Paola Bernal

English 20
Professor Connelly
March 17, 2016
Child Development Community
As a child I have always wanted to work with children. I would be the one child in school
that would sit down in one of the playhouse are and tell all my friends in my class who wants to
play teacher? All my friends would eventually run away from me, after that I had realized what
my will consist of that I was going to work with children.
I became interested in Child Development with a concentration of Social and
Community settings which is part of a discourse community. For instance a discourse
community is a group that has a variety of groups that focus on the same interests.However,
when individuals speak about Child Development they actually dont know that there is specific
roles that individuals focus on such as early education, social and community settings,
specializing with learning disability children. There main focus is being to concentrate on the
childs education such as the way they develop their learning skills. In order for individuals about
how the childs process is developing throughout time we are able to conduct case studies. By
these we are able to test the child in a small environment where we are able to conduct the
different stst to see of the child is able to understand.
In the article The Concept of Discourse Communities by John Swales he states the six
characteristics of a discourse community. Furthermore as I conducted my interview I realized
that the interview questions that I will be asking and explaining into further depth gave the
insight of all the six characteristics in the discourse community. I began to interview one of my

supervisors in the Children's Care Center that I work with, Elizabeth Poulos. She recently
graduated from California State University of Sacramento with a Child Development degree. As
a friend and my co-worker I found her to be the individual that I wanted to interview her in the
first place. In her experience she has been working in this particular care center for almost three
years and she loves it. She feels that people who are child development majors should just work
in a care center because they hear it easy in other words the individuals should feel passionate
about what they actually want to do as a career.
For instance, Swales first characteristic is that it states he broadly agreed set of
common public goals. As interviewed Elizabeth I asked if in the children care center do the
individuals that work here have a common goal they want to agree. Elizabeth responds stating
We as teachers and as a community come together to help our children develop all these different
skill that will help them be ready when they go off to their first day of school and are able to to
know the very common things that they have to know For example in my experience since I
work in childrens center as well I am able to work with children at the start of age four and I as
a teachers assistants we are able to set a goal that gives the children able to teach them and they
are able to learn. But being a teacher is not that easy to do you just have to be patient and see
how the child will turn out out to be at the end.
However, as for the second characteristic is the mechanisms of intercommunication
among their members. By interviewing with Elizabeth I asked her Do you and other individuals
in the center exchange any information among each other? She responds by stating Here in the
care center we as teachers and teachers we are able to communicate with each other by having
mandatory meetings where we are able to exchange any certain information that we have

questions about or concerns Not also do we do meeting but we talk among each other when are
working but everything we exchange information we keep confidential.
Swales states the characteristic of forum as for how the information is being exchanged
among each other. For instance Elizabeth it mostly working in a classroom full of children that
start at the age of 3 through 5 years old. In the classroom she is not alone because there is also
more teacher assistants that are also working with her in order to run the classroom smoothly. As
for this she able to ask another teacher assistants to help whenever a parent arrives in the
classroom and has questions or concerns about his or her child which she is able to ask one of the
teachers assistants to make sure to take care of the area where children are playing because we
as a teacher should be always taking care of our children.
Furthermore as for the fourth characteristic that Swales states in his article it utilizes and
possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims. I asked Elizabeth the
next following question What is the type of writing that they do in this type of workplace? Her
response was that We as teachers and teacher assistants use a type of writing that helps us see
and study how the child is developing. For instance we use a study that workers here call it
DRDPs these are measures that the child has to meet at the end of each semester. We are able to
share these measures with the parents once the semester ends and we are able to evaluate how
the child has developed through the time. For example one of the measures will how a child
know his or her shape such as rectangles or triangle. The child needs to be able to identify those
shapes and we as teachers write down this measures such as a summary of how the child
responded toward the measure. There are also lesson plans that are put up on a parent board
where parents are able to see what their child is going to do throughout the week. By this the

parent and also the teacher is able to feel comfortable if the parent has a concern about what they
are going to do through the day.
As I began to ask Elizabeth how she defined terminology in child development. She
responds that the childs and teacher's terminology is broken into many parts such we look
simple things to respond and ask such as we use smaller vocabulary with the children. For
instance as a child development teacher you are able to explain what emotional development,
cognitive development and language development stages the child is located what you can do in
order to help not also the child but the family as well. Not a lot of individuals know the
development of the child so we able to explain more about the child how is he growing and
improving.
Finally, as for the sixth characteristic it states the level of members with a suitable degree
of relevant content and discoursal expertise. It is not very easy for a person to start working the
child development field because sometimes they feel that they are not ready, but not everyone is
ready to start but eventually you will learn more and will get better. By this you are able to gain
help with experience teachers or mentors that are able to help achieve pass down information
that further down in your future you will need. In this response Elizabeth stated Yes everyone
want to to have a job where they can just work and receive money, but have you ever thought
why not work somewhere that you feel passionate about? Why as individuals look for the most
easiest jobs such working in a fast food place or a retail store. But we never think about what
actually makes us happy. As for me I wanted to be a Child Development teacher and I did
graduate with a bachelor degree now look at me I am going to be a mother! I know that one day
I will have to concentrate own child. Furthermore I know that I will pass down the information

that i learned from my mentor to other teacher assistants so one day they can become teachers as
well.
Overall, all six characteristics of the discourse community are used for an everyday
routine either for your employment or your education. In child development it is very important
to able to use all these characteristics because as a teacher that is working in children center it is
able help you but, also for the individuals that leave their child in these types of centers. As a
parent we are able to trust our child and feel that they are starting their education earlier.