The document summarizes Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky's theories of language acquisition in children. Piaget believed that language develops through four stages of cognitive development, with acquisition linked to a child's mental understanding. Vygotsky emphasized the social aspects of language learning and proposed the Zone of Proximal Development, describing a child's potential when assisted by others. Both theorists contributed to understanding how children's thinking and language abilities emerge over time.

1. PAINT ME A PICTURE!
1. Reading
2. Peek-a-Boo
3. Debate
4. Essay Writing
5. Exploring the Environment
6. Singing and Dancing
7. Storytelling

2. COGNITIVE LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION THEORIES
ENG 104

3. I. A brief introduction to cognitivism
II. Language acquisition theory by Jean Piaget
III. Language acquisition theory by LevVygotsky

4. • Emerged as a response to Behaviorism
• Focused on the inner mental activies of human beings to understand how people
learn
• Behaviorists saw humans as programmed animals, cognitivists viewed them as
rational beings.
• Language acquisition is viewed in light of the child’s cognitive development

5. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
THEORY BY JEAN PIAGET

6. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORY BY JEAN PIAGET
• Langauge acqusition for Piaget is a mental and emotional process.
• Piaget linked the development of language in a child to child’s cognitive development.
• He believed that a child must have the understanding of a concept before he can
verbalize it.
• For example, if a child says,“This car is bigger than that one,” he must have the concept
of size in his mind before commnenting.

7. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORY BY JEAN PIAGET
• According to Piaget, children learn their initial rational constructs through the
environment i.e. by interaction with other people.
• Children develop language through a combination of schemas (concept for
how to act and respond to the world).
• As these schemas gradually develop and become more complex in the mind,
language and vocabulary progress in order for the child to handle new schemas.

8. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
• Piaget was the first to say that children reason and think differently at different
stages in their life.
• He believed that all children universally progresses through four (4) different
and distinct stages of cognitive development.
• Language in children developed gradually as they move onto the next stage.

9. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
• The four (4) stages of development Piaget proposed are:
1. Sensorimotor Stage
2. Preoperational Stage
3. Concrete Operational Stage
4. Formal Operational Stage

10. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
1. Sensorimotor Stage
• Begins at birth and continues up to about age 2.
• Children learn about physical objects and are concerned with motor skills.
• When children in this stage see a new object they shake it, throw it, chew it
or put it in their mouth simply to understand the characteristics of the object.

11. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
1. Sensorimotor Stage
• This stage is marked with concept formation.
• Around age 1, children learn the concept of object permanence i.e. an object
continues to exist for the children even if it is out of their sight.
• No linguistic development is seen at this stage except for babbling and cooing.

12. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
1. Sensorimotor Stage
Activities:
a. Reading - can help them develop a love for language and improve listening skills (pointing to
pictures or repeating simple words.
b. Singing and Rhyming - can help infants develop language skills by exposing them to new
words and sounds. Rhyming activities can also help infants and toddlers learn about
phonetics and sound patterns
c. Peek-a-Boo - infants learn to anticipate and respond with laughter & excitement, while also
learning new words and facial expressions.
d. Exploring the Environment - explore and interact with their surroundings
e. Imitating Sounds and Gestures - repeating simple sounds and gestures such as clapping, waving, or
blowing kisses, and encouraging infants to imitate them

13. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
2. Preoperational Stage
• This stage begins around age 2 and goes up to age 6 or 7.
• This stage is marked by language acquisition and children develop ability to
think of symbols and forms words from ideas and vice versa.
• Children also begin to understand concepts of time and space and of addition
and subtraction.

14. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
2. Preoperational Stage
• Children in this stage focus more on concrete physical situations and have
difficulty in handling abstract concepts.
• Still language for children at this stage is less. Having verbose conversations with
children is not going to help.
• Children at this stage start recognizing shapes and words ascribed to the shapes.

15. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
2. Preoperational Stage
• Activities:
a. Storytelling - vocabulary, comprehension, memory skills
b. Role-Playing - act out different scenarios, use new vocabulary, and practice
language skills
c. Singing and Dancing - learn new words, phrases, and sentence structures,
remember information and improve pronunciation and intonation

16. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
2. Preoperational Stage
• Activities:
d. Games - develop vocabulary, comprehension, and problem-solving skills
e.Art and Crafts - learn new words related to colors, shapes, and materials

17. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
2. Preoperational Stage
• Thus, preoperational children benefit from activities that
stimulate their imagination, engage their senses, and promote
interaction with others.These activities can help enhance
their language acquisition skills and prepare them for the next
stage of cognitive development.

18. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
3. Concrete Operations Stage
• This stage begins around age 6 or 7 and goes up to age 11 or 12.
• Children at this stage are able to group things in logical order according to their
names, numbers, or sizes.
• Children develop a much more logical and reasonable language system.
• They begin to understand the concepts of other people as well as convey their own ideas
and views.

19. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
3. Concrete Operations Stage
• The children also begin to understand much complex abstract things such as
mathematics problem solving.
• Yet at this stage a child can do mental operations but only with real concrete
objects, events or situations.

20. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
3. Concrete Operations Stage
Activities:
a. Debate - It helps develop logical thinking skills, and improve ability to present arguments and defend
their positions. It also provides an opportunity to learn vocabulary and improve speaking and listening
skills.
b. Jigsaw Puzzle - they learn to identify and match shapes, sizes, and colors, while also developing their
problem-solving and critical thinking skills
c. Word Games - crossword puzzles, word searches, scrabble (vocabulary, spelling, and language skills)

21. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
3. Concrete Operations Stage
Activities:
d.Writing activities - jounaling, letter writing, storytelling can help improve their writing skills and
encourage them to express their skills and encourage them to express their thought and ideas.These
activities also provide an opportunity for children to learn new words and practice sentence structure
and grammar.
e. Role-Playing - acting out a play or playing a board game can help children improve their language skills
by encouraging them to use new vocabulary, phrases, and sentence structures in context.

22. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
3. Concrete Operations Stage
• In conclusion, activities that promote critical thinking, problem-solving, and language
use in context can promote language acquisition in the concrete operations stage.
These activities can help children develop their vocabulary, comprehension, and
commuication skills, setting the foundation for future academic and personal success.

23. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
4. Formal Operations Stage
• The final stage which begins from around age 11 or 12 and goes up to age 15.
• Many new capabilities are developed in a child at this stage.
• A child is able to use language fully by the end of this stage and is able to provide
reasons logically.
• This stage is marked with the child thinking and communicating in a more adult-
like manner.

24. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
4. Formal Operations Stage
• The language system in children of this stage is developed completely except for
those children who suffer from autism or some other mental dysfunction.
• The child at this stage has the concepts as well as the language to support the
concept he has.
• This stage can be referred to as the linguistic maturation stage.

25. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
4. Formal Operations Stage
Activities:
a. Socratic dialogue - encourages participants to examine and question their own
beliefs and assumptions (develop critical thinking and reasoning skills while also
improving their ability to express themselves clearly and persuasively)
b. Essay Writing - help students develop their writing and communictaion skills.
Through this, students can explore complex topics, develop own ideas and
opinions, and learn how to express those ideas in a clear and organized manner

26. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
4. Formal Operations Stage
Activities:
c. Debating - encourages students to examine multiple perspectives on an issue and
to present and defend their own views, helps students develop critical; thinking
and reasoning skills while also improving ability to express clearly and persuasively
d. Creative writing - poetry writing, short story writing, or playwriting (develop
imagination & creativity while also improving writing skills, explore complex ideas
and express in new and innovative ways)

27. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
4. Formal Operations Stage
Activities:
e. Research Project - helps students develop their critical thinking, problem-solving,
and communication skills.Through this, students can learn to evaluate information,
analyze data, and present their findings in a clear and organized manner.

28. PIAGET’S STAGE THEORY
4. Formal Operations Stage
• In conclusion, activities that encourage critical thinking, reasoning, and
communication skills can promote language acquisition in the the formal
operations stage.These activities can help students develop their vocabulary,
comprehension, and communication skills, setting the foundation for success in
academics, careers, and personal relationships.

29. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORY BY JEAN PIAGET
• Overall, Piaget argued that language basically represents a skill of symbolic
representation gradually acquired through the stages of cognitive development.
• Piaget’s view is in contrast of Chomsky’s theory of Universal Grammer stating
that a general mechanism in human brain accounts for language acquisition;
which he believed is far too complex to be acquired simply through experience
and general cognitive processes.

30. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORY BY JEAN PIAGET
• Piaget believes that a child learns language by actively participating in the
learning process.
• He was of the view that adults should assist the child by providing appropriate props and
vocabulary suiting the child’s interest in order to facilitate the learning.
• Piaget recommended that adults should not intervene in the learning process without
necessity.

31. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORY BY JEAN PIAGET
• It is evident that Piaget’s theory suggests some link between cognitive
development and language acquisition and also explains the order in which
certain aspects of language are acquired.
• But...
• Piaget’s theory does not explain why language emerges in the first place.

32. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
THEORY BY
LEV VYGOTSKY

33. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORY BY LEV VYGOTSKY
• Vygotsky was of the view that language a system of symbolic representation
which had been perfected over many generations.
• He believed language came into three (3) categories, which were Social,
Egocentric, and Inner.
• For him, language was a tool which made thinking a possiblity and which
differentiated between thinking at an elementary level and on a higher level.

34. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORY BY LEV VYGOTSKY
Origins of thought and language ...
• Vygotsky proposed the theory that thought and speech have different roots in
mankind.
• Thought is non-verbal and speech is non-intellectual at an early stage of development.
• He said that the developmental lines for thought and language are not parallel and
that they across each other again and again.

35. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORY BY LEV VYGOTSKY
Origins of thought and language ...
• From birth to age of two (2), the development lines run separate but at the age of
two, they join together to initiate a new form of behavior where thought becomes
verbal and speech becomes logical.
• Initially a child’s language appears surface level conversation but at some point later in
it becomes the structure of the child’s thought.

36. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORY BY LEV VYGOTSKY
Word meaning and concept formation
• When a child realizes that everything in the world has a name, he faces problem when
something nameless and new is present to him.
• He himself names the object then but when he, the child, is unable to find any name
for the new object, he asks it from the adults.
• These early word-meanings from the roots of concept formation in the child’s mind.

37. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORY BY LEV VYGOTSKY
Vygotsky’s social constructivism
• According toVygostky, all fundamental cognitive abilities develop in light is social history
and context.
• This means that a child’s thought patterns and cognitive skills are not primarily determined
by innate factors but the products of the activities a child practices in the society.
• In this process language is a crucial tool which determines how a child learns to think
because more novel thoughts are transmitted to the child by means of words.

38. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORY BY LEV VYGOTSKY
Thought and language, and intellectual development
• Vygostky believed that in order to understand intellectual development, one must
understand the interrelations between language and thought.
• Language for him is not merely an expression of the knowledge a child has but there
is a relation between thought and speech, providing resource to otehr i.e. language is
essential for thought formation.

39. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORY BY LEV VYGOTSKY
Zone of Proximal Development
• It is the difference between the child’s capacity to solve problems on his own and his
capacity to solve the problems with assistance.
• It can also be defined as denoting the distance between what a child actually knows
and what the child can learn under supervision of an adult or peer.

40. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORY BY LEV VYGOTSKY
Zone of Proximal Development
• The ZPD includes all the fuctions and the activities that a child or learner can perform
only with the assistance of someone else.
• The assistant can be an adult-like parent or teacher or it can be another peer who has
already mastered that ability.

41. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORY BY LEV VYGOTSKY
Vygotsky’s theory in contrast with Piaget’s theory
• Vygotsky criticized Piaget’s assumption that developmental growth is independent of
experience and based on a universal characteristic of stages.
• Vygostky believed that characteristics didn’t cease at a certain point but when one
thing was learned, it was used from then onwards.

42. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION THEORY BY LEV VYGOTSKY
Vygotsky’s theory in contrast with Piaget’s theory
• Vygotsky criticized that Piaget’s thepry didn’t have any major factor after age 15.
• Another important fact to notice is that Piaget’s theory does not apply to children
with disabilities, for a child suffering from autism or some brain dysfunction will not be
able to go through all of Piaget’s stages.