I am interested in your professional opinions and especially any references to research-based literature regarding the use of the Oxford Picture Dictionary and its curriculum for non-literate and low level L1 learners. 
One of our program offers adults the opportunity to participate in a one-hour per week conversational English class through a family literacy program.  Currently, we use the monolingual Oxford Picture Dictionary and curriculum, but recently have been constructively criticized that we should be using the bilingual dictionary to better support the learners understanding of Spanish.  Because our learners are Guatemalan and for many, Spanish is already a second language and a language which they are not able to read, I feel we are going to confuse them with seeing two words under each picture.  The picture offers all the clue a person may need, adding Spanish is redundant. This is a short course-12-weeks-to help the participants gain some confidence in their ability to learn English and if they want more instruction in reading, they may participate in our regular adult literacy classes (one-on-one volunteer tutoring). 
Thank you.

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Susan L. Perez
Early Childhood Literacy Specialist
Center for Reading and Literacy
Martin County Library System
Teaching parents and providers to help their children to love reading

Office:   (772) 221-1401
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Fax:       (772) 219-4959

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From: stephen churchville
Sent: Tue 4/21/2009 10:11 AM
To: englishlanguage at nifl.gov
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 4153]  native language intervention


Hi
My classroom experience is in immersive, English-only settings where use of the students' native language is discouraged, but I have postings supporting the helpfulness of limited native-language assistance in English literacy instruction, and am looking for articles, reports, or studies on this subject.
 
I am curious about what the limits ought to be. Is a short native-language explanation for activating prior knowledge helpful or distracting? What about explaining the cultural knowledge the text assumes the reader has? Or providing a native-language equivalent for slang or an idiomatic expression? What about something like native-language Cliff's Notes?
 
Thanks for any help
Stephen
 



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