Learning a first language as a child is a very different process from  
learning a second language as an adult.  An obvious difference is the  
influence of the native language on the adult's second language,  
something that doesn't occur in first language acquisition. And,  
children acquiring a first language have at least 4 years to listen  
to and speak their first language before they have to start reading  
and writing it.  Immigrant adults with major funding deadlines do not  
have that luxury; they have to learn to read and write at the same  
time they are learning the oral second language.  And *if* they don't  
already know how to read their native language using an alphabetic  
script, then their learning process has to be very very different  
from that of literate adults acquiring a second language.

Most ESL teachers  probably learned to represent the phonemes of  
their native language with visual symbols ('letters') so long ago  
that they no longer remember how they perceived oral language before,  
whether they noticed phonemes, etc.  It's easy for them to assume  
that their students notice the same aspects of oral language that  
they do.  But, there is now evidence that having a visual sign to  
represent, for example, the 's' at the end of a word helps us to  
notice that ending in oral input. There's also evidence that  
alphabetic literacy helps us to notice changes in word order that  
don't affect meaning. R. Schmidt presents evidence that if we don't  
notice something in the second language input, we don't acquire it.

There are several research studies in cognitive psych (with  
monolingual adults) showing that if they do not have alphabetic  
literacy -- that is, if they do not represent sound segments with  
visual symbols -- they don't do as well as literate counterparts in  
their native language on certain oral tasks requiring awareness of  
linguistic units.   (By the way, illiterate adults do just as well on  
rhyming tasks and oral word meaning tasks.  And there's a great study  
done by Read at Madison showing that well educated Chinese adults who  
are logographically literate but not alphabetically literate in  
Chinese don't do well on phonological awareness tasks. That's  
important, because they are not only schooled but well educated,  
middle class, successful professionals who clearly process oral  
Chinese just fine -- but they don't have alphabetic literacy, and  
they don't seem to need phonological awareness. They process oral  
Chinese some other way. )

It seems clear that given these findings, teaching an illiterate or  
low literate adult an oral second language has to be different from  
teaching an oral L2 to someone who has alphabetic literacy. We need  
to learn what works with low literate and illiterate adults, from the  
ground up ... what makes things stick in their memory when they hear  
oral second language input? what gets noticed? word order? content  
words? function words?  what helps these words get retained? does  
rhyme and rhythm help?  Does whole body  movement help?

And that's just about learning to process *oral*l second language --  
what about learning to *read* a second language? Is it better to  
learn to read the native language first?  does reading instruction  
start out better as a whole word approach with this population? how  
then does one transition to acquiring sound-symbol correspondence?   
does rhyme help?   This is where we need perceptive teachers to tell  
us what they see going on.



On Jan 26, 2009, at 4:06 PM, Lorz, Angela wrote:


> My question for S Krashen is then, when a student has no clue about  

> how-language-works in his native tongue, how can that student be  

> best introduced to a language rich environment.  I have tried the  

> post-it note method with the target language on top & the native  

> language on the back, so that at least the object is identifiable  

> with some squiggly lines on a paper indicating the word.  I have  

> used pictures in class when the objects are not available. Anything  

> else?  especially for getting the 'sound' of the new word in the  

> learner's brain?

> We have a series that can be used with a DVD player, but it's less  

> natural than targeting the "object (or phrase) of interest".

>

>


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