Crash Course Psychology #16: Language

Define language and explain how the definition chosen decides whether humans are alone in using it

Name the three building blocks of language — phonemes, morphemes and grammar — and explain how a morpheme relates to a phoneme

Trace early language development from recognising speech differences and reading lips at about four months, through receptive language and babbling, to productive language

Play the episode straight through once before handing the sheet out — the fifteen questions run in the order the video covers them, so a second viewing can be spent writing

Pair questions 7 and 8 in discussion: receptive and productive language are defined against each other, and question 8 asks directly how they differ

Question 6 is the only numerical item — about forty phonemes, over a hundred thousand morphemes and more than six hundred and sixteen thousand dictionary words — so it is worth pausing the episode at that point

Video note-taking — students answer fifteen numbered questions in the lettered spaces provided while working through the linked episode.

Linguistic terminology — the questions require students to define phoneme, morpheme, grammar, receptive language and productive language and to give an example of a phoneme.

Developmental sequencing — question 13 asks how humans learn language and when the process begins, pulling the four-month starting point, receptive language, babbling and productive language into a single order.