Responding to your ending question, I agree that learning the L1 first
would be most likely produce the stronger skills to learn L2, it is a
matter of time as well as money for many learners.  Teaching in the L1
is complicated when there is no written language in the L1.  Many of our
learners have not progressed passed the 2nd grade in their native
country.  While it would be wonderful to continue the learning in the
L1, we do not have enough tutors who speak the learners L1 to accomplish
this goal.  Unfortunately, we are resigned to English via the fast
track.

 

Books change life for the better-ReadOn!

 

Susan L. Perez

Early Literacy Specialist

Center for Reading & Literacy

Martin County Library System

 

Office: 772-221-1401

Cell: 772- 263-0480

 

The Blake Library

2351 SE Monterey Road

Stuart, FL 34996

 

From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Michael Gyori
Sent: Tuesday, July 07, 2009 6:52 AM
To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 4556] Re: Biliteracy for new readers

 

Hello all,

Firstly, please let me know whether issues with how my text  renders
persist. I apologize for the perceptual challenges I have created (might
they, however, have some unintended pedagogic value?).

As for biliteracy: I am concerned about the impact of subractive
bilingual practices. Native Spanish speakers' L1, for example, could be
allowed to atrophy only to be  learned later as an L2.  Go figure...

I believe that immigrants who have little or no literacy should
initially become literate in their L1 if instructional resources permit
and perhaps especially if their L1 uses the Latin alphabet. 

Please let me know if you have experienced accelerated literacy
development teaching literacy in two languages rather than one, keeping
in mind that you would need to be able to make informed comparisons with
similar student populations having used both approaches.

As I've mentioned before, there are two issues that L1 literacy learners
do not need to prominently contend with: developing aural phonemic
discrimination and ENcoding, in addition to DEcoding  many words known
to them  in their L1 but not  L2.

Since L1 proficiency is, also in my own experience, such a key predictor
of likely attainable L2 proficiency, shouldn't we focus on L1 literacy
first and foremost and later allow it to transfer to L2 literacy?

I'm interested in your experiences. Thank you!

Michael
www.mauilanguage.com

Sent via Blackberry by Turkcell 




________________________________

Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 09:02:33 -0700
From: glyndalin at yahoo.com
To: englishlanguage at nifl.gov
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 4551] Re: Sharing anecdotal information

By "biliteracy" I mean that I will be teaching ESL (including
reading/writing) alongside L1 literacy, much like they do in k-5 here in
Texas. 

 

Life skills are issues like time mangement, budgeting, parenting and
other family skills.  They are usually integrated into our program.

 

The parenting specialist would handle the life skills (in Spanish) and I
would focus primarily (but no exclusively) on language use.  

Grace and Peace!
Glenda Lynn Rose, PhD

ESL Instructor

Austin Learning Academy

841-4777
 



--- On Sat, 7/4/09, Michael Gyori <michael_gyori at yahoo.com> wrote:


From: Michael Gyori <michael_gyori at yahoo.com>
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 4548] Sharing anecdotal information
To: "englishlanguage at nifl.gov" <englishlanguage at nifl.gov>
Date: Saturday, July 4, 2009, 6:48 AM


Glenda, you wrote (please see my embedded questions):

My concerns for the class in the fall, the biliteracy class +++ What do
you mean by biliteracy and are you targeting nonreaders? +++ is how to
accommodate these individual needs in a class setting.  However, I'm
beginning to think that coordinating with the parenting specialist (I
work on an elementary school site) may be one way to do so.  If I teach
the general L1/L2 class and let her handle life skills,+++ what do you
mean by life skills: R-W literacy or something else in addition? +++ it
may work well.  I'm having trouble visualizing how that might work,
though.+++ Could you clarify your vision for this arrangement? I  can't
form an image of it as stated. +++

Michael
www.mauilanguage.com

Sent via Blackberry by Turkcell


      
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