Page 40 - IELTS Preparation band 5.0-6.5

Reading Section 3

Exam information

Reading Passage 3 usually contains arguments
and opinions as well as information.
• There are 14 questions.

0 Work in small groups. You are going to read an
article about different theories on how babies
learn to talk. Before you read, look at the speech
bubbles below.
1 How would you express each of these
utterances?
2 Why do you think babies talk like this?
3 How do you think babies learn language? However, this 'copycat' theory can't explain why toddlers
aren't as conversational as adults. After all, you never
Ol Daddygoout ~ Q hear literate adults express themselves in one-word
sentences like 'bottle' or 'doggie'. In fact, it's easy for
~
scientists to show that a copycat theory of language
acquisition can't explain children's first words. What is
hard for them to do is to explain these first words, and
how they fit into the language acquisition pattern.

E) Work in pairs. Read the title and subheading of Over the past half-century, scientists have settled on
the passage quickly. What do you expect to read two reasonable possibilities. The first of these is called
about in the article? the 'mental-developmental hypothesis'. It states that
one-year-olds speak in baby talk because their immature
€) Now read the whole passage. When do children brains can't handle adult speech. Children don't learn
start talking in longer sentences? to walk until their bodies are ready. Likewise, they don't
speak multi-word sentences or use word endings and
function words ('Mummy opened the boxes') before their
Why don't babies talk like adults? brains are ready.
Kids go from 'goo-goo' to talkative one step at a time The second is called the 'stages-of-language hypothesis',
which states that the stages of progress in child speech
by Joshua Hartshorne are necessary stages in language development.
A basketball player can't perfect his or her jump shot
A recent e-trade advertisement shows a baby speaking before learning to (1) jump and (2) shoot. Similarly,
directly to the camera: 'Look at this,' he says, 'I'm a children learn to multiply after they have learned to add.
free man. I go anywhere I want now.' He describes his This is the order in which children are taught - not the
stock-buying activities, and then his phone rings. This reverse. There's evidence, for instance, that children
advertisement proves what comedians have known for don't usually begin speaking in two-word sentences
years: few things are as funny as a baby who talks like an until they've learned a certain number of single words.
adult. But it also raises an important question: Why don't In other words, until they've crossed that linguistic
young children express themselves clearly like adults? threshold, the word-combination process doesn't get
Many people assume children learn to talk by copying going.
what they hear. In other words, they listen to the words The difference between these theories is this: under
adults use and the situations in which they use them and the mental-development hypothesis, language learning
imitate accordingly. Behaviourism, the scientific approach should depend on the child's age and level of mental
that dominated American cognitive science for the first development when he or she starts learning a language.
half of the 20th century, made exactly this argument. Under the stages-of-language hypothesis, however,

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