LET'S TALK EXPANDED LANGUAGE TALK

 

The call: on the line, Brian Gannon, South Africa's Child and Youth Care guru and pioneer.

   "Barrie, that place where you're training workers; that new Place        of   Detention for Young Offenders; what conversations do you          hear child and youth care workers having with the boys?"

No hesitation. An answer given through examples.

   "Did you put your washing in the laundry? I know you didn't. Go        do it now!"

     "BOY! Those sneakers, they're dirty. Go scrub them and bring           them back for me to see."

Brian labelled the talk, 

      "Routine logistics talk."

Spot on. Restricted language in a restricted institutional environment with language deprived young people.

Little wonder the effect of institutionalization has had a poor prognosis for children and youth in care.

In contrast.

A retired child and youth care worker previously in a village cottage setting:

   "You know, what I remember and enjoyed the most?  We sat around the coffee table after dinner and just chatted, the girls and me and chatted and laughed. It's a good memory.      

     "What kinds of thing did you chat about?"

      "Aah, you know teen girl talk. Gossip, stories about boyfriends            and the going ons at school. One I remember especially.

       "Do you know the Simphiwe  girl in tenth grade? We were all              we were all walking, a whole bunch of us, to get the bus. Her              panty elastic broke and her panties fell down to her ankles .               She just stepped out of them and carried on walking."

Huge laughter. 

   "I was part of the group, so I asked,' How do you think she felt?"

    "Like shit!"

    "How would you feel if it was you?"

     "Shit!"

      "I think I would be feeling very embarrassed, somehow shamed          and guilty like it was my fault my elastic broke."

       "Another girl picked them up and gave them to her in the bus.               Maybe she put them back on in the bus."

         "How very kind and thoughtful of her."

Me:

   "Oh wow. You were good!"

Casual, informal, in the moment, in the life-space educare; mediated language learning.- from restricted to elaborated language.

It's BLISS.

At one time, one of  the leading South African universities gave short courses in Mediated Learning Experience (MLE).

It was a perfect fit with Child and Youth Care practice. A lecturer voluntarily gave our child and workers  a brief course on Mediated Language Development.

 That's why I remember BLISS.

Bridge: Bridging is the main idea behind the learning experience. The child care worker places themselves as the go-between the developing child and the world They interact in such a way as to help the child make meaning of the world . One way is through language It means developing a more enlarged use of language to help the children express their new hightened understanding.

Then came some method

Linking: It's what I like to call 'thinking laterally'. It's helping the children to see, find and use words for similarities.

A small girl found an acorn.

   "What's this?", she asks.

   "It's an acorn, like a nut from that big tree. It has a seed inside              it. "If we plant it, a big oak tree will grow."

She:

   "It looks like a locusts head."

Me:

   " Yes, We have a locust-head acorn." ( from simile to metaphor).

 And a huge, in my head happy dance. This little on made a link, shape to  shape, image to image and communicated it. If she didn't I  might have asked her if it looked like something else she knew.

Interpretation:
     "Yuk man! This rice is like porridge. Yukkie porridge !"

      "Are you saying you don't like the rice today because it's soft and          sticky?" 

       "Ya."

        "You like it when it has separate grains and not too soft?" 

         "Ya."

          "And you're not going to eat it?"

          "Ya'."

Summarising: ( It's back to school). Capturing the essence of the children's possibly muddled conversation in restricted language and the rephrasing it succinctly in more a accurate language.  

        "I think what you have said is..."

Sequencing": Children and young persons raised in language deprived environments show difficulty in communicating  events in the right chronological order, especially if what happened was stressful or painful.

         "Whoa, lets go slowly from the beginning. The very first thing            that happened was...?

There it is.

It's what we do as child and youth care practitioners. It is in the moment, it seems casual, but it's interactive educare at its best.

IT'S BLISS.