Individuals adapt their way of speaking according to the characteristics of the situation they face, the objective of the communicative act, the topic being discussed, and the relationship between the interlocutors. For example, when speaking with friends, one does so differently than when speaking with a teacher or an adult. How can we teach young children to adapt their language?
It is very important to correctly apply educational speech therapy programs in the Early Childhood Education stage so that children, as adults, know how to differentiate between formal and informal registers and apply them correctly. Both are subdivided into two categories: cultivated and uncultivated. Let’s briefly review the characteristics of each:
The formal cultivated register focuses on the transmission of content and is used in the language of news media, work meetings, reports, minutes, essays, and school assignments, etc.
The informal cultivated register, focused on personal interaction, is used in colloquial communicative situations such as entertainment television programs, personal letters, etc.
The formal uncultivated register is focused on the transmission of content and, although the speaker distinguishes between a formal and an informal communicative situation, their limited grammatical and vocabulary skills prevent them from complying with syntactic and grammatical rules for an adequate construction of discourse.
The informal uncultivated register is focused on personal interaction and is used by people who have not accessed the cultivated norm in their closest and most habitual experiences, thus showing a limited lexicon or vocabulary with phonetic and morphological alterations in words.
Children in Early Childhood Education need to learn these types of language differences, which is why several strategies are suggested, included in the Master’s in Educational Speech Therapy:
– Courtesy rituals and formulas. These can be developed in normal everyday situations, but we can also do so through dramatization or representation. We can create a game that mimics scenes such as: buying and selling, visits, family conversations, or in different social situations (Romea, 2012).
– Spontaneous language (dialogues, colloquiums). Here, linguistic correctness is not as important, as it is spoken colloquially; instead, intonation, facial expression, facial gestures, etc., gain great importance. It is the way we express ourselves most habitually. It is good to encourage this language through games. Among them, we cite classroom corners, through which adult world situations are represented. There is also the costume corner, which allows adopting different identities and, therefore, different languages. Other corners can be: the house, the kitchen, the hairdresser, the castle, the doctor, etc. (Romea, 2013)
– Semi-spontaneous language. Here we move into the realm of more cultivated language. The learning of new vocabulary, concepts, and structures is sought. Some useful activities for this are:
1. Reading of illustrated sheets with representative images, which allow us to take advantage of their interpretation. A correct mechanical, comprehensive, and interpretive reading of what is represented must be made. The content should be related to classroom activities and will be presented after allowing time for children to ask questions. Afterwards, a global reading will be done through questions that induce recognition of the main theme of the sheet. This activity allows us to evaluate the students’ level of linguistic competence and performance (Romea, 2012).
After this, we will proceed to the descriptive analysis. In it, nouns and adjectives will be verbalized. Places, people, animals, and objects will be taken into account. After the global reading, we will move on to the narrative analysis, which involves the use of verbs and their complements, which will allow us to “tell” the sheet. Here we are interested in who, what, where, when, how, why, for what purpose: inventing a story (Romea, 2012).
Next, the content of the sheet is transposed to personal experience. What is narrated in the sheet is related to the children’s own personal experiences (Romea, 2012).
2. Reading of comic strips with a minimum of two panels. In this case, a relationship between the images must be established (Romea, 2012)
3. Storytelling. The story must please the children, and the appropriate atmosphere must be created according to the narrative. The narrator must look at the children and gesticulate. The tone of voice should be moderate. It is advisable to establish positive comparisons between the characters and the listeners. Before telling it, it must be memorized so as not to hesitate on the text during the narration. Rhymed formulas or songs should always be recited the same way. A puppet can also be used for narration, or a puppet theater for the same purpose. Other aids for storytelling can be slides or videos (Romea, 2012).
Finally, it should not be forgotten that language is a vehicle for the transmission of curricular knowledge, as language is learned while other significant subjects are learned. Training in educational speech therapy is essential to correctly advise teaching teams on working on oral language development in class.