babbling stages of first language acquisition.

Teaching ELLs in their early English acquisition stages can be tricky. Here are a few tips to maximize learning and
comprehension during the early days:

Use simple prompts and questions, like “point to…” or “show me…”.

Provide visuals and/or realia to communicate whenever possible.

Demonstrate and practice classroom routines. Don’t assume that ELLs know the cultural norms or procedures for asking
for help, using classroom materials, or going to the bathroom.

Limit the amount of technology students are exposed to early on (and ask other teachers to do the same to provide
consistency) until students have an adequate understanding of procedures and policies for using computers and other
platforms.

Focus on repetition, especially with new vocabulary and concepts.

Get to know your students, the culture they come from, and the norms associated with their culture (e.g., in some
cultures it is inappropriate to make eye contact with a teacher).

EARLY PRODUCTION

Around six to twelve months after ELLs are regularly exposed to English, they will begin to use one- and two-word
English phrases. Depending on age, immersion, and the specific student, this stage can occur much sooner or take
longer. This is why it’s important to see the stages of language acquisition for ELLs as guidelines, not a hard and fast set
of benchmarks for students to follow precisely.

At this point, the ELL has absorbed thousands of words and has gained limited comprehension of the key words they
hear most and that are most important to them. As their comprehension increases, students begin to speak more and
will likely use only present tense nouns – a grammatical trademark of the phase.

Our tips for teaching ELLs in the early production stage include:

Build on strategies from the pre-production stage.

Ask yes/no questions and questions asking who, what, where, and when.

Provide sentence starters and framed sentences to encourage more complete thoughts.

Use students’ errors to better understand their learning and identify skills they have mastered and are struggling with.

Remind students that making mistakes is part of learning and totally okay.

A girl practices writing English at her desk.

SPEECH EMERGENCE

After one to three years of exposure to English, ELLs have developed significant comprehension and can read, write, and
understand simple sentences. They will continue to make new grammatical and pronunciation errors and will still
struggle with homophones, jokes, and cultural slang in conversation.

During the speech emergence stage, teachers should:

Ask longer-form questions with prompts like “why” and “how.”

Simplify language when teaching new concepts to allow students to focus on learning one thing at a time.

Explicitly teach language and writing structures alongside content and vocabulary.

Teach text organization and explore the similarities and differences between how your students’ cultures organize
sentences and thoughts.

Understand the difference between oral fluency and proficiency. ELLs may have mastered conversational English but
acquiring academic language can take far longer.

Begin to expose students to higher-order thinking and model appropriate language.

FLUENCY

Fluency can occur as early as three years but may take upwards of ten years or a lifetime depending on various factors.
However, most students eventually reach fluency or near-fluency with ongoing education. At this stage, they have
excellent comprehension, speech, and writing skills. They may still struggle with pronunciation depending on the age of
their initial exposure to English. However, it’s important to keep in mind that difficulty with pronunciation does not
equate with a lack of language comprehension.

While teaching ELLs during this stage may begin to feel like teaching native speakers, here are a few tactics and
strategies to keep in mind:

Language acquisition can vary across content areas. Continue to push students to achieve fluency especially in subjects
where they don’t naturally thrive.

ELLs still need extra support, like explicit instructions for navigating difficult texts and organizing thoughts and ideas
according to the content area.

Continue using visuals and strategies from earlier stages where possible for increased consistency.

Provide ELLs with opportunities to teach others and prove full understanding of the content in question.

What Are the Similarities Between First and Second Language Acquisition?

While there are significant differences between the stages of first language acquisition and the stages of language
acquisition for ELLs, there are also notable similarities.

In both, there are predictable stages. Not every student will progress at the same rate, but all ELLs will go through the
stages in the same order.

In both first and second language acquisition, there is a delay between comprehension and speech. In every stage,
children understand more than they can say or explain.

In both types of language acquisition, children may speak or comprehend better in low-pressure situations than in front
of the class. This is something we typically associate with ELLs but can be true for native speakers as well. Be sure to
provide students with a variety of ways to show their knowledge, rather than assuming they don’t understand because
they can’t communicate it in a specific way.
In both first and second language acquisition, children learn largely through making mistakes. Teaching resilience is
crucial to encourage students to continue to write and speak often despite the mistakes they make. Try modeling
resilience by making an effort to learn a few words from your students’ languages and demonstrating perseverance and
how you move forward after making a mistake.

A girl raises her hand during a virtual English lesson.

What Are the Differences Between First and Second Language Acquisition?

In addition to the similarities above, there are a number of significant differences seen in the stages of language
acquisition for ELLs. It is paramount that teachers understand these differences and how they impact learning.

ELLs have already built a foundation for language learning, whereas first language learners have not. This means ELLs will
likely pick up speech, reading, and writing faster if they are already competent at these skills in their native language.

Being fluent in a first language can both help and hinder children’s ability to learn a second language. Depending on their
native language, the grammatical structure may be completely different. In these cases, students may make more
grammatical errors than students whose native language is more similar to English. With first language acquisition, these
errors aren’t seen as much since children have no existing foundation for language in their minds.

ELLs are also expected to learn their second language much faster than their first. When acquiring a first language,
children have nearly twenty-four months before they are expected to speak two-word phrases. This timeline shrinks to
just twelve months for ELLs.

For many students, especially those getting used to a new home in a new country, twelve months simply isn’t enough
time to digest and comprehend a completely new language. Patience, compassion, and focusing on your students’
strengths rather than their weaknesses will create a more positive learning environment for ELLs.

Factors that Affect the

Stages of Language Acquisition for ELLs

So, how do students develop proficiency in a new language? Can they learn at any age and in any setting? The bottom
line is that any student can learn English in time with the proper resources. However, ELLs face unique challenges that
native speakers do not. Here are some of the foremost factors that affect the timeline and stages of language acquisition
for ELLs.

AGE

Age is a major factor in how fast ELLs learn and at what point they reach fluency. Learning a second language early while
the brain is still actively forming connections can help students learn more quickly. However, older ELLs have the
advantage of understanding grammar and how language works. They will likely learn grammar and pronunciation more
efficiently but will struggle with retention and vocabulary more than a younger ELL would.

IMMERSION LEVEL

Immersion level has a significant impact on the stages of language acquisition for ELLs. Students who have opportunities
to speak English not only at school but also at home will typically learn more efficiently than those only speaking English
at school.

This can especially affect speech over listening and comprehension. Nearly all ELLs will be exposed to six or seven hours
of listening to English each school day. But, for many ELLs, this can be mentally and emotionally exhausting, and they
may go in and out of active listening. Furthermore, they may only spend an hour actively speaking and conversing. In
these cases, speaking English in a comfortable environment at home (in manageable amounts) is crucial to their
language acquisition.
SETTING

Alongside immersion level, the settings in which ELLs learn matter greatly to their long-term fluency. Especially for older
learners, speaking and writing only in a classroom setting can limit their ability to achieve fluency.

Consider a world where you learned English only in a semi-formal classroom setting. You likely would never learn slang,
jokes, or more casual language. You might miss out on the finer details of speech like timing and tone of voice. Learning
in the classroom, at home, and out in the world is the best way for ELLs to achieve near-native fluency.

https://www.continentalpress.com/blog/language-acquisition-stages-ells/

Stages of Language Acquisition

There are four main stages of normal language acquisition: The babbling stage, the Holophrastic or one-word stage, the
two-word stage and the Telegraphic stage. These stages can be broken down even more into these smaller stages: pre-
production, early production, speech emergent, beginning fluency intermediate fluency and advanced fluency. On this
page I will be providing a summary of the four major stage of language acquisition.

Babbling

Within a few weeks of being born the baby begins to recognize it’s mothers’ voice. There are two sub-stages within this
period. The first occurs between birth – 8 months. Most of this stage involves the baby relating to its surroundings and
only during 5/6 – 8 month period does the baby begin using it’s vocals. As has been previously discussed babies learn by
imitation and the babbling stage is just that. During these months the baby hears sounds around them and tries to
reproduce them, albeit with limited success. The babies attempts at creating and experimenting with sounds is what we
call babbling. When the baby has been babbling for a few months it begins to relate the words or sounds it is making to
objects or things. This is the second sub-stage. From 8 months to 12 months the baby gains more and more control
over not only it’s vocal communication but physical communication as well, for example body language and gesturing.
Eventually when the baby uses both verbal and non-verbal means to communicate, only then does it move on to the
next stage of language acquisition.

Holophrastic / One-word stage

The second stage of language acquisition is the holophrastic or one word stage. This stage is characterized by one word
sentences. In this stage nouns make up around 50% of the infants vocabulary while verbs and modifiers make up around
30% and questions and negatives make up the rest. This one-word stage contains single word utterances such as “play”
for “I want to play now”. Infants use these sentence primarily to obtain things they want or need, but sometimes they
aren’t that obvious. For example a baby may cry or say “mama” when it purely wants attention. The infant is ready to
advance to the next stage when it can speak in successive one word sentences.

Two-Word Stage

The two word stage (as you may have guessed) is made of up primarily two word sentences. These sentences contain 1
word for the predicate and 1 word for the subject. For example “Doggie walk” for the sentence “The dog is being
walked.” During this stage we see the appearance of single modifiers e.g. “That dog”, two word questions e.g. “Mummy
eat?” and the addition of the suffix –ing onto words to describe something that is currently happening e.g. “Baby
Sleeping.”

Telegraphic Stage

The final stage of language acquisition is the telegraphic stage. This stage is named as it is because it is similar to what is
seen in a telegram; containing just enough information for the sentence to make sense. This stage contains many three
and four word sentences. Sometime during this stage the child begins to see the links between words and objects and
therefore overgeneralization comes in. Some examples of sentences in the telegraphic stage are “Mummy eat carrot”,
“What her name?” and “He is playing ball.” During this stage a child’s vocabulary expands from 50 words to up to 13,000
words. At the end of this stage the child starts to incorporate plurals, joining words and attempts to get a grip on tenses.

As a child’s grasp on language grows it may seem to us as though they just learn each part in a random order, but this is
not the case. There is a definite order of speech sounds. Children first start speaking vowels, starting with the rounded
mouthed sounds like “oo” and “aa”. After the vowels come the consonants, p, b, m, t, d, n, k and g. The consonants are
first because they are easier to pronounce then some of the others, for example ‘s’ and ‘z’ require specific tongue place
which children cannot do at that age.

As all human beings do, children will improvise something they cannot yet do. For example when children come across a
sound they cannot produce they replace it with a sound they can e.g. ‘Thoap” for “Soap” and “Wun” for “Run.” These
are just a few example of resourceful children are, even if in our eyes it is just cute.

Ppppppppppppppp

Introduction

Language acquisition is a process that can happen at any point in human life. However, when we talk about the first
language acquisition by a child, we refer to the process or way by which children learn their native language. (Learn
about the nativist theory of language acquisition)

Learning a new language can be extremely difficult, but yet you look at little children that are not yet five and they have
already mastered most of the grammar of their native language. Children learn their native language without being
taught the rules of grammar by their parents or guardians. Also, parents themselves do not consciously know the many
rules of grammar. So how do children acquire language?

Blabbing

A baby begins to recognize its mother’s voice within a few weeks of being born. Within this period, there are two sub-
stages. The first stage occurs between the time of birth to 8 months. In this stage, the baby learns about its surroundings
and doesn’t begin to use its vocals until the fifth or sixth month, down to the eighth month. During this time the baby
hears sounds around it and tries to imitate them to little success. This attempt at creating and experimenting with sound
is what we refer to as blabbing.

After blabbing for a few months, the baby begins to relate the sounds or words it is making to objects or things. This is
where the second sub-stage begins. From eight months to 13 months, the baby continues to gain control over not just
its vocal communication but also its physical condition. Afterward, the baby begins to use both verbal and non-verbal
means to interact with its environment. This is when the baby moves to the next level of language acquisition.

Holophrastic/ One-word stage

The one-word or holophrastic stage is the second stage of language acquisition. In this stage, the child begins to make
one-word sentences. In the Holophrastic stage, nouns make up fifty percent of the child’s vocabulary while verbs and
modifiers make up about thirty percent. The remaining twenty percent is made up of questions and negatives.

In this stage, children use one-word sentences to obtain the things they need or want. However, most of the time, they
are not obvious. For example, a child will cry “mama” when it just wants attention. Once the baby can speak in
successive in one-word sentences, then the baby is ready for the next stage.

Two-word Stage

Just as it implies, the two-word stage is made up of primarily two-word sentences. The sentences in this stage contain
one word for the predicate and another word for the subject. For instance, “Doggie eat” for the sentence, “The dog is
eating.” In this stage, we see the appearance of single modifiers e.g “That book”, two-word questions. For example, ”
Daddy sleep?”.
Telegraphic Stage

This stage is the final stage of language acquisition. This stage is called “telegraphic” because it is similar to what is seen
in a telegram; having just enough information for the sentence to make sense. In this stage, the child’s sentences
contain many three to four words. During this stage, there are certain times the child begins to see the links between
the words and objects, and therefore, over-generalization comes in.

Here are some examples of sentences in the telegraphic stage “what his name?”, “Mummy eat apple” and “She is
dancing.” In this stage, the child’s vocabulary increases from fifty to over thirteen thousand words. Towards the end of
the stage, the child will begin to make attempts to get a grip on tense by incorporating plurals and joining words.

In many ways, a child’s grasp on language seems as though the child just learns each part in a random order, but this is
far from true. There is a particular order of speech sounds. Children begin by speaking vowels with the rounded “oo”
and “as”. The consonants come after the vowels. Examples of the consonants include p, b, m, t, d, n, k, and g. These
consonants come first because they are easier to pronounce than some of the others e.g ‘s’ and ‘z’. This is because the
‘s’ and ‘z’ require specific tongue placement which children are unable to do at that age.

Like all human beings, children will improvise something they are unable to do. For example, when they come across a
sound they find difficult to pronounce, they will replace it with a sound they can produce.

Stages of Language Acquisition

By Andy Xavier

November 12, 2020

https://www.scientific-editing.info/blog/stages-of-language-acquisition/

Pppp

Stages of Language Acquisition

Researchers define language acquisition into two categories: first-language acquisition and second-language acquisition.
First-language acquisition is a universal process regardless of home language. Babies listen to the sounds around them,
begin to imitate them, and eventually start producing words. Second-language acquisition assumes knowledge in a first
language and encompasses the process an individual goes through as he or she learns the elements of a new language,
such as vocabulary, phonological components, grammatical structures, and writing systems.

The Six Stages of Second-Language Acquisition

Pre-production This is also called "the silent period," when the student takes in the new language but does not speak it.
This period often lasts six weeks or longer, depending on the individual.

Early production The individual begins to speak using short words and sentences, but the emphasis is still on
listening and absorbing the new language. There will be many errors in the early production stage.

Speech Emergent Speech becomes more frequent, words and sentences are longer, but the individual still relies
heavily on context clues and familiar topics. Vocabulary continues to increase and errors begin to decrease, especially in
common or repeated interactions.

Beginning Fluency Speech is fairly fluent in social situations with minimal errors. New contexts and academic
language are challenging and the individual will struggle to express themselves due to gaps in vocabulary and
appropriate phrases.
Intermediate Fluency Communicating in the second language is fluent, especially in social language situations. The
individual is able to speak almost fluently in new situations or in academic areas, but there will be gaps in vocabulary
knowledge and some unknown expressions. There are very few errors, and the individual is able to demonstrate higher
order thinking skills in the second language such as offering an opinion or analyzing a problem.

Advanced Fluency The individual communicates fluently in all contexts and can maneuver successfully in new
contexts and when exposed to new academic information. At this stage, the individual may still have an accent and use
idiomatic expressions incorrectly at times, but the individual is essentially fluent and comfortable communicating in the
second language.

How long does it take for a language learner to go through these stages? Just as in any other learning situation, it
depends on the individual. One of the major contributors to accelerated second language learning is the strength of first
language skills. Language researchers such as Jim Cummins, Catherine Snow, Lily Wong Filmore and Stephen Krashen
have studied this topic in a variety of ways for many years. The general consensus is that it takes between five to seven
years for an individual to achieve advanced fluency. This generally applies to individuals who have strong first language
and literacy skills. If an individual has not fully developed first language and literacy skills, it may take between seven to
ten years to reach advanced fluency. It is very important to note that every ELL student comes with his or her own
unique language and education background, and this will have an impact on their English learning process.

Language Acquisition: An Overview

By

Kristina Robertson, Karen Ford

https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/language-acquisition-overview

Stages of language acquisition in children

In nearly all cases, children's language development follows a predictable sequence. However, there is a great deal of
variation in the age at which children reach a given milestone. Furthermore, each child's development is usually
characterized by gradual acquisition of particular abilities: thus "correct" use of English verbal inflection will emerge over
a period of a year or more, starting from a stage where vebal inflections are always left out, and ending in a stage where
they are nearly always used correctly.

There are also many different ways to characterize the developmental sequence. On the production side, one way to
name the stages is as follows, focusing primarily on the unfolding of lexical and syntactic knowledge:

Stage
Vocalizations in the first year of life

At birth, the infant vocal tract is in some ways more like that of an ape than that of an adult human. Compare the
diagram of the infant vocal tract shown on the left to diagrams of adult human and ape.

In particular, the tip of the velum reaches or overlaps with the tip of the epiglottis. As the infant grows, the tract
gradually reshapes itself in the adult pattern.

During the first two months of life, infant vocalizations are mainly expressions of discomfort (crying and fussing), along
with sounds produced as a by-product of reflexive or vegetative actions such as coughing, sucking, swallowing and
burping. There are some nonreflexive, nondistress sounds produced with a lowered velum and a closed or nearly closed
mouth, giving the impression of a syllabic nasal or a nasalized vowel.

During the period from about 2-4 months, infants begin making "comfort sounds", typically in response to pleasurable
interaction with a caregiver. The earliest comfort sounds may be grunts or sighs, with later versions being more vowel-
like "coos". The vocal tract is held in a fixed position. Initially comfort sounds are brief and produced in isolation, but
later appear in series separated by glottal stops. Laughter appears around 4 months.

During the period from 4-7 months, infants typically engage in "vocal play", manipulating pitch (to produce "squeals"
and "growls"), loudness (producing "yells"), and also manipulating tract closures to produce friction noises, nasal
murmurs, "raspberries" and "snorts".

At about seven months, "canonical babbling" appears: infants start to make extended sounds that are chopped up
rhythmically by oral articulations into syllable-like sequences, opening and closing their jaws, lips and tongue. The range
of sounds produced are heard as stop-like and glide-like. Fricatives, affricates and liquids are more rarely heard, and
clusters are even rarer. Vowels tend to be low and open, at least in the beginning.

Repeated sequences are often produced, such as [bababa] or [nanana], as well as "variegated" sequences in which the
characteristics of the consonant-like articulations are varied. The variegated sequences are initially rare and become
more common later on.

Both vocal play and babbling are produced more often in interactions with caregivers, but infants will also produce them
when they are alone.

No other animal does anything like babbling. It has often been hypothesized that vocal play and babbling have the
function of "practicing" speech-like gestures, helping the infant to gain control of the motor systems involved, and to
learn the acoustical consequences of different gestures.

One word (holophrastic) stage

At about ten months, infants start to utter recognizable words. Some word-like vocalizations that do not correlate well
with words in the local language may consistently be used by particular infants to express particular emotional states:
one infant is reported to have used to express pleasure, and another is said to have used to express "distress or
discomfort". For the most part, recognizable words are used in a context that seems to involve naming: "duck" while the
child hits a toy duck off the edge of the bath; "sweep" while the child sweeps with a broom; "car" while the child looks
out of the living room window at cars moving on the street below; "papa" when the child hears the doorbell.

Young children often use words in ways that are too narrow or too broad: "bottle" used only for plastic bottles; "teddy"
used only for a particular bear; "dog" used for lambs, cats, and cows as well as dogs; "kick" used for pushing and for
wing-flapping as well as for kicking. These underextensions and overextensions develop and change over time in an
individual child's usage.
Perception vs. production

Clever experiments have shown that most infants can give evidence (for instance, by gaze direction) of understanding
some words at the age of 4-9 months, often even before babbling begins. In fact, the development of phonological
abilities begins even earlier. Newborns can distinguish speech from non-speech, and can also distinguish among speech
sounds (e.g. [t] vs. [d] or [t] vs. [k]); within a couple of months of birth, infants can distinguish speech in their native
language from speech in other languages.

Early linguistic interaction with mothers, fathers and other caregivers is almost certainly important in establishing and
consolidating these early abilities, long before the child is giving any indication of language abilities.

Rate of vocabulary development

In the beginning, infants add active vocabulary somewhat gradually. Here are measures of active vocabulary
development in two studies. The Nelson study was based on diaries kept by mothers of all of their children's utterances,
while the Fenson study is based on asking mothers to check words on a list to indicate which they think their child
produces.

There is often a spurt of vocabulary acquisition during the second year. Early words are acquired at a rate of 1-3 per
week (as measured by production diaries); in many cases the rate may suddenly increase to 8-10 new words per week,
after 40 or so words have been learned. However, some children show a more steady rate of acquisition during these
early stages. The rate of vocabulary acquisition definitely does accelerate in the third year and beyond: a plausible
estimate would be an average of 10 words a day during pre-school and elementary school years.

https://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Fall_2019/ling001/acquisition.html

1. The Prelinguistic Stage

The prelinguistic stage ranges from birth to approximately 6 months. Noises in this stage include crying, whimpering,
and cooing. These sounds are not considered language because they are involuntary responses to stimuli. Linguists
consider human language creative – as free from internal or external stimuli. Since these noises do not fit within the
definition of language, this stage occurs before language is produced by the child. It is, therefore, the prelinguistic stage.

During this stage, babies’ vocal tracts are more like an animal’s than an adult human’s. The larynx is high, there is no
pharynx, and the epiglottis and velum can be in contact with each other. Additionally, the velum cannot firmly close off
nasal cavity, so all sounds are nasalized. The tongue fills the entire mouth and is controlled by external muscles. Extrinsic
muscle control of the tongue only allows the tongue to be "shoved" in and out, up and down, as a whole. Some
muscular contractions of the tongue itself are possible, but tongue body constrictions are the only ones that can be
produced. This accounts for nature of (early cooing).

One development in the ability to produce sounds seems to occur in this stage. At about two months, infants seem to be
able to coo voluntarily, whereas previously they were only able to make sounds involuntarily.

Even though infants can’t produce linguistic sounds, they can perceive them. This stage might more appropriately be
called the pre-production stage. Infants alter their sucking patterns when presented with a phonetic distinction in
sounds. The alteration in sucking shows an awareness of the change in sound, but infants do not seem to attach
meaning to the changes in sounds. They only register that they notice them. This awareness is exhibited as early as one
month old.

Infants can differentiate between sounds that are allophones in a language that adult speakers of that language have
learned to ignore, such as [p] and [ph].

http://web.mnstate.edu/houtsli/tesl551/LangAcq/page1.htm

2. The Babbling Stage

The babbling stage begins at approximately 6 months of age and continues until a child is about one year old. One key
development leading to babbling occurs during the prelinguistic stage; around 4 months of age, larynx starts to drop,
creating pharyngeal cavity. Once the larynx has dropped, more varied constrictions can be formed, which leads to a new
stage of vocal play or babbling.

The child is also more able to raise and lower the jaw. A lower jaw also lowers the tongue, creating the possibility of
more vowels. Raising the jaw allows for more lip and tongue tip constrictions.

Source: http://sapir.ling.yale.edu/ling165/

2 Types of Babbling May Occur:

Repetitive babbling - same syllable in each successive cycle

Variegated babbling - variation in syllables in successive cycles

Text from http://sapir.ling.yale.edu/ling165/

Universality of the Babbling Inventory

Essentially, all children use the same sounds when they babble, no matter what the language around them is. "The
consonants that occur with substantial frequency in the babbling of infants, regardless of language environment (Locke,
1983) are:

/b/ /d/ /g/ /p/ /t/ /k/ /m/ /n/ /w/ /j/ /h/

Vowels in babbled syllables tend to be low front:" /æ/ "or central:" /a/.

The universality of babbling makes sense when you realize that the easiest way to make a sound is to simply open and
close the mouth. It is not surprising that stops will be highly prevalent in the inventory since they are produced by
closing the oral cavity, which happens when closing the mouth occurs. The rest of the difference between the stops is
where in the mouth the tongue contacts the other parts of the vocal tract. For example, depending on whether a child
rests the tongue on the bottom of the mouth behind the lower teeth or whether it rests in the middle just behind the
front teeth accounts for the difference in the production of bilabial and alveolar sounds in babbling. All the child has to
do is open and close the mouth, and different sounds will be made.

Think of the words (we'll use English here) that we use to refer to many baby items and caretakers:

Baba (bottle)

Mama (mother)

Nana (grandmother)

Papa (father)

Dada (daddy)

These utterances show repetitive babbling of the low central vowel with stop consonants. Now add the high back round
vowel:

Bubu (hurt)

Mumu

Nunu

Pupu (poopoo)

Dudu (doodoo)

These utterances also show repetitive babbling, but with a different vowel sound. The two different syllables can be
mixed together:

Mami (mommy)

Papi (Poppy, often used for grandfather)

Pupi (poopy)

These utterances show variegated babbling.

And we’re back to Baby Talk. Baby talk has two different meanings:

It is the way that babies themselves talk, and when baby talk is used with this meaning, it refers in particular to the
babbling stage and the first words stage of language acquisition, universal stages for all infants in all languages.

It is the way that adults talk when they talk to babies. When baby talk is used with this meaning, it captures the fact that
adults accommodate their speaking style to that of the child. They help the child attach meaning to their utterances by
using the same utterances with the meaning attached.

Even deaf children babble.The hand gestures of deaf children occur in repetitive patterns the way that the babbling of
hearing children repeats. Deaf children babble in sounds, too, but it seems different than the babbling of hearing
children.
In other words, deaf children babble in sign language and just make noises with their mouths. Hearing children babble
with their mouths, and just make gestures with their hands. For hearing children, language is produced with the mouth,
and extralinguistic communication with the hands. For deaf children, language is produced with the hands and
extralinguistic communication with the mouth.

The Perception of Language

During the Babbling Stage infants begin to ignore/lose the ability to distinguish between the sounds of their parents’
(caretakers’) language and other sounds.

They respond only to sounds that are the language distinctions of their parents’ (caretakers’) language.

In other words, prelinguistic Korean infants respond to the difference between [l] and [r]; children in Arabic
environments do the same with [p] and [b]; children in Spanish environments the same with [i] and [I]. But in the
babbling stage, they no longer respond to the difference, treating both sounds the same.

Remember that this starts at about 6 months of age; the early disappearance of awareness of phonetic distinctions has
great implications for second language learning and pronunciation and lends support to the critical period hypothesis for
first language acquisition.

http://web.mnstate.edu/houtsli/tesl551/LangAcq/page2.htm

3. The First Words Stage

Stage 3, the First Words Stage,starts at about one year and continues for approximately 6 to 12 months (up to
approximately age 1-1/2 or 2 years old).

This stage is also referred to as the Holophrastic Stage because a "one word = one sentence" pattern seems to exist in
the utterances produced by the child. Babbling may overlap with the production of the first words, and indeed the first
words often exhibit the same structure as babbled syllables, with a CV (consonant-vowel) syllable used as a word.
However, at this stage, meaning is attached to the syllables produced by a child, and this characteristic distinguishes a
babble from a word.

Examples of some first words include:

[no]

[da] (dog)

[ma] (mom)

[dæ] (dad).
The words produced are primarily noun-like (e.g. [da] (dog), [ma] (mom)) with verbs second (e.g. [go]) and adjectives
[ha] (hot)) third. Words also include displeasure/rejection words (e.g. [no]). Words include social interaction words (e.g
[bai bai] (bye-bye) [nai nai] (night-night)).

As children begin to produce utterances that count as words, they continue to develop their abilities to produce more
and more individual sound segments. The sounds they produce are typically sounds in the language of their
environment, and they add to their repertoire in a systematic way.

Developmental order of sounds articulated:

1. The full range of vowels in the native language is produced before the full range of consonants

2. Consonants are typically added in the following sequence of manner (exampls of sounds in each category come from
English): Nasals [m] [n] [ŋ], Glides [w] [j], Stops [p] [b] [t] [d] [k] [g], Liquids [l] [ɹ], Fricatives [f] [v] [s] [z], Affricates[tʃ] [dʒ]

3. Consonants are typically added in a front to back order of place, with certain front sounds being delayed: labials
(sounds produced with the lips) come first, then alveolars (sounds produced just behind the teeth), then velars (sounds
prodcued near the back of the roof of the mouth), then alveopalatals (sounds produced behind the teeth and a little
further back). Interdentals (sounds produced by placing the tongue between the teeth) come last.

4. New contrasts generally show up in the initial position first. That is, when a child adds a new sound segment to his/her
repertoire, he/she uses it as the first sound in a word, then puts it in other positions later (i.e., in the middle or at the
end of a word).

Children can perceive more sound segments than they can produce. As a result, they will often substitute one sound for
another in their own utterances. The substitutions or alterations they make are systematic in nature; they will always
use the same sound as a substitute for their intended sound, such as always using [w] for [l], producing [wajk] instead of
[lajk] for like. The substitutions and alterations make articulation easier until they can develop more control over the
vocal tract. As control develops, more sounds are added and a vocabulary is constructed.

http://web.mnstate.edu/houtsli/tesl551/LangAcq/page3.htm

Stage 4: The Two Word Stage

The Two Word stage normally begins at around 18-24 months (1½ or 2 years) and continues for
several months, perhaps shifting into the next stage at about 2½ years old.
During this stage children continue to increase the repertoire of sounds and vocabulary they can
produce according to the order of development that was begun in earlier stages. Some notable
benchmarks and features in the production of language in this stage include:

 11 consonant sounds are typically included, the specific sounds depending on the native
language being acquired.
  A vocabulary of 50 or more words marks the beginning of this stage, with more words being
added.
 Clear syntactic and semantic relations begin to appear, but not syntactic or morphological
markers.
 There are no inflectional affixes and pronouns are rare.

Since the linguistic nature of the child's utterances is now unmistakeable, it is interesting to note
how meaning is attached to the utterances, for although they are clearly linguistic in nature with
meaning attached, they are still unlike the utterances of adult native speakers. The utterances are
different because they lack full syntactic markings and because the limited vocabulary size is
insufficient to capture an adult perspective of the world. What is uncertain, however, is whether the
child's perspective is constrained by the lack of vocabulary or whether the size of the vocabulary is
constrained by the childish perspective. (Note the interrelationship of language and thought in this
conundrum; you should be able to see both the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and Vygotsky's theory
here.)
The pictures and captions below capture some of the details and provide examples of the
thought/language conundrums present during this stage.
An utterance can carry more than one meaning
because of the absence of syntactic and
morphological markings. The word order of the
two words matches the word order an adult
might use, but for the child, the same two words
in the same order could have more than one
meaning. The full meaning must be derived from
the context in which the words are uttered.

Example: Mommy sock can mean Mommy is

putting my sock on my foot, or There is mommy’s
sock.

Words are associated with meaning in several

ways, and each way displays a limited
vocabulary/perspective:

a) Whole Object: A word refers to the whole

object, not to any of its parts or to any of its
attributes. Does this mean that a child doesn't break
down objects into individual parts at this stage of
cognitive development? Very possibly.

Example: sheep will not
mean white or woolly or leg.
 b) Type: A word may be used to refer to the type
of thing, not a particular thing. This could be a
kind of overgeneralization or overextension. That
is, the child might misunderstand the meaning of
the word sheep and think it refers to all animals. It
could also be that the child doesn't perceive the
individual variations betwen two types of animals
and conceptually lumps them all together. Or it
could be that a child simply doesn't know the
words for all the different kinds of animals and
makes do with the name of another one.

Example: A child may take sheep to mean any

animal, not just that particular kind of animal.
Overextensions may not be a misunderstanding of a word on a child's part, but may be a compensatory
technique to overcome vocabulary limitations. The process of overextending a word's meaning plugs a
hole until the child can learn the proper word.

Example: If it's alive, and non-human, it's a sheep!

Sheep! Sheep! Sheep! Sheep! Sheep!

Underextension may also occur. In underextension, a child doesn't use a word for enough particular
cases. It's the opposite of overextension where a child uses a word for too many different cases.

Example of underextension: Kitty might mean the family cat, but not other cats.

Underextensions may occur because a general word (like kitty) is almost taken as a name, not as a word.
It could also be related to the prototype concept of word meaning. The prototype theory suggests that
people have mental concepts of a word's meaning and attach a word to the concept. The concept is
developed through interaction with the world. If the family pet is what a child interacts with, but it is
unusual, then a child might not see the word for the family cat as appropriate to another cat that lacks the
unusual features of the source of the concept.

 Exa
mple: If this is what kitty means in your house, what would you use
 to call the animal in the picture on the right?
Image from: http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/dialect-dangerous-to-cats/

c) Basic level assumption: a word refers to

types of objects that are alike in basic ways.
Adults will recognize a child's meaning even
when an incorrect word is used (from the adult's
perspective) because the word used by the child
will share the same basic features as the word an
adult would use. If a child doesn't know the
word for an animal, he/she will likely choose the
word for soemthing else that is alive and moves
around.

Example: sheep might be taken to mean any

animal, but probably won’t be taken to
mean rose or flower.

Thus, Disney's Bambi is

example of first language

Copyright © : Walt Disney

Contextual clues are extrememly important for attaching meaning in this stage. An adult may need
to follow a child's gaze or their pointing in order to determine the exact meaning of an utterance.
Or an adult might need to observe what the child is doing in order to determine the meaning of the
utterance. Likewise, a child in this stage needs to use the context to make sense of what an adult is
saying.
http://web.mnstate.edu/houtsli/tesl551/LangAcq/page4.htm

5. The Telegraphic Stage

The Telegraphic stage occurs around the age of 2 1/2 years.

In this stage, children begin stringing more than two words together, perhaps three or four or five at a time. However,
the style of speaking children use in this stage resembles the way of writing that used to be used in telegrams. That’s
why this stage is called telegraphic. In the past, every word in a telegram cost money, so people used to write the
shortest possible messages to save money. For example, to send the message "We arrived in Paris on Monday,"
someone might write "Arrived Paris Monday." Function words (pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions) and even
grammatical morphemes (-ed) are typically absent.

Articulation of sounds continues to develop in order described in earlier stages. 20 consonants are articulated, and all
vowels are articulated by approximatey 3 years of age. All vocabulary development processes continue, and more
words are added. Utterances exhibit phrase structure, that is, they tend to follow the grammatical rules of the language.

6. Beyond The Telegraphic Stage

The Beyond Telegraphic stage begins around the age of 3 years and continues into fully developed language skills.

Vocabulary development continues, including its strategies of overextension. In fact, a similar pattern of
overgeneralization is used for morpheme development: -ed, meaning past, shows up in such utterances as goed, or
putted. Derivational affixes and compounding show up early in this stage: age 3 or 4. Inversion in questions comes in
later.

To conclude, children go through approximately six different stages in learning their native language.

The next question is, "When are they finished?" That is, "When can we say that a child has learned language?"

The End of the Acquisition Process

One answer to the question is that a child has acquired language by six years of age.
This makes sense if you think about it. One reason we traditionally send kids off to school at age six is because they now
have enough language to manage on their own. There are, of course, other developmental milestones that have also
been reached (such as toilet training), allowing a child of six to manage away from regular caretakers, but an important
benchmark is the language level that they have reached.

And what do we teach kids about language at school?

Think of the three Rs:

Reading
'Riting
‘Rithmetic
Children learn to read and write: to correlate the sounds and words of the language to the written symbols for them.
That means they already have the sound system and know the essential words of the language. They already have all
the language skills that can be learned through the natural process of first langauge acquisition.
A second answer is never.

Consider the following point of the argument for this answer:

Even adults keep adding to their vocabularies. One of the hallmarks of the college years is a tremendous increase in
vocabulary. Of course, if a person doesn’t attend college, the increase is not as significant. So the vocabulary increase
may not be tied to age so much as to the college experience.

Nevertheless, the human brain continues to develop until about age 25, and if Vygotsky is correct in describing a
codevelopment of thought and language, why wouldn't we expect continued development of language until age 25? Of
course, Vygotsky describes the situation as more of the intertwining of language and thought, which is a rather different
from ongoing development.

Still, we should also consider that language is a system comprising phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and
pragmatics. In the discussions of the stages given so far, focus has been given to these categories except pragmatics. Dr.
John Madden (personal communication) has suggested that further language acquisition stages deal more with
pragmatics than with some of the other linguistic areas.

And so the debate continues. However, for the moment, the age of six can be taken as a key age in the attainment of
language skills. A child of six can fairly readily be said to be able to speak, something that is not as clear for young
children, whose language use is often described with mitigating terms such as "She's just starting to talk." or "He knows
some words." Rarely would one look at a six-year-old and ask the parent, "Can he talk yet?" It's not even a question that
comes to one's mind, since most children of this age can not only talk but can also talk just fine.

Teaching Language
The fact that there is a relationship between age and language development suggests that the age of the learner is an
important factor in language teaching.

The fact that language development begins as early as birth suggests that even preschool environments shouldn’t
ignore language, especially spoken language.
The question arises whether learning a second language is the same as or different than learning a first.
The question also arises whether learning two languages at the same time follows the same developmental patterns in
the same time frame.
These issues and questions form the basis of methods of teaching language and differentiate L2 teaching from L1
teaching.

http://web.mnstate.edu/houtsli/tesl551/LangAcq/page5.htm

Modals of Prohibition
Finally, in order to show that something is prohibited or not allowed, we use “must not.” For example:

Students must not copy their work from the Internet. It's illegal!

Children, you must not go in a stranger's car. It's dangerous!

Using “must not” is very serious and not very common in North American English. There is no question form or past
tense form. It is useful when people in authority are giving instructions or explaining to people what they must not do in
a formal way. It is more common in writing than in speaking.

Drivers must not drive on the left side of the road in North America.

You mustn't drink alcohol before you drive. You could cause an accident.

You ________ unplug the computer while it is turned on.

? mustn't
? don't have to
You ________ buy the text book for this course -- you can borrow mine.
? don't have to
? mustn't
This bus is free! You ________ buy a ticket.
? mustn't
? don't have to
You ________ pass a test to ride a bicycle.
? don't have to
? mustn't
Shops ________ sell cigarettes to children.
? don't have to
? mustn't
Canadians ________ get a visa to travel to the US.
? don't have to
? mustn't
In Canada, employers ________ discriminate against women or minorities. It's against the law.
? mustn't
? don't have to
You ________ smoke in a gas station.
? don't have to
? mustn't
You ________ be late for class, or the teacher will be angry.
? mustn't
? don't have to
You ________ live in Canada to study at the University of Victoria. You can take a course by Internet.
? don't have to
? mustn't

1. First, break some eggs into a bowl. Break them carefully. You   let any of the shell get into
the omelette!

2. Next, mix up the eggs. You   use a special food processor — mixing them with a fork is
fine.

3. Then, heat some oil in a pan. Olive oil is best, but you   use olive oil. You can use

ordinary corn oil if you want. You   let the oil get too hot, or it will start to burn.

4. Pour the egg mixture into the pan, and mix it a little.

5. When the egg mixture gets a little hard, fold it in half. It   be very hard — just enough
so that you can fold it.

6. After a couple of minutes, turn the omelette over. Be careful! You   break it.

7. When the omelette is cooked, serve it immediately. You   let it go cold, or it will taste
horrible.