How children acquiring first language

How children acquiring first language

By Azys Syaiful Anwar

Children have natural ability to learn new things, especially language. The first language that a child acquired is the mother tongue. According to Wendy A. Scot and Lisbeth H. Ytreberg (1990:3), the adult world and the child’s world are not the same. Children, in this case children from five to seven years old, do not always understand what adults are talking about and Adults do not always understand what children are talking about. The difference is that adult usually find out by asking question, but children do not always ask. It means that children observe, analyze, learn the meaning of a word and try to imitate to speak. Through this way, children can master a language.

As a simple example, I have analyzed the language development of a child, Fariz Ahza Bahtiar (1.5 years old). I obtain the data by observing Fariz for his latest language development and also interviewing Fariz’s parents to get some information about the language development of Fariz in the past. Based on the observation, I can tabulate the research report in this following table.

Age (Month)	Speaking ability
7	At this age, Fariz cannot speak any words but he can understand if his mother calls his name. He tries to search the sound source location.
1 2	Fariz is able to speak one syllable words, such as “wah”, “pak”, “ba”, “bu”. He can imitate the word spoken by his mother by saying one syllable of the word, for example when his mother ask a question to Fariz, such as “Dik, Fariz pipis?”, then Fariz imitates his mother by saying “pis”.
18	Fariz has able to speak two syllable words, such as “abuk”, “mimik”, “cucu”. At this stage, Fariz words can be understood. At least, his mother can identify the words spoken by Fariz.

Reading:

Scott, Wendy A. and H. Ytreberg, Lisbeth. 1990. Teaching English to Children. New York: Longman