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Name Ruth Ann Dapkus Topic Language Observation Assignment.

Dialogue My thoughts

Syntax

Donald: (Sits down at the table while his father goes to the

refrigerator and gets some juice and gives him a cup)

Father: What did you do? Where did you go?

Donald: Umm…I don’t know.

Father: Yes you do.

Donald: I goed get ice cream

Father: Yes, you went to get ice cream. You went after your

sister’s recital didn’t you?

Donald: Yes I saw him pop out of the water.

Father: You saw who pop out of the water?

Donald: The fireman

Father: Did you see a fireman at your church?

Donald: Yes, they popping out of the water.

Father: Popping out of the water at Church?

Donald understands that phrases and sentences usually go together

in a certain way. He over generalizes this here and does make some

syntax errors when he says “I goed get ice cream. I think he

understands what he is saying however.

He might not be understanding the suffix and he adds the -ed just

has he might have heard other words where adults added an –ing or

and –ed.

Donald is still getting to know what basic language patterns are.

At some points in the conversation it was hard to understand Donald

because he was stopping to sip his juice or he just wasn’t very clear

in general.

His father tried to illicit more information from him about what

happened at the church around the time of the recital.

Background: (Observation Context) Donald is 3 years and 10 months old. I observed him having a conversation with his father after getting home from a church event Sunday evening. He was sitting at the kitchen table with his juice cup.

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Donald: (nods his head) Yes…

Semantics

Father: So there was a firetruck at church?

Donald: See I..I’d spray it…I want to be a fireman.

Father: You want to be a fireman?

Donald: Yeah

Father: You do? I thought you said you wanted to be a

doctor?

Donald: Noh, I want to be a fireman.

Father: Oh, I thought you wanted to be a truck driver?

Donald: (chews on his juice cup)

Father: Or…do you want to drive a firetruck?

Donald: Oh...(smiles)..firetruck!

Father: Firetruck (smiles)...Do you want to be the guy who

climbs up the fire ladder?

Donald: Umm yes, I want to get a hose.

It was hard to identify all of the words he was saying but I believe

he was talking about a play he saw and relating it to how much he

liked firemen.

According to Jalongo semantics is “mastering of the meaning

system” (pg. 67). I believe Donald is trying to do this when he’s

describing the fireman and what he does. A fireman uses a hose. He

has also seen firetrucks before and plays with them. His father also

appears to know this about him.

Donald produces the word ‘fireman’ when he sees someone with a

hose. Jalongo describes this as the “production of meaningful

utterances” (pg. 67). Donald is trying to label something by adding

more and more detail. He might know that there are sets of words

that describe a fireman. He seems to know some of the words that

describe a fireman.

The conversation about the fireman continues as his father asks him

more questions and engages him about this topic.

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.

Pragmatics

Father: What are you going to do with the hose?

Donald: Spray all the water, all all clean.

Father: What would that look like? Show me what that would

look like?

Donald: I gnna, css I, I would…I would climb up the

building

Father: You would climb up the building?

Donald: Yas,(drinks his juice) silence

Father: Wouldn’t that be scary?

Donald: No it’s not.(shakes his head)…I climb up the ladder.

Father: cool!

Donald:…………………………….conversation

continues…Donald gets more juice from the refrigerator.

In the beginning just describing the fireman and firetruck Donald is

telling a story but not in a sequential way. The parts of the story are

out of place.

Also, here when he describes “Spray all the water, all, all clean” he

is telling him about a story but not in its traditional sequence like an

adult would.

He is trying to tell his story here. There is a silence here and Donald

drinks his juice and stays quiet for a short time. It is a long pause

followed by drinking juice pausing and drinking juice again with

another short pause.

His father then continues his questions.

*I like the way in which his father is continually asking him

questions and having him clarify. It helps Donald want to try and get

his point across. He seems to feel involved in the conversation.

There are also some syntax errors here when he says “I climb up the

ladder” instead of “I would climb up the ladder”.

Graphophonics

Donald: Comes back to the table and sits down.

Father: Donald, do you like French fries?

Donald: Urm, yes I do.

“The emotional tone in his voice changes when he gives a command

or asks himself a question” (Jalongo pg. 71).

There seemed to be a break in thought here but Donald was still

talking about food and what he liked. He knew he liked chocolate

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Graphophonics

(cont.)

Father: How do they taste?

Donald: Good….There’s chocolate! (points across the

room)…chocolate

Father: Chocolate what?

Donald: Licous

Father: Delicious?

Donald: (pause)…yeah

Father: Can you say delicious?

Donald: (takes a big sip of his juice) silence…

Father: Hmm … but you know what it means don’t you?

Donald: (drinking)

Father: How’s your juice?

Donald: Good...ahhh…A friend at church…’papa’

Father: Mmm hmm

Donald: A friend at church, I played with Steven.

Father: What did you and Steven do?

Donald: Just played football.

and approximately where it was located in the kitchen.

Donald raised his voice when he said “There’s chocolate”

Donald focused on the ‘l’ in ‘delicious’ in his recollection of the

word instead of the whole word including its beginning ‘de-‘ I

thought this was interesting. He stressed ‘licious’ and then paused

and said “yeah”.

There are many different sounds that make up the word ‘delicious’

and he was figuring out how to say them and put them together from

what he had heard.

I don’t know what Donald’s writing is like but I suspect his idea of

the word ‘delicious’ would definitely affect how he writes the word

if he’s still pronouncing it ‘Licious’.

Donald is very talkative and wants to express himself. He truly

appeared to be enjoying the conversation

Donald had an emotional ‘tone’ in his voice and “the amount of

vibration in his vocal cords changed too” (Jalongo 2013) he was

accentuating that he was pleased with his cup of juice.

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Observation Overview:

Donald was a very thoughtful and purposeful speaker.

He exudes confidence and tries to articulate with

much detail when he his talking. His syntax is

developing. Donald tries to provide information and

does so successfully regardless of his use of correct

sounds when speaking. I feel that he could work on

enunciation. His speech doesn’t’ really reflect a clear

grasp or understanding of noun, verb, adjective,

adverb et cetera. He also doesn’t necessarily

understand word ordering but he is trying to put these

together.

Donald’s semantics shows he’s trying to relate new

words and prior knowledge. For example his

descriptions of firemen and fireman related objects

and tools. He is drawing on his overall knowledge and

what he’s already learned about firemen and

firetrucks. He seems to be interweaving what he

knows and what he’s seen to what he’s describing to

his father about a specific story or event. Donald

knows what ‘water’ is and does as well as what it is

used for. He tries to relate it to what he knows about

what a fireman uses it for. In this way I feel he’s right

on target for building solid semantic skills.

Pragmatics continue to develop for Donald as well.

He understands that he needs to take turns in a

conversation but he also has moments of inexplicable

‘silence’. It is hard to tell if this is based on the

distractions of sitting at a table and using his cup

because he is thirsty or if he’s a bit hesitant or

confused about when he should respond to a question.

Learning Goal:

“Toddlers and 3-year-olds tend to use telegraphic speech, words

linked together without verb endings (e.g., -ed, -ing), articles (e.g.,

the, and), prepositions (e.g., on, in), and pronouns (e.g., I, she, him).

Jalongo, Mary R. (2013-09-17). Early Childhood Language Arts

(6th Edition) (Page 73). Pearson HE, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Donald would benefit from working on his syntax or his

understanding of how the language works. It would help him to

work on this now even before he starts school. When most kids start

school their syntactic development is already in place. Donald is

only three and a half and not quite there yet but syntax exercises

would be a big help for him. He made errors in his syntax (e.g., “I

goed to get ice cream.”) but his father asked to clarify. He appears to

get confused with the word parts that change the meaning of the

words. For example –s, -ing, -ed in the suffix are morphemes. They

change the ‘tense’ and the meaning of the word. My Czech ELL’s in

the primary school I taught at also had this issue. This was due to

different word order patterns in different languages. It is sometimes

challenging to grasp even in one’s native language. It is amazing

how this develops.

Language Activity:

1.) A syntax activity I used with my young ESL students was

writing out a sentence on the board or a piece of paper that is in the

wrong order such as “I brown have a dog”. I would then read the

sentence, have them read the sentence and ask them if this was

correct. Since syntax deals with ‘word order’ so it helped them

recognize what the correct order was. For example, “I have a brown

dog” was the correct order. There would be many different

examples of sentences like this. In large groups I had a pile of cards

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He also does not necessarily use ‘sequential order’

when talking or telling a story. Although, all of the

things he ‘is’ talking about seem to relate somehow to

the basic premise of the conversation.

Graphophonics: He uses voice inflection when saying

sounds like ‘hmm’ or ‘umm’ as well as gasping

‘ahhhh’ after he drinks a sip of juice. Sometimes he

does “switch to a higher pitch” when reflecting on

foods or words he likes or wants to convey an

emphasis to. It was difficult to pick up a lot of

Donald’s graphophonics except when he stressed a

certain word like ‘licious’ which was the wrong

pronunciation. He was still trying to stress the

importance of the word in his vocabulary. I believe he

thoroughly understood the meaning which is what is

important. He can always work on enunciating as well

as word pronunciation. Overall, I was very impressed

with Donald’s language development. There is of

course room for improvement that would help him

along the way to English language acquisition as he

develops into a native speaker.

with the sentences written out. Then I had a pile of cut up notes

where they could replace or ‘move around’ the words like “brown,

dog, a” and put them in the correct order. This exercise also works

well with small white boards. This might be more age appropriate

activity for primary schoolers.

2.) Developing a sense of where an object is at might also benefit

Donald. For example, over, under, next too et cetera. This can be

done with virtually any medium. In my classes I used pictures of

‘pancakes’ or a piece of plastic fruit, even a stuffed animal. I asked

them where the ‘hippo’ is for example, with the small table in our

classroom. The kids would respond with “under the table” or “on

the table” and it built an awareness of where the hippo is and what

he is doing.

This can also be extended into a ‘read aloud’ activity and included

in a story about the Hippo. Yesterday, the hungry hippo ‘went’ to

school. He went to the store. He ‘went’ to the cinema….et cetera. I

also used to have my students draw pictures of what the hungry

hippo did in one day. It works on sequential awareness and is a fun

activity that they can color, draw and even act out. The pictures are

saved and then they can use them to re-tell the story in their own

words to the class. It also incorporates various mediums and makes

it fun for them instead of drilling grammar.

*For Donald finding content he likes is essential to keeping him

interested. It would be highly beneficial to find a story about a

fireman, read it aloud and have him describe what the fireman did.

For example “he went to a fire” ….He “went up a tree”, He “went to

the fire station” et cetera. Content based subject matter will help

engage him.

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Book suggestions for Donald’s ‘read aloud’ and story re-telling:

Retrieved from:

http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2012/03/books-

about-firefighters-fire-trucks.html

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060214767/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=notifoflca-

20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0060214767

Retrieved from:

http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2012/03/books-about-

firefighters-fire-trucks.html

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0670035033/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=notifoflca-

20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0670035033

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Works Cited:

Jalongo, M. (2000). Understanding Language Development

in Early Childhood. In Early childhood language

arts (2nd ed., pp. 70-88). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

References:

Brown, M., & Slobodkina, E. (1993). The little fireman (New

ed.). New York: HarperCollins.

Hamilton, K., & Davis, R. (2005). Firefighters to the rescue!

(Imagination Library ed.). New York, N.Y.: Viking.

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