These a very practical ideas that can be incorporated very effectvely into ELLs orientations and goal setting sessions.
 
We are working hard in our district to make sure that all students have a meaningful orientation experience and actively set their own SMART goals.
Thanks for sharing.
 B

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From: focusonbasics-bounces at nifl.gov on behalf of robinschwarz1 at aol.com
Sent: Thu 2/21/2008 12:43 AM
To: focusonbasics at nifl.gov
Subject: [FocusOnBasics 1096] Two questions about low/nonliterate adults


Two questions have come up off list about non-literate adults that I think the list might find interesting.  

One had to do with the difficulty for a tutor of trying to teach "correct English" as well as achieve conversational goals with the learner.  There are several parts to this question.  I, too, was completely puzzled by this two-headed objective when I first arrived in adult ESOL and found it totally frustrating.  I had just spent over 30 years teaching English as a second or foreign langauge-- so the purpose of teaching was teaching ENGLISH-- so specific communicative goals were added.  It was assumed that as the English proficiency grew, communication needs would get met.   

However,  I have come to appreciate that adult ESOL learners do have communicative goals that they need to meet.   My recent forays back into second language acquisition literature about adults only reinforces my own belief that it is very difficult to try to achieve communication goals while trying to teach English as a language at the same time.    I have only encountered one school that managed to do both realistically.  It has a circular curriculum overlaid on proficiency levels.  Learners go through the entire curriculum at a given proficiency level;  when they move up, the curriculum is the same, but the English structures talking about it are more complex.   

As for OTHER places and tutoring, my preference is this:  Learner's actual learning goals and needs MUST drive the teaching.  If the learner for example, needs to be able to talk to parents coming to pick up children at the day care center where she works, then the tutor's work is clear:  All lessons will be designed around that need-- and will include actual instruction in language only insofar as the learner requires it.  If millenia of language learning are correct, out of the ability to communicate with the parents, co-workers and the children, the adult learner will acquire language skills that will gradually generalize and will prompt him or her to need or want more.   

I know this will run counter to the movement to develop standards for adult ESOL etc., but adult ESOL is not a foreign language class.  Learners are there for specific purposes ( even if they won't say anything more than " I need to speak English better"--there is a specific need there somewhere that must be uncovered.) and teaching them the present continuous or how to use pronouns correctly often does not get at their needs quickly enough for them.  Then they leave.....

And that brings us to the second question-- How is it that some people "pick up language" so well even though they have never been to school?    
One does not have to have formal education to speak a language competently.  Children often speak their native language extremely competently before they have had formal schooling of any kind.   I know my own did.   Again, the literature I have been reading would suggest that how well one learns to speak a language has far more to do with where and how much one listens to it, who is speaking it and for what reason and how much one uses the language than with formal instruction in the forms of it.    In other words, it does not require education to be an aggressive language learner with an inquiring mind.   I think one of the greatest weaknesses of many adult ESOL learners is that they do not know this.   

One of the factors that hinders progress for some is culture.  If your learners' cultural attitude towards teaching and learning is that the teacher knows all and students know nothing, then they are not likely to become  aggressive language learners.    When you ask your learners for goals and they give you blank looks, more than likely they are thinking that YOU are the TEACHER--AREN'T YOU supposed to know what it is we are supposed to learn?      

This attitude is almost the opposite of what we really WANT adult learners to have-- but many of our learners need to learn how to become active learners--and  especially active LANGUAGE learners.  When Tom Woods talked about how he discusses Spanish versus English with his student, he is showing the student that knowing about these differences is helpful in figuring out what to say and how to say it.   It is REALLY important to realize this and to help learners understand little by little how they can help themselves learn.  This does NOT mean assigning them homework ( especially by saying things like, "Why don't you look over these words?"  ) and then when they don't do it, blaming them for not becoming actively engaged in the learning process.   (Another of my collected quotes " They just don't engage in the learning process, do they?") 

It means teaching them how to learn and how it will help them-- by having them demonstrate for themselves that it works.  If you do not do this, they will sit and wait for you to pour information into their heads, I guarantee it. .  

This is getting long-- I will add more in another posting.   Robin 

  










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