Knowledge and skills of parents in developing language for children aged 24-36 months (research in Danang city, Vietnam)

ABSTRACT

The article mentions the current status of knowledge and skills of parents in language development for children aged 24-36 months. The main methods used in this study are theoretical research method; survey by questionnaire; in-depth interview method; methods of data processing by mathematical statistics. Research results show that 76.46% of parents believe that time to start developing language for children is from birth to 12 months of age. Difficulties faced by parents in language development for children include difficulties from parents and children, in which the biggest difficulty is due to parents' lack of knowledge and skills in language development for children.

АННОТАЦИЯ

В статье отражено современное состояние знаний и навыков родителей в области языкового развития детей 24-36 месяцев. Основные методы, использованные в данном исследовании: теоретический метод исследования; анкетирование; метод глубинного интервью; методы обработки данных по математической статистике. Результаты исследований показывают, что 76,46% родителей считают, что время, чтобы начать развивать язык у детей, приходится на возраст от рождения до 12 месяцев. Трудности, с которыми сталкиваются родители в языковом развитии детей, включают трудности со стороны родителей и детей, при этом самая большая трудность связана с отсутствием у родителей знаний и навыков в языковом развитии детей.

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Keywords: Knowledge; Skill; Parents; Children Aged 24-36 Months, Language Development.

Ключевые слова: знания; Навыки и умения; Родители; Дети в возрасте 24-36 месяцев, развитие речи

1. Introduction

Language plays an extremely important role in the process of educating children to become fully developed human beings. The delayed development of language has a great influence on the all-round development of children, so it is necessary to develop children's language at the right time and in accordance with their age [4]. At preschool age, language development is divided into 2 stages: pre-language stage (under 12 months of age) and linguistic stage (from 12 months of age and older). From 24 to 36 months, working with objects foster the need to communicate with adults in language; with the rapid maturation of the language centers on the cerebral cortex, children's language thrives. Language perfection takes place quickly in all aspects: pronunciation, vocabulary, grammatical structure.

Adults play a very important role in helping children learn new words, through daily dialogue and interaction with children [7]. According to Duke and Annie, there are many methods that adults can use to develop children's language: read aloud to children the word many times, encourage children to speak, encourage children talk at home, increase meaningful awareness of words, teach children words related to words they already know, use games to teach children… [3]. Current practice of care and education for children aged 24-36 months shows that parents have limited awareness of the importance of the child's development in the early stages of life, knowledge and practical skills to care for and educate a 36-month-old child are lacking [6]. Parents' concerns are often more about the physical development of their children than the development of social and linguistic abilities. If parents care about developing language for children, many of the methods they used are not really scientific. Parents and caregivers often do not have a proper understanding of the child's characteristics and language development, leading to inappropriate interactions, which can hinder language development. Thus, it can be said that the issue of language development for children in the first years of life has not been given due attention. Therefore, parents need to be supported with knowledge and skills in this area to help children develop language effectively.

The problem of language development for children under 36 months of age has been studied by many authors around the world.

Tikheeva has emphasized that the development of vocabulary or language development for children must always be associated with cognitive development for children. Children ‘s language must be specifically developed, that only through the physical world, every new word they learn will be firmly grasped in their young minds [15]. Vugotsky argued that in fact, children's language development is the development of methods of using language for communication and cognitive purposes [12].

Paul and Carol et al. raised the issue that one of the factors affecting children's language ability is the lack of language in expressing feelings and ideas. Delays in expressing emotions and thoughts lead to great difficulties in understanding and recording information when talking to adults, communicating with peers, and self-regulating emotions [13]. In “A resource for Teacher”, Annie asserts that in the process of recognizing and exploring the world around, children learn words related to animals, plants, trees, flowers [1]. Kethleen and Lucia have made arguments asserting that for young children, the world around them is extremely attractive to them, children actively participate in activities when opportunities arise, and mental images is maintained more clearly and longer as children experience exploring the world, young children acquire language from here, children describe and share these mental images with others, and concepts begin to form from there [5].

According to Nguyen, in Vietnam, the disorder and delay in language development in Vietnamese-speaking children are mainly caused by the lack of attention of adults, mainly grandparents, parents and foster aunts. Families need to have appropriate language development methods according to each specific case of each child [10]. Children's language development is greatly influenced by the family and the positive interaction with people around [9].

The introduction of books on methods of language development for children by typical authors such as Nguyen [11], Phan et al. [14], Luong [8], Dinh [2] showed the roles, tasks, methods and measures of language development for children, and at the same time they also emphasized that language development for preschool children is one of the important tasks of language development for preschool children.

2. Materials and Methods

The main research methods used in the research include the document research method, the survey by questionnaire, the interview method and the data processing method by mathematical statistics. The method of studying texts and documents is used to generalize theoretical issues related to language development for children under 36 months of age.

The survey by questionnaire aims to find out the awareness, actions and difficulties of parents in the process of language development for children aged 24-26 months in the family. The questionnaire consists of 3 groups of issues: awareness of the time of language development for children, specific actions to develop language for children (15 items), difficulties that parents face in the process of language development. for children (10 items). The total number of surveyed subjects includes 40 people, including parents living in inner cities and suburbs, with education levels from high school to graduate school, male and female genders; as follows:

Table 1.

Description of the object surveyed

Depth interview method was used to better understand the status of language development for children aged 24-36 months in the family. The number of interviewees included 25 parents and caregivers.

The topic uses SPSS 26 software to process the data obtained during the survey.

3. Result and Discussion

3.1. Parents' perspectives on language development for 24-36 month old children

Parents' views on language development for children are reflected in the way they assess the position and role of language development compared to other areas; judgments about the appropriate time of impact as well as the attitude towards the behavior of some mothers are given. To better understand the perspective of language development, we surveyed parents about the right time to start language development. With 5 options given, parents' choices are as follows:

Table 2.

Parents' choice about when to start language development for children

Thus, most parents think that the time to help their child develop language is when their child can speak the first word, "that's when it was real necessary to teach new words, correct wrong words, slur pronunciation…” (mother of NK V). They said that before the age of 1, the child "learns to move, learns to roll, learns to crawl, learn to walk... can't teach children to talk" (mother) of NT C). These parents combine language learning with speaking learning, language development is to develop speaking ability: “Knowing how to speak is knowing the language, speaking many words and many sentences is developing language well..."

Group of parents who believe that it is necessary to start from birth advocates teaching language to children from birth through daily conversations with children, they believe that doing so "children will quick to understand and quick to speak; Always pretend you know how to talk and regular conversation will help you get used to the words soon…” (mother of NN MC). And those who do not recognize the time at all think that it is best to let the child develop naturally. They deny or have not yet seen the positive and extremely important role of adults in leading and organizing children to learn languages, according to them, " we shouldn't force children into discipline soon, children will easy under stress and pressure, it is better to ler them develop naturally” (mother of DPU). These parents view language as a product of natural development, at some point, like teeth, hair, and nails, it will appear on its own, no child will not be able to speak by elementary school (mom of the DPU). In our opinion, it is correct to choose the right time for language development for children as soon as they are born, even science has proven that parents can start interacting with their children as soon as they are 17 weeks pregnant because then baby's senses are developed enough for the baby to hear sounds. However, the method is not simply a daily conversation, as some parents said when interviewed by us. It is a whole system of methods from creating a favorable environment and living space to changing unfavorable habits, adapting words and sayings in each conversation to create more opportunities for language learning language more.

3.2. Parents' actions in language development for children

Each child in different families will receive different developmental conditions. That condition is created by the adults themselves, specifically by the way parents influence the language development of their children. The more scientific, synchronous, frequent and persistent the effects are, the more opportunities children have to learn, and vice versa, if the impact is inspired, inconsistent, and discrete, it will lose the corresponding. children's opportunities. In fact, not all parents know how to positively influence their children and fewer parents check the science of each method they conduct, but they are easily aware of what they are doing. Is it harmful to a child's development? Therefore, when surveying the implementation of language development measures, we do not include negative measures but absolutely the right things to do. No parent will admit that they often push their children to say new words, answer for their children when they falter, and no parent will admit that they often scold, punish or threaten their children when they are hesitant. children violate boundaries or limit their exposure to the world of animals and plants... Putting things like that in will make it difficult to get real answers.

We surveyed the performance of parents with 15 measures of language development for children. The results are as follows:

- Measures are sometimes taken but not often (62.5% - 80%) include: Letting children watch TV, videos, dosed and selective; Encourage children have peer interaction; Ask open-ended questions to encourage children to talk, think, and imagine; Rearrange your schedule to spend more time with your child; Relinquish unnecessary controls and restrictions; Love books; Through reading, engage children in the world of books; Make the written word close with labels, annotations, memos, bulletin boards...

- Measures are taken regularly (75% - 82.5%): Facilitating let children play with their peers; Take advantage of children's questions to expand children's knowledge; Explore and ask questions about the world around them with children; Learn the habit of observing, waiting and listening to children speak; Correct children's sentences, say the right words to make samples; Help children name things, phenomena and people they come into contact with.

- Measures are almost not taken: Have fun with children with different materials (72.5%); build a family bookcase (75%). With 2 measures that are almost not implemented:

First, have fun with your children with different materials such as wood, sand, gravel, powder, watercolor... The reason we get when we talk to moms about this is pretty abundance: They think that these are materials that are not always available (afraid to seek). They consider them annoying, messy and dirty (afraid to clean up the aftermath). Some worry that they will harm their children (fear of danger) and they absolutely cannot sit and play with their children when work is too busy (fear of wasting time). There are also people who consider it an act of pampering their children (afraid of being expensive), some even think that this type of play is completely unrelated to language development (thinking it is useless). The reasons that they give are not satisfactory, because they are coming from more realistic calculations, forgetting that their partner - the children, not a single child can refuse if given an opportunity. The most important part of play is being able to play again with their parents because then they have the opportunity to experience, learn, and share joys, surprises and achievements.

Second, build a family bookcase: The reasons mothers give for not doing this work are: they don't really like books themselves; no time; no habit used to read books; afraid to spoil the child; It's not really necessary because I'm too young... (mother of H. G; T. C; D. Q). Those are all very realistic views, and changing that opinion is many times more difficult than showing them the benefits of taking this measure.

Through this study, we found that there is a consistency in parents' opinions and practical actions. Click here to find out their views on language development. Most parents have identified language development with learning to speak simply, knowing how to speak means knowing language, speaking many words and many sentences means well-developed language... They see development Quantitative language. That is consistent with their actions when it comes to helping their children learn languages ​​because they are doing the most, most often, measures that reinforce and increase the vocabulary and grammar of their children. These are interventions that are easy to do, can be done anytime, anywhere, and most importantly, they see immediate results through the child repeating their concept or model words.

With the group of measures to help children become familiar with books and writing, the level of implementation is the lowest, because according to parents: “Children child in age 2 - 3 does not need to be forced into books, that will make them more afraid to learn later”; "Children who do not have the sense to preserve books, hold a story book and do not know it, turn it upside down, they should not buy it, buy it and tear it to pieces"; "Around 5 years old is the time for children to get used to books, teach children to hold a pen"... (mother of children K. V; B. Tr; D. L). In fact, cultivating children's love of books and awareness of the value of using the written word in life is not an easy job, it requires more than time and economic conditions. If parents themselves do not have a love for books and the habit of reading and using this word, it will certainly be difficult for them to do, in case they try to do it, the effect will not be high because at least the child lacks Be an example when it comes to learning and imitating actions.

3.3. The reality of parents' difficulties in language development for children

Surveying the level of difficulties that parents face in the process of caring for and developing language for their children, we obtained the following results:

Table 3.

 Parents' difficulties in language development for children

We list 10 common types of difficulties that parents are likely to face in caring for their child's language development. difficulties are as follows:

- Difficulties arising from shortage (7 difficulties): lack of time; lack of material (not enough economic conditions); lack of knowledge and skills; shortage experience; lack of helpers, lack of consensus (conflict with other members on method); lack of peers for children to play. Expressing this level of difficulty parents sometimes face (or feel they have to) but not much and infrequently (75% - 85%)

- Difficulties come from the child's own body (3 difficult): young or sick; children difficult to cooperate; children with injuries or disabilities. Shown through the assessment of these difficulties parents hardly have to go through, they are almost not true for them.

Among the 10 difficulties, they found that the biggest difficulty they encountered in the process of taking care of children was lack of experience, knowledge and skills in language development for children, lack of time. Digging deeper, we found out that they are the people who "First time parenting, there are still many things yet You know, everything is a matter of doing, learning and gaining experience” (mother by B. Tr). Than So, especially "Daily work is busy, taking up all of my time, so dad their mother have little time to take care of it” (D. D's grandmother); “A working day usually takes more than ten hours, try to work the whole night, many days after looking at the child, he has already fallen asleep” (mother by D. L); “There is a lot of work, so there is no time to spend with children, but all the efforts the couple are doing are aimed at helping their children have a better material life” (mother by T.N). It seems that these. These difficulties are closely related to each other, one is a consequence of the other. On the other hand, economic problems are almost not their worries, a few of them feel difficulties but only partially.

Parents' education and occupation are also factors that have an indirect influence on children's language development. Most of the children's parents have a high school education and their main jobs are home garment manufacturing and trading. Similar results are also found in previous studies [5], [8], [10].

4. Conclusion

Research results show that most parents believe that the time to start language development for their children is before 12 months of age. The main actions that parents have taken to develop language for their children are to create conditions for children to play with their peers; Take advantage of children's questions to expand children's knowledge; Explore and ask questions about the world around them with children; Learn the habit of observing, waiting and listening to children speak; Correct children's speech errors, say the right words to model; Help children name things, phenomena and people they come into contact with. The biggest difficulty that parents face in the process of language development for their children is the lack of knowledge, skills and experience in this area. This fact is a practical basis to propose measures to better support parents in language development for their children, especially in the period when children are in the period of "language development".

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training under project number B2019-DNA-10

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