It sounds like you're working with beginners, Nicole, and that's why you're able to make a difference when you intervene to work on their pronunciation issues. 

That's my point about grammar instruction too.  If you intervene early and point out the rules before your students have gone ahead and created their own internal, completely inaccurate grammatical system, you can help them learn English better. It just seems like a disservice to me, not to do this for our students. This doesn't mean I advocate a "form-heavy approach" because I don't.  I believe in using a wide variety of methods and teaching tools to help my learners.  But I just believe that ignoring grammar instruction all together, even at the preliterate level, means we are setting our students up to become "fossilized learners."

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Nicole Graves 
  To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List 
  Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 7:54 PM
  Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3754] Re: Post critical period oral L2learning ofadults w/low L1 litearcy


  Well, as we all know there is no magic bullet!  

  As a teacher of beginners, I am very accepting and lenient at first.  I want the students to take risks.  Does that hinder development?  I think some students tend to overgeneralize "rules" as children do in their L1 for a time.  Why do they stay stuck in this stage of interlanguage?  They do not hear native speakers use these mispronunciations or inappropriate structures.  As they develop their L 2, they use structures from their language(s), sounds that are close to English sounds, drop sounds they are not used to hear in some positions, etc.  Someone in one of these posts mentioned the need to notice and I add to become aware of differences and reasons for them if we can explain some of it.
  It is slow going but always successful!  I have had success  with many mispronunciations by focusing, noticing, becoming aware of the problem.  Here are some examples:
  I have had students learn to correct mispronunciations such as tirid for tired, retirid for retired.  Students can generally say the word tire as in "I had a flat tire".  I use the print too.  How does that word sound?  It sounds like [tier].  We never write [tier].  We write tire.  I do the same with the other 2  words.  From that time on, I no longer accept the incorrect form.  I say excuse me? to signal the mistake to the student.  It takes about 3 weeks to become internalized.
  Sometimes a mini-lesson works.  A higher level student was always saying he didn't like his apartment because he had no privaty.  I said I understand what you mean but other people might not.  Listen to this: Sometimes I want to hang a sign on my door that says Private.  I could use a little privacy around here.  You can add other sentences  that contrast the two words.
  In reading (even at the basic level), students often drop final sounds.  They may not hear them.  They may not have those in final positions in their L1.  I use highlighters in different colors to make the letter(s)/sound(s) stand out.  You have to direct teach the different sounds for the letter S or for ed.  But as they read or even during assisted reading those endings jump out from the page and signal the student.  It works.

  Give it a try!

  Nicole B. Graves
  Amherst, MA
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Lynne Weintraub 
    To: englishlanguage at nifl.gov 
    Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 3:02 PM
    Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3697] Re: Post critical period oral L2 learning ofadults w/low L1 litearcy


    This reminds me of a question I've had on my mind for a while. Has anyone had any success at improving the accuracy (in terms of structure and/or pronunciation) of students who seem to be at that “fossilized” stage? (And if so, how?)

    Lynne Weintraub 
    Amherst MA




----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    From: owlhouse at wwt.net
    To: englishlanguage at nifl.gov
    Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:23:21 -0600
    Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3681] Re: Post critical period oral L2 learning ofadults w/low L1 litearcy


    I don’t know about this, Steve.  It just hasn’t been my experience with my students that the brain eventually sorts it all out and they start speaking grammatically.  For many years, I taught college prep to immigrant and refugee high schoolers, many of whom had been in this country and gone through the public school system for many years, some of them their entire lives, and still had absolutely no control over English verbs.  They not only couldn’t form them correctly (“I am go,”  “He reading,” “He is reads,” “He is went”); they also used them incorrectly in context – they didn’t know which tense to use or how to form any of the tenses correctly.  Sometimes they’d throw in an “is” or a “was” or a “did,” or all three at once.  They didn’t like to stray from the present tenses much, just trying to make their meaning clear by choosing a correct time word, but that strategy often resulted in miscommunication.  While they can get away with many of their errors in spoken communication, those same errors haunt them on the written pages that they have to write for their college courses.  



    They make these errors – consistently – even though they have had “massive input,” as you say, for years – at least eight hours a day in school listening to teachers and other students.  However, I don’t think they ever got any direct instruction in grammar because many of them were mainstreamed right away and never attended an ESL class. 



    I think what happens is that they surmise a rule, incorrectly, and don’t pay attention to the input anymore after that.  We would speak of their English as being “fossilized” at that point and almost impossible to correct and change.  

      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: Steve Kaufmann 
      To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List 
      Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 8:46 PM
      Subject: [EnglishLanguage 3659] Re: Post critical period oral L2 learning ofadults w/low L1 litearcy


      I  believe that our brain will, with enough exposure to content that is relevant and interesting, start to sort out some rules relating to word order, and other aspects of the structure of the new language, with or without explicit grammar explanations and drills. Some degree of grammar review, corrections etc, are helpful but not necessary, and not as important as the massive input. Most learners attending ESL language class do not get enough input of English.

      Some aspects of a new language may never stick. In English, articles are difficult for people form languages without articles. The spoken difference between "he" and "she"  is difficult for well educated Chinese people, even after ten or more years of grammar study, and even though the concept is not difficult and universally understood. It  just does not exist in Chinese, so it is hard to develop the natural ability to say "she" and "he" when required.

      From my reading and observation, the brain sorts these things out on its own schedule, and slowly. Explanations and drills are relatively ineffective, but can help a little. Only lots of input will enable the brain to gradually get better, as long as there is a will, and the input continues. That has been my experience in learning Russian over the last 2 years, and that has been the experience of many others who are prepared to put in the time, listening and reading, according to what they have told me.

      Obviously the non-reader is at a disadvantage. However, intensive listening on an iPod to content of interest could go a long way. However, I admit I have no experience with non-literate learners.

      Steve Kaufmann
      www.lingq.com


      On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 3:58 PM, Elaine Tarone <etarone at umn.edu> wrote:

        It is possible that formal teaching imposes accuracy standards that are very difficult to attain unless the learner is alphabetically literate.  I think this is particularly true of grammatical features that do not dramatically change the semantics, like word order in questions and final morphemes that are really redundant in context.   Maybe teachers can find other ways to communicate those standards (like use of cuisinaire rods to show word order shifts) to make the learner aware of the difference between their production and the accurate target. 




        On Jan 27, 2009, at 5:10 PM, Steve Kaufmann wrote:


          Is it possible that formal teaching imposes accuracy standards on learners that are either not relevant to their own language goals, or applied too soon in their language development? We all know fluent speakers of English and other languages who make many mistakes.

          Steve Kaufmann
          www.lingq.com


          On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Martha Bigelow <mbigelow at umn.edu> wrote:

            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




        ----------------------------------------------------
        National Institute for Literacy
        Adult English Language Learners mailing list
        EnglishLanguage at nifl.gov
        To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/englishlanguage
        Email delivered to steve at thelinguist.com




--------------------------------------------------------------------------

      ----------------------------------------------------
      National Institute for Literacy
      Adult English Language Learners mailing list
      EnglishLanguage at nifl.gov
      To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/englishlanguage
      Email delivered to owlhouse at wwt.net 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------


      No virus found in this incoming message.
      Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com 
      Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.15/1921 - Release Date: 1/28/2009 6:37 AM



----------------------------------------------------------------------------


    ----------------------------------------------------
    National Institute for Literacy
    Adult English Language Learners mailing list
    EnglishLanguage at nifl.gov
    To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/englishlanguage
    Email delivered to cnaamh at rcn.com


------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  ----------------------------------------------------
  National Institute for Literacy
  Adult English Language Learners mailing list
  EnglishLanguage at nifl.gov
  To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/englishlanguage
  Email delivered to owlhouse at wwt.net


------------------------------------------------------------------------------



  No virus found in this incoming message.
  Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com 
  Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.15/1924 - Release Date: 1/29/2009 5:57 PM
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/englishlanguage/attachments/20090130/0348197f/attachment.html