FTCE Professional Education Practice Exam

What are the initial stages of language acquisition?

1. Pre-production, early production, speech emergent, intermediate fluency

2. Listening, speaking, reading, writing

3. Phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension

4. Grammar, syntax, semantics, pragmatics

The correct answer is: Pre-production, early production, speech emergent, intermediate fluency

The correct answer identifies the initial stages of language acquisition, which are critical in understanding how learners, particularly young children and English language learners, develop their language skills. In the field of language acquisition, the stages mentioned—pre-production, early production, speech emergent, and intermediate fluency—represent a progressive continuum through which learners advance as they develop more complex and sophisticated language abilities. During the pre-production stage, which is the very first stage, learners might engage primarily in listening and absorbing the language without actively speaking. This stage is characterized by a silent period where learners are internalizing vocabulary and language structure. As learners transition to the early production stage, they begin to use single words and short phrases to communicate their needs and thoughts, although their output may still be limited. In the speech emergent stage, learners can start to construct more complex sentences and engage in more conversations. This is when their vocabulary expands and they begin to experiment with language in varied contexts. Finally, in the intermediate fluency stage, learners can speak in more elaborated forms. They begin to express themselves with greater complexity and are better able to understand dialogues and narratives. This framework is fundamental to educators who seek to support language development effectively by recognizing where each student