Teaching Resources
- The CHILDES database.
- The CLAN manual, MacWhinney, B.
The CHILDES Project, 3rd ed. Volume I. There is an introductory
Tutorial at the beginning of Part 2: The Programs, and a set of Exercises at the end.
- The chapter by Judith Becker Bryant in Jean Berko Gleason (ed.), The
Development of Language, which is followed by several suggestions for projects using CHILDES.
- A list of non-documentary films on language and language learning.
This list is derived from messages posted to info-childes in Fall of 2002.
- "Fun things children say" collected
from info-childes postings in 2013 by Bruno Estigarribia.
- Questions on "The Wild Child" by François Truffaut from Isabelle Barriere.
- Online materials illustrating concepts in language acquisition through actual sound files.
- Links to web resources on dialects both here and here
- Glossary of Linguistic Terms
- LSA list of language videos on the Web
- A video of the wug test.
Teaching Approaches
CHILDES data and programs have been widely used to provide materials
for teaching undergraduate courses in language development. The teaching
options that have been used include:
- Basic handouts: Some courses focus on the use of handouts containing
sample transcripts. A variant of this approach distributes the data in
computer format, rather than through handouts.
For example, Erika Hoff says, "I have used CHILDES
to get the original Adam, Eve, and Sarah transcripts. I hand them out
to the class and use them as examples of various phenomena and the students
get to see the real words of famous subjects. I have also used those transcripts
as the basis of take home exams with a question something like, 'what
does Eve know and what about language does she not know at this point
in her development?' Students have thought that was interesting and valuable."
- Extensive and selected handouts. Some courses make more extensive
use of handouts, selecting across particular types of materials.
For example, Lynn Santelmann reports, "I use the transcripts in
two ways: First, I have created a packet of transcripts for the students
to analyze, one set for child-directed speech, one for phonology, one
for morphosyntax, and one for discourse/conversation. (I also have a set
for narratives, but they did not come from CHILDES). Unfortunately, I
haven't been able to get a good data set for word learning yet. I clean
up these transcripts a bit to remove some of the analysis tiers, and I
give them transcripts of different ages so they can see change over time.
I give the students very specific questions or features to analyze, and
then they work either in small groups or at home. We discuss the results
in class. This gives them not only a chance to see some of the features
that we've talked or read about first hand, but gives them a chance to
see how hard it is to analyze things sometimes (e.g., is a morpheme missing
because the child doesn't produce it or because the context does not provide
an opportunity for the child to use it?)."
- Teaching CHAT transcription: Some people use classroom sessions to teach students about CHILDES transcription.
Catherine Snow says, "I use the projection system to display transcripts
linked to videos so that students get a sense of how one translates interaction
into analyzable text." Margaret Friend has had students carry out their own transcriptions.
"My approach was to have students practice using the transcription
system and complete two transcripts: one standard transcript which could
be corrected for errors and on which they could obtain assistance from
other students and one transcript that they had collected and recorded
themselves. Students were assigned to groups of four and each group recorded
narrative data from children of different ages. At the end of the semester
they compared their transcriptions, did a count of open and closed-class
words and presented an in-class developmental analysis based on the data.
I was impressed with students insights at the end of the course."
- CLAN analyses on CHILDES data. Some courses teach students
how to use the CLAN programs to analyze CHILDES data. For example, Catherine
Snow reports, "I have used CHILDES quite
extensively in my course on child language to the extent of teaching the
class while logged on to CHILDES so we could pursue particular issues
(when does past tense first show up? what gets added when MLU goes from
1 to 2? what are the first words that kids say and to what extent are
they the same across kids?). The students download the relevant files
preparatory to doing the analysis right there and displaying the results.
I also give analysis exercises as homework that students can do pretty
efficiently using CLAN, or less efficiently without it (since some don't
want to learn to use the system). I also provide CHAT formatted files
as a basis for the longer analyses I assign for take-home essays. Again,
the students can analyse the files using a word processor, or they can
analyze with CLAN. I also strongly encourage students to used archived
data for their research projects, because they can then do something much
bigger and more sophisticated." Michelle Barton systematically helps
students develop skill using CLAN.
Her experience has been that they like using the CHILDES system and "in
several cases, having the skills has been a real plus for grad school
applications and research assistant positions."
- CLAN analyses on student data. In some classes, students are
encouraged to collect their own data. For example, Lynne Santelmann
prefers that students analyze their own
data but "a few students can't do this, or want to analyze a language
other than English, so I let them use CHILDES data. They're able to do
some nice analyses because they have had some practice in class."
- Having students build web pages. This method focuses on using
sonic CHAT to build examples that can be downloaded over the web.
Brian MacWhinney uses sonic CHAT in his class on Language
and Thought to teach students how to collect new data, transcribe it using
sonic CHAT, link the transcript to audio and prepare the whole project
as a web page. Examples of the data collected using this method are now on the web at in the
CABank/CMU folder at TalkBank.org
