wild child

When I got home from class on Tuesday night, my poor husband was subjected to an entire meal of me telling him all the fascinating aspects about Victor's learning process. I was just completely captivated with the teaching methods and the patience that went into his learning. Victor's behavior and responses to the Dr. Jean Itard's efforts were really interesting and conveyed so much information about language acquisition.

Questions 2 and 3: What type of language learning methods did Dr. Jean Itard use to teach language and communication? Do you agree with his methods of teaching language? What teaching moments did Victor benefit from?

Dr. Itard used many techniques that were inter-related with Victor's other needs. I never before realized how interconnected communication is with survival, feelings, and the like. All areas of life eventually trace back to communication. Therefore, Dr. Itard used many techniques pertaining to Victor's survival. For example, his first word that he could understand the meaning of, spell, and communicate his need for was "milk" - a basic necessity for nutrition. Also, Dr. Itard used scaffolding and the ideas presented in Krashen's input hypothesis to help Victor learn. In an effort to help Victor understand that objects have names and to help him understand the associations between pictures and words, he began by drawing pictures on the board of common things, like scissors, book, etc. The thought came to me that perhaps this would have been even more effective if Dr. Itard had used objects that were already familiar to Victor, such as leaves and rocks, or if that would have been more distracting. After drawing the objects and asking Victor to match them, he began to help Victor with letters and words and then finally put the words with the pictures - each time structuring the lesson a little bit beyond Victor's ability level. Every now and then, he structured the lesson too much beyond Victor's ability level - such that Victor realized the task was too hard for him and then he threw tantrums. As teachers, we have to remember that it is only "i plus 1" - not "i plus 3". If students feel that they are not able to accomplish what is being asked of them they might become discouraged - so scaffolding has to be done subtly.

Dr. Itard also built on Victor's natural desire for order, which is a fascinating concept in and of itself. Because Victor was very obsessed with order, Dr. Itard used that to his advantage in order to help Victor understand the patterns in language.