Anne,

This is fascinating.  Would you happen to have a publication or citation you could share with the list yet?  I'm sure many would be very interested to read more, even if it is a handout.  I’m often overwhelmed by the English language fluency and pragmatic skills of the teens I've worked with.  But sometimes the transcriptions show surprises!  They are not as accurate as they seem.

Martha

-----Original Message-----
From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Anne Whiteside
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 2:39 PM
To: englishlanguage at nifl.gov
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3633] Re: Working withlearners withlimitedliteracy

Your last paragraph brings up an issue which I think is a good topic for research, namely whether in multilingual societies without access to much schooling there is a higher tolerance for error and a greater emphasis on basic communication, and also whether people are actually achieving native-like fluency post critical period...Í´ve been recording conversations with adult speakers of Mayan languages who learned Spanish after the age of 18 but who don't read or write, and have found some of them to be pretty non-schooled proficient, able to cover for their lacks with circumlocution or avoidance, but pretty capable in terms of BICS. 

Anne Whiteside


>>> owlhouse at wwt.net 01/27/09 9:00 AM >>>

I agree - from experience - that it is incredibly difficult to get grammar to "take" with immigrant and refugee students, but I still like to cover basic word order - sentence, question, answer.  I think these issues are important and, just like vocabulary, need constant repetition and recycling to bring them to awareness.  At the preliterate level, I use colored rods to draw attention to word order changes.  There is no explicit grammar instruction - just different colored rods representing different grammatical categories.  By moving the rods around, they learn to make questions and answers.  They learn to recognize the difference between a yes/no question and an or-question.  Basics.  Sometimes it goes on for weeks before they get it (in a wide variety of contexts), but they do get it.    

But the question is, then... if not direct instruction, then what?  It doesn't get intuited, of that I'm sure.  But without understanding grammar, their English will never be considered fluent by people outside the ESL community.  I conducted research at a workplace that had a huge number of Ethiopian workers, and got incessant complaints about their English from American customers.  Frankly, I thought most of the Ethiopians spoke English perfectly understandably, but I am not the general public.  The general public has much higher (and unrealistic) standards, not only for grammar, but also for pronunciation.  If someone has not achieved native-speaker ability, many Americans simply will not - or cannot - understand them.  It boggles the mind for those of us who spend our lives working with non-native speakers, but it's true. 

What I'm saying is - it's not just about language acquisition.  It's also about something we might call "language receptivity."  We are not training our ESL students in a vacuum.  There is a larger world out there that has incredibly high standards which, frankly, I'm not sure it's possible for our students to meet no matter what kind of ESL instruction they get.  






  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: robinschwarz1 at aol.com 
  To: englishlanguage at nifl.gov 
  Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 9:32 AM
  Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3607] Re: Working withlearners withlimitedliteracy


  In reviewing some literature about adult second/other language acquistion, I came across a couple of studies showing that "grammar sensitivity"-- the ability to know when a sentence is grammatically correct or not in the language being learned (English in both cases)--was far lower or even non-existent in immigrants who arrived in the US as adults compared to those who had arrived as young teens.   Their sensitivity was tested after they had been in the US many years but had had no formal English instruction.   This is consistent with theories that indicate that for adults, language acquisition is conscious and effortful--and this also goes along with what Elaine Tarone mentioned about theories about noticing--if we do not actively notice what is wrong (not have it pointed out, but consciously think about it as needing correction) then the errors do not change.    

  As of now, I believe there is almost no research at all telling us what it is like for non-literates--or especially preliterates (those coming from cultures with no text tradition) to learn grammar as adults.   The latter have no language with wh ideas, and none of the non-literates has even grappled with the concept that language is a thing that can be talked about and manipulated.    There seems to be a deeply seated belief among a lot of ESL teachers that teaching grammar explicitly will help with language learning, but in my observation and experience as a teacher, there is no direct connection with learning grammar and PRODUCING correct language unless, as Elaine points out, it is a consciously applied process.   If grammar were the answer, all those students who excel at grammar book grammar should be able to speak and write grammar as well as they do the excercises-- and we all know THAT is not true.....

  Robin Lovrien Schwarz





  -----Original Message-----
  From: Joan <owlhouse at wwt.net>
  To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List <englishlanguage at nifl.gov>
  Sent: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 8:00 pm
  Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3592] Re: Working withlearners withlimitedliteracy


  On the issue of teaching grammar...

  I'm for it!  

  And, in general, the students are for it - if they're not Korean or Japanese or come from an education that has rammed grammar down their throats at the expense of communicative ability.  Not to say that grammar is not communicative - it definitely is, it definitely is more than form, it definitely carries meaning, and our students need to know that and how to get their meaning across.  I am skeptical that most people will intuit grammatical forms if they receive adequate input. I have worked with immigrant and refugee high school students - some of whom have lived their entire lives in the U.S. and gone through the school system every step of the way - and are still speaking some interlanguage that is neither English nor their native language, but some conglomeration of rules that they intuited absolutely incorrectly.  At that point, it's nearly impossible for them to go back and get it right.

  I'm not advocating a heavy form-based approach, but definitely some grammar.  


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