Language Development: How Do Children Grow Emotionally?
Hi everyone, I hope you are well.
I am aware that many of you have been looking for assignment/essay exemplars. Unfortunately, I do not have any to send you! I would have been happy with sitting down and writing a model essay for you. However, the problem then becomes when other students start copy-pasting instead of modelling. I also would not want to influence your choice of development domain when writing your essay. Perhaps some of your struggles are not necessarily content-related but rather technique-related. It is hoped that this extremely long guide would be helpful. This is the part where you go grab a coffee and come back to pay attention to what I have to say. I will organise this email in accordance with your marking criteria, …show more content…
starting from the title page.
Title
Your title page should contain the title of the report, your name, and the date. This is done on a separate page. All preceding pages should be numbered, and make sure you include your name and ID number on each page.
Introduction
This is the first thing I will be reading in your report. Hence, you are expected to introduce the general topic of the essay, the specific area of development you will be focussing on, followed by a preview of what the essay will discuss. You know your three essay questions that you wish to answer, and you know that the general theme of the essay is related to children development. Therefore, you can use that as a general introduction to your essay. For example: What is development? How does development happen? What are some of the main principles of development? This should signal to your reader that you will be talking about development.
The next step would be moving from a general idea to a specific idea. What this means is that you have to introduce which type of development you will be discussing in your essay and why you chose that type of development. You are also expected to introduce the three essay questions in your introduction. Say, you chose cognitive development. Therefore, you will have to explicitly state in your introduction that you will be discussing 1) how children grow cognitively, 2) What factors influence their cognitive development, and 3) how can teachers create learning environments that stimulate cognitive growth. I do expect to see a hypothesis statement such as “This essay will explore/discuss……..” in your introduction.
Body of Essay
This is the part of your essay where you answer the three essay questions. It is one suggestion to have three parts in your body, where you answer each question in a separately. However, this is your essay and your writing style. Feel free to use your own structure as long as you answer the three essay questions.
How children grow?
Say, you chose to discuss emotional development.
Therefore, you should aim at answering the question“How do children grow emotionally?” in this section. Here is a tip: Do not start talking about emotional development before you define what emotional development is. Assume that the reader knows nothing about the field and define any term you use before you start discussing it. This is a good way to start your paragraph because you have explicitly told the reader what you will be discussing in this section.Once you have established a theoretical definition, you continue to discuss what that type of development is all about. Say, you chose to talk about language development: What is language development? Are there any major theorists that explain language development that you have encountered in this course? How do they view language development? Are there any assumptions or principles underlying language development? Perhaps, blocks of language …show more content…
development?
In essence, questions like these should guide your discussion and your answer to the question “How children grow”. If there is a main theorist, or two, that discuss the type of development you chose for your essay, then it is worthwhile to go and read how they describe children development. For example, Kohlberg is one theorist we talked about when discussing moral development in class. How does Kohlberg view moral development? Is it continuous or stage-dependant? How do children develop their sense of “morality” according to Kohlberg? Of course, because you are using someone else’s ideas in your essay, you are expected to reference these ideas to avoid plagiarism. In short, this paragraph should include the theoretical aspects of your chosen type of development. That, and any supporting examples you may want to add to illustrate your points.
What are some of the factors that affect development?
Again, you will have to answer this question in relation to the type of development you have chosen. Say, you chose to discuss social development. Therefore, you should aim at answering the question “What are some of the factors that affect children’s social development?” in this section. This involves going through your learning resources (e.g., your textbook, online articles, etc.) and choose three or four main ideas/factors and discuss these in relation to one specific type of development. Again, you always define the terms you use before discussing them in the essay. Say, you chose physical development: What are some of the main factors, or milestones, that affect physical development? Are these biological such as maturation and puberty? Or are they environmental and hence varies from a context to another? What about gross and fine motor skills?
Note that you may use ideas and factors from various theories as long as you explain how they all link within your chosen domain of development. You may choose to use an idea from Piaget and another from Vygotsky and explain how those two affect cognitive development, for example. You may also bring various aspects from Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological model and explain how these may also influence cognitive development. The key in this section is to identify three or four key ideas that affect development, and clearly explain how these key ideas influence your chosen domain of development. Again, define your terms and reference whenever necessary. I suggest using examples here to illustrate your points and to further explain the key factors you identified.
Congratulations, you made it halfway through your essay! One more question to answer!!
How can teachers create learning environments that stimulate growth?
This is the practical component of your essay – the educational implications.Say, you chose psychosocial development: How can you, as a teacher, create a learning environment that stimulates psychosocial growth? What are some of the main implications for you as a teacher? At this stage, you have chosen your domain of development, defined what it means, noted down three or four key factors that affects growth in that domain. I would suggest including three or four key implications where each implication comes directly from the key idea introduced earlier. This would link your paragraphs nicely together (but, again, these are just suggestions). For example, say, you chose language development. Say, you also chose to talk about child-directed speech (i.e., a type of speech directed to young children and characterised by high pitch, short and well-spaced sentences and simple vocabulary) as a key factor affecting children’s language development. Therefore, the question then becomes: How can teachers make use of child-directed speech to create learning environments that stimulate language growth? What are the teaching implications from that key factor? Three to four key implications, along with examples from your practicum visits or your own learning experience, should be sufficient for this section.
Phew, almost there!
Conclusion
Your conclusion should directly link to the introduction, and to the main purpose of the essay. While your introduction included a statement like “This essay will discuss…” your conclusion should include a statement like “This essay discussed…” to bring both sections together and to show you have answered the three essay questions. The conclusion is where you preview what was explored in the essay and summarise its main ideas. A closing statement, or concluding thoughts, in your conclusion are suggested.
Congratulations, you are done! Well, almost. You must include all the references you used throughout your essay in your list of references, in alphabetical order. This is done on a separate page.
Editing: The Post-Writing
Process
Once you have drafted the essay, or parts of it, the editing process commences. This is the time where you critique your own work and look for missing, inaccurate, or irrelevant information in your essay which needs to be edited. You will be surprised at the amount of typos, misspelled words, and grammatical errors you will find the next day after a long night of writing (which also reminds me to mention not to leave this essay till one day before the due date!!!). So make sure you put time aside for editing and re-writing. A good strategy is to have a proofreading buddy, where the two of you exchange, proofread, and critique each other’s essays. Once editing is done, print your coversheet, hand your assignment in, and go celebrate
Note: Since I managed to explain the whole assignment in about 1,500 words, I expect you to produce quality work in that much.
All the best,
Mohamed
I am aware that many of you have been looking for assignment/essay exemplars. Unfortunately, I do not have any to send you! I would have been happy with sitting down and writing a model essay for you. However, the problem then becomes when other students start copy-pasting instead of modelling. I also would not want to influence your choice of development domain when writing your essay. Perhaps some of your struggles are not necessarily content-related but rather technique-related. It is hoped that this extremely long guide would be helpful. This is the part where you go grab a coffee and come back to pay attention to what I have to say. I will organise this email in accordance with your marking criteria, …show more content…
starting from the title page.
Title
Your title page should contain the title of the report, your name, and the date. This is done on a separate page. All preceding pages should be numbered, and make sure you include your name and ID number on each page.
Introduction
This is the first thing I will be reading in your report. Hence, you are expected to introduce the general topic of the essay, the specific area of development you will be focussing on, followed by a preview of what the essay will discuss. You know your three essay questions that you wish to answer, and you know that the general theme of the essay is related to children development. Therefore, you can use that as a general introduction to your essay. For example: What is development? How does development happen? What are some of the main principles of development? This should signal to your reader that you will be talking about development.
The next step would be moving from a general idea to a specific idea. What this means is that you have to introduce which type of development you will be discussing in your essay and why you chose that type of development. You are also expected to introduce the three essay questions in your introduction. Say, you chose cognitive development. Therefore, you will have to explicitly state in your introduction that you will be discussing 1) how children grow cognitively, 2) What factors influence their cognitive development, and 3) how can teachers create learning environments that stimulate cognitive growth. I do expect to see a hypothesis statement such as “This essay will explore/discuss……..” in your introduction.
Body of Essay
This is the part of your essay where you answer the three essay questions. It is one suggestion to have three parts in your body, where you answer each question in a separately. However, this is your essay and your writing style. Feel free to use your own structure as long as you answer the three essay questions.
How children grow?
Say, you chose to discuss emotional development.
Therefore, you should aim at answering the question“How do children grow emotionally?” in this section. Here is a tip: Do not start talking about emotional development before you define what emotional development is. Assume that the reader knows nothing about the field and define any term you use before you start discussing it. This is a good way to start your paragraph because you have explicitly told the reader what you will be discussing in this section.Once you have established a theoretical definition, you continue to discuss what that type of development is all about. Say, you chose to talk about language development: What is language development? Are there any major theorists that explain language development that you have encountered in this course? How do they view language development? Are there any assumptions or principles underlying language development? Perhaps, blocks of language …show more content…
development?
In essence, questions like these should guide your discussion and your answer to the question “How children grow”. If there is a main theorist, or two, that discuss the type of development you chose for your essay, then it is worthwhile to go and read how they describe children development. For example, Kohlberg is one theorist we talked about when discussing moral development in class. How does Kohlberg view moral development? Is it continuous or stage-dependant? How do children develop their sense of “morality” according to Kohlberg? Of course, because you are using someone else’s ideas in your essay, you are expected to reference these ideas to avoid plagiarism. In short, this paragraph should include the theoretical aspects of your chosen type of development. That, and any supporting examples you may want to add to illustrate your points.
What are some of the factors that affect development?
Again, you will have to answer this question in relation to the type of development you have chosen. Say, you chose to discuss social development. Therefore, you should aim at answering the question “What are some of the factors that affect children’s social development?” in this section. This involves going through your learning resources (e.g., your textbook, online articles, etc.) and choose three or four main ideas/factors and discuss these in relation to one specific type of development. Again, you always define the terms you use before discussing them in the essay. Say, you chose physical development: What are some of the main factors, or milestones, that affect physical development? Are these biological such as maturation and puberty? Or are they environmental and hence varies from a context to another? What about gross and fine motor skills?
Note that you may use ideas and factors from various theories as long as you explain how they all link within your chosen domain of development. You may choose to use an idea from Piaget and another from Vygotsky and explain how those two affect cognitive development, for example. You may also bring various aspects from Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological model and explain how these may also influence cognitive development. The key in this section is to identify three or four key ideas that affect development, and clearly explain how these key ideas influence your chosen domain of development. Again, define your terms and reference whenever necessary. I suggest using examples here to illustrate your points and to further explain the key factors you identified.
Congratulations, you made it halfway through your essay! One more question to answer!!
How can teachers create learning environments that stimulate growth?
This is the practical component of your essay – the educational implications.Say, you chose psychosocial development: How can you, as a teacher, create a learning environment that stimulates psychosocial growth? What are some of the main implications for you as a teacher? At this stage, you have chosen your domain of development, defined what it means, noted down three or four key factors that affects growth in that domain. I would suggest including three or four key implications where each implication comes directly from the key idea introduced earlier. This would link your paragraphs nicely together (but, again, these are just suggestions). For example, say, you chose language development. Say, you also chose to talk about child-directed speech (i.e., a type of speech directed to young children and characterised by high pitch, short and well-spaced sentences and simple vocabulary) as a key factor affecting children’s language development. Therefore, the question then becomes: How can teachers make use of child-directed speech to create learning environments that stimulate language growth? What are the teaching implications from that key factor? Three to four key implications, along with examples from your practicum visits or your own learning experience, should be sufficient for this section.
Phew, almost there!
Conclusion
Your conclusion should directly link to the introduction, and to the main purpose of the essay. While your introduction included a statement like “This essay will discuss…” your conclusion should include a statement like “This essay discussed…” to bring both sections together and to show you have answered the three essay questions. The conclusion is where you preview what was explored in the essay and summarise its main ideas. A closing statement, or concluding thoughts, in your conclusion are suggested.
Congratulations, you are done! Well, almost. You must include all the references you used throughout your essay in your list of references, in alphabetical order. This is done on a separate page.
Editing: The Post-Writing
Process
Once you have drafted the essay, or parts of it, the editing process commences. This is the time where you critique your own work and look for missing, inaccurate, or irrelevant information in your essay which needs to be edited. You will be surprised at the amount of typos, misspelled words, and grammatical errors you will find the next day after a long night of writing (which also reminds me to mention not to leave this essay till one day before the due date!!!). So make sure you put time aside for editing and re-writing. A good strategy is to have a proofreading buddy, where the two of you exchange, proofread, and critique each other’s essays. Once editing is done, print your coversheet, hand your assignment in, and go celebrate
Note: Since I managed to explain the whole assignment in about 1,500 words, I expect you to produce quality work in that much.
All the best,
Mohamed