Chapter-9 Reflection (Language I: Introduction to Language and Language Comprehension)

1. How does this topic fit into what I have learned already in this course?

Language comprehension utilizes almost all cognitive processes I have learned so far. It starts with perception in chapter 2 in visual and auditory as well as attention and consciousness: when we start with perception in visual and auditory, we start with first reading or listening to a word or a letter to be able to comprehend. When we come to attention, we either have to use selective or divided attention when we hear a word. Consciousness is how we perceive the world around us this has major contribution on how we comprehend a word or a sentence. Language comprehension also utilizes working and long-term memory to understand what we read with working memory aiding current reading and long-term memory aiding what we know from the past to attach the new information. When we come to mental imagery, we try to picture or draw a diagram in our minds what we read to help us comprehend; and with general knowledge, our organized knowledge about the world assist us in comprehending what we are reading or listening. So language comprehension utilizes almost all of cognitive processes we’ve covered so far.

2. What am I still not clear on in this week's reading(s)?

When the author talked about whole-word-approach and phonics approach, children trained with phonics approach are better spellers than children trained with whole- word approach. I have seen children memorize words from dictionaries when getting ready to compete in spelling competition. No matter which approach they were trained they still have to study words and their special cases where some sounds are silenced, I can’t really see the difference at an older age.

3. Under what conditions would I apply this material to my own teaching/work?

Language does not necessarily have to be spoken language like English, Chinese; language can be different in psychology, medical, technical. For example: if we are in the health care environment and you are not familiar with most of the words that health care professionals talk about then we don’t speak the language same goes for technical terms in computer applications; if I have to train students about SharePoint document library and picture library; they would have to be familiar with the language of this environment such as SharePoint, document library, picture library, permission setting, uploading, read only, full control and so on. Even though the language spoken in the training is English, and two or three words are used, it can easily confuse students. The cognitive processes used in the above practice are perceptual processes visual and auditory recognition: first encounter with the words and visual description of the application displayed, working memory: to make a sense of what’s being said, Long-term memory: to retain information in the future after they are familiar with them, general knowledge: knowledge about computers, applications that would help them relate the current lesson.