The Importance of Language Arts

The Common Core standards for language arts, or any curriculum for explicit instruction of language typically goes against Chomsky’s theory of language development. Chomsky finds that the acquisition of language in young children comes from within. As noted by Crain, “Hearing only a fragmentary body of speech, they nevertheless discover its rules, guided by an innate sense of what the rules must be like,” (Crain, 2011, p.362). By age 6, most children have achieved fluency in their language, though they may not be conscious of the rules they are using.

            By the age of 13 children will have mastered most of the rules of spoken language, and Common Core standards are focused on the production and comprehension of written language. The further development of language is rooted in the need to express ideas about specific content rather than inconsequential statements used while learning the rules of the language. For example, a young child who is still learning how the language works may say things like, “The ball is red,” or “I don’t like peas”. Children use simple language while building their knowledge of how the language works. By junior high and high school, having mastered the rules of language, they must develop specific vocabularies and styles in order to communicate content specific ideas. In a history class, in order to discuss the consequences of some historical episode, the older child must be able to take in information, process it, and then devise a way to express a summary or new information in a way others can understand.

            As a math teacher, it is important for students to be able to share their mathematical knowledge in English as well as mathematically. Language arts standards at this level are focused on organization of information and the precise expression of complex ideas. Without the capability to share mathematical ideas, math becomes a purely theoretical activity of manipulating symbols in a dogmatic way. Given the ability to effectively communicate, math can then be applied to the real world and used to solve problems that people naturally encounter. Therefore, it is necessary for junior high and high school math teachers to help students build the bridge between the symbolic language of math and the spoken and written language used to share ideas.