Emily’s ecological system
The given diagram indicates Emily’s various environmental levels. This development is based on Bronfenner’s ecological systems theory. A child’s development takes place based on the interaction between the child and the surroundings. (Appendix B: Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of child development).
The most important factor which influences the development of a child is his/her family atmosphere. The diagram indicates that there are several levels in the environment. Among those different levels micro system is the innermost level. It directly impacts the development of the child. The ecological system of a child mainly includes family and the atmosphere on which it grows up. The next level is mesosystem. It comprises the other persons who keep close relationship with the child. The next layer is exosystem. The child does not have a direct relationship with this system. The outer most level is called macrosystem. It indicates the culture, laws and customs that the child lives with (Bronfenbrenner’s structure of environment). There is yet another level called chronosystem, which includes in either internal or external factors that influence the child. (Ryan).
Language Development
Language development in microsystem: Emily gets good support from her family. Her microsystem consists of her parents, elder brother, day-care and her neighbours. She gets language rich environment. Emily’s parents bought many comic and story books and they encouraged her for loud reading. Emily often tried to imitate her mother’s words.
Language development in the mesosystem: Emily gets a good atmosphere at school and is very close to her teachers. They also encourage her and promote her abilities in studies as well as in extracurricular activities. She also continues her reading habit because her parents and teachers support this. She had many friends and she always shares these stories with her friends.
Language development in the exosystem: Emily gets many good books from a library located near to her home. Emily and her mother visit this library once in two days and take books from there. Her mother also brings books from second hand shops for cheaper rates. Emily’s father presents books to her in all special days, like her birthday, and for all her success.
Language development in macrosystem: Australian laws give much preference for literacy development. There are some training in reading and writing from the kindergarten. In Addition, the Australian political system supports the development of reading and writing skills from primary school level. They allocate money in their budget for the libraries to distribute books without fees.
Additional language development: Emily has a lot of friends and peer groups. She spends time with them talking and playing games. Peer group talk is very effective for children’s language development and it acts as one of the powerful motivators to improve language learning. According to Berk (2003) co operative communication involves taking in what is being said, responding while keeping on the same topic and stating contributions clearly.
Promoting Emily’s language development and growth
Language development in children is closely related with the growth of the children. Daily life style obviously should have a clear influence in the language development process. Early childhood professionals need to develop knowledge about a child’s strengths, need and interests in order to determine experiences that are interesting and challenging to children (Aurther et al 1996). The initial stage of language development in child should begin from home, and parents are their first teachers. In the initial stage Emily learns every thing from her parents. Emily should also gain the capability to combine words. Teachers should encourage all the activities that contribute for the development of language. Emily should communicate with the pupils of the same age, tell them about her little discoveries and respond to their remarks. The aim in further development of any child is to formulate the children’s ideas; teachers and parents should encourage children’s usage of the language. (Tough 1976)
Social Development
Social Development in microsystem: Children always have an eagerness to learn new things. So, parents and teachers should help them in all possible ways. The Emily’s parents wished to see their daughter in top position. The children are going through different stages of development and throughout these stages they learn many things. Like other children, Emily also used to ask different queries to her parents and teachers. Emily is a fast learner.
Social Development in Mesosystem: The learning power and capacity of children will have great influence in their future life. The persons who interact with a child will have the strong influence in their development. Mostly children interact with their parents and teachers. Therefore, the parents and teachers are responsible for properly developing the power of learning in order to make it useful for future. The surroundings that children born and brought up will also have significant influence in their social, emotional and cultural development. “As children interact with their environment, they learn problem solving skills, critical thinking skills, and language skills.” (Jindrich, 1998).
Social development in exosystem: Learning problem solving skill is important in the mental development of children. Emily has the ability to find out her own solution for a given problem. She responded creatively in situations where creative thinking is required. The critical thinking skill involves the ability to make given thing or data in a particular order on different basis, ability to compare two objects…etc. Learning and developing adequate reasoning skill is important for the intellectual development of children. The parents and teachers have to train them well in order to sharpen their concentration skill. Emily has got good concentration skill, which is evident from her involvement in games.
Social Development in macrosystem: The social development of children is influenced by the culture, tradition…etc. Learning from experience is one of the best ways of learning. It is a commonly known fact that experience is the best teacher. Emily, when she touched the fire, learned a lesson that one should not touch the fire, because it may cause burn and pain. After this incident, she has never touched the fire. The culture prevailing in the particular place will influence children.
Additional social development: When the child goes on growing, he/she will be learning new things from the society. The Emily’s family and her teachers have a lot to contribute in her social development.
Promoting Emily’s language development and growth
Social development is also important in every child’s life. Social development includes learning how to co-operate with others, respect others, ability to work in a team…etc. So the parents and teachers should teach their children to cultivate the habits of co-operation, sharing mentality, respecting others…etc. When the children grow, they should be emotionally well developed. They should be in a position to do things independently. To make the children emotionally matured, the parents have to trust them and to appreciate their achievements. Emily starts her social life initially from the home and after that from the school. Her teachers had an important role in her social development. They try to develop her as a good social being.
Observation 1 – Language focus
Language is the main substance with the help of which children enter social life. Language skills children receive in early childhood. Lots of factors influence the formation of language skills.
Meaning 1
Emily uses the language according to definite purposes. Emily creates the language constructions in the presented situation (see appendix 2) in order to what she does (a process) and to explain the relation of a bat and the actions she does at the moment.
Meaning 2
Fleer in his article gives the reader their understating about personal, interpersonal and cultural institutional development of the child.
Personal foci of analyses – Emily and Lucy are both playing on the outdoor fixed equipment. Personal development must be understood in (and cannot be separated from) the social context” (Fleer 2003-5).
Interpersonal foci of analyses – development begins from the personal development of children. The interpersonal communication is developing in the groups of children of the same age. (Fleer 2003) Emily tries to communicate with the friend of her age and train language skills by remembering the names of animals, whose actions and body movements they copy. Emily’s friend helps her to form language skills through he communication.
Cultural institutional foci of analyses – most of language skills, received by children, are universal, and they appear “within culturally regulated social relationships” (Fleer 2003-4), but they are still formed under the indirect influence of socio-cultural institution. One important cultural process appears in this section. Emily gets to know about the world of animals and their customs and habits.
Observation 2 – Other Learning
Social life of every child is closely connected with the children’s communicational abilities, with the atmosphere at home and many others factors which can prevent or fasten the children’s involvement in the society. Appendix 3
Meaning 1
Personal foci of analyses – Emily and Lucy usually play together. Emily tries to be the beginner of the game. She creates more and more new ideas about new games; she invents new themes for games.
Interpersonal foci of analyses – Children live and develop in the society; they receive all the life experience from the society. (Fleer 2003) Children should be organized in the same age groups in order to fasten their social development, as the children of the same age groups have almost the same level of development and they together come into the social life. The social contact between Emily and her friend is very tense. Emily is able to have interpersonal contact with her friend through the games she invents. Emily is not interested in playing with children; she tiers of playing by herself very fast.
Cultural – institutional foci of analyses – To get a broader understand of the expectations in children’s development teachers should make a cross-cultural research. (Fleer 2003) Emily is involved in the game with plastic blocks on the mat, in the special place for games. The blocks are invented for children to develop their mental and physical abilities.
Overall cultural assessment – The involvement of a child in the socio-cultural society is a very important task for parents and school. Through the game, Emily gets to know some new ways of communication. Emily perceives the surrounding world from the new sides through. Emily uses cartoon characters in the games.
Meaning 2
The involvement in any process is very important for a child. The involvement is a process when a child “is completely absorbed by the activity” (Laevers 2005). The child may be involved in any game, in the communication with the others, in the reading or listening stories. When children are involved in the process, they are developing, “they learn at a deeper level, they become more competent” (Laevers 2005-11).
Emily is tired to play alone, so she is not very concentrated on the game. According to the Laevers’ scale for involvement, Emily’s along play may be characterized as extremely low level of involvement. She is not concentrated, not interested in game any more, she may be easily interrupted by anybody. The appearance of her friend shakes her. The Emily’s involvement in the game increases with the coming of her friend. Now the level of involvement may be characterized as high. Emily feels challenged, motivated. Her imagination is extended and Emily is concentrated on the game. (Laevers 2005)
Conclusion
Parent and teachers greatly influence the overall development of children. The environment that the children live in will also have a strong influence in their personal development. Therefore, parents and teachers should train and teach children different lessons for cultivating good character which will be useful for their future.
References
Appendix B: Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of child development, 2009, Web.
Arthur et al, Leonie. 1996, Programming and Planning in Early Childhood Settings. Harcourt Brace.
Berk, Laura. E. 2003, Child development. Allyn and Bacon.
Fleer, M. 2003, “Developmental fossils – unlearning the artefacts of early childhood education: The reification of “child development”, Australian Journal of early Childhood, vol.30, no 2.
Jindrich, Susan 1998, How do children development? Mentally, Learning System, 2009. Web.
Laevers, F. 2005, What is involvement? In SICs – A Process-orientated Self evaluation Instrument for care Settings, Research Centre for Education, Leuven Univercity. Web.
Ryan, John, Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory: ecological system theory, Bronfenbrenner, 2009. Web.
Tough, J. 1976. Children’s use of language. Listening to Children Talking, Ward Lock Educational, London.
Appendix Consent
- Parental consent.
- Raw data Language observation 1.
- Raw data “Other learning” observation.
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Raw data Language observation 1:
- Observation: Emily and Lucy were taking turns on the fireman’s poll and sliding down the slide. Emily challenged Lucy to hang upside down on the A-frame “Do this, just like me” said Emily.
Lucy said “That’s easy”. Lucy copied Emily’s action of hanging upside down. Emily said “Let’s think of animal’s that hangs…Umm a bat, Yes a bat hangs in a tree, upside down.” said Emily. And a monkey too! Emily later said.
Appendix 3
Raw data “Other learning” observation
Emily is playing by herself with the plastic blocks on the mat she notices Lucy and says:
- E- would you like to play with me? I’m tired of playing by myself
- L-Ok
- E-I am a wonder woman
- L- so am I
- E-No, there is only one wonder woman. You are Robin.
- L-Why?
- E-Robin needs a batman, because batman and Robin are friends.
This game and discussion continues.