EARLY YEAR SETTING AND CHILDREN

Early Year Setting and Children

THE IMPACT OF EARLY YEARS SETTING ON THE LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY OF CHILDREN

Introduction

The children are among the most cherished resources for any country. It is important that the children be provided the chance to develop themselves into productive and healthy citizens, who can contribute towards the betterment of the society. In UK, there are numerous children who study English as an additional language or English as a secondary language, because their mother tongue is not English, and the fact that they have not grown up in an environment, where English was spoken as a primary language. The development of such children in the early stages is a combination of success & failure. The early year setting has a huge impact on the development of identity and language of such children, and this thing affects their performance throughout their life. In UK, the academic performance of such children is good, but it is still lagging behind as compared to a number of developed countries. According to an estimate, roughly two hundred thousand children every year are assorted as disabled for learning, because of their inability to adopt English as an additional language. The early year setting of the children includes a number of things, like the environment the children are providing to the children, etc.

Discussion

The skill to interact in more than one language is a huge asset for any person, especially for a child. However, in some conditions this thing becomes necessary when the child is living in a country like UK, and does not have English as his/her other tongue. In such a case, it becomes necessary for a child to learn English to survive in the society. These children are inclined to grow a much better vocabulary as compared to other children of their age, and these children are more knowledgeable, when it comes to the fact that how different words are related to each other, etc. (Dickinson & Smith 1994 pp. 104)

We have to keep in mind that children learn language through their interactions with their elders, and through observing others to communicate. The early settings include the parents, teachers, caregivers, family members and peers are among those who play an important role in promoting children's language development. Children learn a language better from those who are fluent in that language. This is because they are exposed to a richer variety of words and well-formed sentences. Language development always occurs in the same sequence - first receptive language, then expressive language.

Researches around the globe have shown that there is a substantial correlation between the development of children's identity and language skills, and the early year's settings, in which their parents have brought them up. Whilst the concept of early years setting consist of a large number of inter-mingled and inter-dependent variables, all of these variables have an impact on the development of the children in one way or the other, however, people usually ignore the concept of physical surrounding ...