Parent Involvement in Scaffolding a Child’s English Language Functions

Abstract

This study deals with the parent involvement in scaffolding a child’s language functions. The object of this study is a student of pre-school at Mondial Education. The goal of this study is to describe and explain what speech functions acquired by the child with the help of her parent. The research design of this study is descriptive qualitative and explanatory in nature. The data collection is conducted by recording the child’s utterances. The data collected is analyzed and interpreted in the light of Second Language Acquisition theory. The findings of this study suggest that the child acquired a number of speech functions. The dialogues between the child, her mother and her grandfather are inherently interactive in the sense that they typically do not involve simply one move from one speaker. It is noted that after one speaker has initiated an exchange, another speaker is very likely responding. The commodity exchanged could be either information or goods and services. The roles associated with the exchange relations are either giving or demanding.

Keywords: scaffolding, language functions, utterances, interactive, exchange.