I think you know your learners best and you are serving them appropriately. 

 

Cindi Riley

Assistant Executive Director

Literacy Volunteers of the Lowcountry

1403 Prince St.

Beaufort, SC 29902

Phone 843-525-6658

Fax 843-521-1945

criley at lowcountryliteracy.org

www.lowcountryliteracy.org

 

  _____  

From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Susan Perez
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 6:04 PM
To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 4156] Mono vs. bilingual dictionary
fornon-literate L1 learner

 

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.

 

~~~~~~

Books and libraries change life for the better-ReadOn!

 

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

Mobile:  (772) 263-0480

Fax:       (772) 219-4959

 

2351 SE Monterey Road

Stuart, FL 34996

 

 

  _____  

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

 

  _____  

Rediscover HotmailR: Get quick friend updates right in your inbox. Check it
out.
<http://windowslive.com/RediscoverHotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Rediscover_Up
dates2_042009>  

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/englishlanguage/attachments/20090423/6933ded1/attachment.html