Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Ideas anyone?
While going over the project with Mrs. White on Sunday, we discussed some possible settings in which to record the language sample. I was wondering if anyone had actually taken the language sample yet, and if not what kind of setting do you plan to use? For instance, are YOU actually going to interact with the child, or are you going to record the child interacting with another child? I can't really decide what course to take so I was hoping for some feedback/ideas. Thanks and I hope that everyone had a great spring break!
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I missed our gathering on sunday.. :( We got busy at work and I couldn't leave early as planned. So, I'm not 100 % confident in my ideas about the project yet. But I think b/c we are new at this it would be easier to watch a child and record. rather than interacting with them and recording, b/c we may have trouble keeping up with both the conversation and the writing.
I also agree with Ashely. I think that if you can watch a child interact with another child, and record them without the children knowing, you will get a much more natural sample. Now if you are familiar with the child and part of their everyday life, it might be okay to do it as interaction between you and them. However, if at all possible, I think interactions between children are the best for this project.
When i did it, i had the child interact with his mother, brother, and neighbor, who he was all comfortable with. but when i accidently hit the delete button and ruined that chance of getting that done. Next time i am going to record a different child, and I am going to have her interact with her favorite cousin. In class, we talked about having the children use their natural language, and to get, they need to communicate with someone who they are really comfortable talking with.
You will NOT be writing WHILE the discourse is happening. You HAVE TO record the event with a tape recorder or a video camera. Once it is complete you then TRANSCRIBE EXACTLY what was said.
It is CRITICAL if you were not in class when we went over the project or at O'Charley's that you go to Blackboard and print out ALL of the project sheets. There is a STEP BY STEP process for completing the project. Make sure you follow these.
If you have not gone over the project WITH ME I suggest you look over this sheet carefully and email questions or use the blog to make certain that you thoroughly understand HOW to do the project.
I did the project over spring break and I just played a game with my 4 year old nephew. I did have the recorder on the whole time we played the game. Also, I would pick out fun activities that I know he would like to do and I would record with the tape recorder what we were talking about. I just made sure I didn’t on one day, because at the end he started to notice the tape recorder and stop talking so much.
I am babysittin my cousins this weekend and i hav had their mom place a video camera in their playroom so it seems as if it should be there. When I watch them, we are going to be sure to play in that room and I'll push Record when the kids aren't watching so I can get my youngest cousin in his natural enviroment!
Just my opinion, but I don't think it matters who the child is interacting with as long as they feel comfortable. I am doing mine with a child from my work. He is used to interacting with me on a regular basis and I plan on using activities that I know he enjoys. He always asks me to play games and read stories to him so I don't think I'll have a problem getting him to talk. But just in case, there might be another child there that he likes to play with.
I did my recording last week. I just recorded my boyfriend's niece for about an hour while we were playing. She changed topics and games quite a bit. Are we suspose to try and keep them on only one topic?
No, you do not. If you are doing an analysis of pragmatics this will definitely lend itself to observing how several of those conversational skills are used or not used.
Even if you are analyzing form or semantics you can still gain much information from the sample. As you begin to analyze the sample it will be interesting to see the language that is used in the various activities and if it is consistent throughout the entire time.
I haven't done my recording yet, but I'm planning to record a little boy that I babysit on a regular basis. I'm with him a lot so I know it will be easy to get him to start chatting with me. I really think it just depends on the child and your relationship with them.
Thanks for the ideas guys. I am planning on doing my language sample with my two year old niece. I did an early childhood assessment on her last semester, but because of the video camera, she was completely NOT herself. This time I think I will try to hide a voice recorder as others had mentioned as well. Does anyone have any specifc activity ideas I could do with her? Whenever I go to play with her, she likes "reading" me books the best, but as I understand this wouldn't really be capturing her natural language. Any other ideas for capturing the natural language and not just having a question-answer session?
I have my recording finished. The boy I listened to loves to sing and he could sing for hours trust me. His version of the song and what it truly is usually are not very close at all and sometimes out of the blue he starts making up his own version of the song. This is going to be a doozy to transcribe, but should be very useful in working with him.
Leslie, sounds like a fun time with the child!! Were you able to capture the child's own language or just lyrics to songs?
I am going to do mine in a Kindergarten classroom where a EBD child is in the classroom with all of the other children are and some colorful language is used.
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