Ways parents and teachers can hold conversations about language with children

Kia ora tatou,

Before the holidays I promised to discuss ways in which we as parents and teachers can hold conversations about language with our children. You will recall that the implications of Krashen’s monitor hypothesis were that the learner needs to be cognitively engaged in their language learning, in other words they need to be thinking about how the language works and how they go about learning it.

So how can we hold these conversations?

The sorts of things we can do are essentially discussing with our children how words work and what they mean. A conversation might go like this,

“Hey, that man just said, ‘What a dog!’ but he didn’t have a dog. What on earth did he mean? ”

“I think he meant his car because it cost a lot of money but doesn’t go very well.”

“Ok, but why does it have to be a dog, dogs aren’t useless!”

“Maybe he thought his car would be a race horse and so he was disappointed when it performed more like a dog.”

The discussion covers issues about how we use language in metaphorical ways, and critical thinking about whether that metaphor is fair inviting the learner to practice making moral judgements.

Other possibilities are discussing what happens if a word is changed:

“What would happen if we had said his car was something else? What could we say?”

“How about calling his car a bomb?”

“ Well, does it explode?”

“No but…”

And we can discuss what we do with language:

“Anyway if we had said his car is ‘da bomb’ we would mean something different wouldn’t we?”

“Yep, that would mean it’s really good.”

“How come?”

Metaphor is a good subject too. We use metaphor all the time to talk about abstract ideas. For

instance when we launch a new project we are comparing the project with a ship, and when we say, “I have to fly” we are trying to compare our speed with a bird’s.

The next step is to invite the student to think about how they might say that in their other language. The reason for this is that metaphors are not translatable word for word. In Maori a proposal is matted (put on the mat), in English it would be tabled.

Similarly in English we might say that words flow as if they were a river, in Maori they fly and so does a river a current and clouds. Finding out where words come from and how they are constructed is a very interesting area.

“What is the connection between telescope and telephone?

What other words are made with tele? What is the connection between signing ones name and the sign on the wall?”

“What happens when we turn sign into signage, or friend into friendship? How do we do that in Maori/Samoan/French? What does adding whaka do to a Maori word, or fa’a to a Samoan?”

Lots of opportunity for discussion. I’m sure that you will find plenty of others. I forgot to say, there aren’t right answers. It’s the thinking that counts, that is what helps develop the learner’s internal set of rules about language.

Happy chatting.

Noho ora mai na,

Chris