Chapter 9 - Language Comprehension

1. How does this topic fit into what I have learned already in this course? Language comprehension goes hand in hand with cognitive processes. Chapter 2 discussed visual recognition with top down and bottom up processing and auditory recognition where we must hear the phonemes to sound out words. Chapter 3 discussed divided attention where you can hear two verbal messages simultaneously and selected attention where you are able to concentrate on one message while ignoring the other. Chapter 4 discussed working memory which helps a person store the visual or auditory information long enough to process and interpret it. Chapter 5 discussed long term memory where we are able to retrieve information processed from long ago. chapter 6 discussed tip of the tongue phenomenon where some information is unable to be accessed, and metacomprehension which allows you to understand a what you've learned. Chapter 7 discussed the mental images we create as we read or learn about something. Chapter 8 discussed semantic memory and how we organize information and words in order to keep them straight, just like schemas and scripts are used to help with background knowledge in order to process the language. Chapter 11 was about problem solving and this is important for language because we must be able to create an accurate mental representation of the problem in order to solve it. Chapter 12 discussed deductive reasoning and decision making which are important for putting the information we learn together in order to make better decisions.

2. What am I still not clear on in this week's reading? This was the chapter I completed my worksheet and brochure on so I was pretty clear on everything.

3. Under what conditions would I apply this material to my own teaching/work? I apply this material to my own teaching everyday. Since I am a language arts teacher, I use every concept given. I think it is exceptionally important to teach students to figure out the meaning of a word from context. I also thought it was interesting how Matlin discussed the idea of negative word phrasing, ambiguity, using words in the passive voice, and sentences that contain nested structures make it more difficult for people to comprehend the language.