Heide,

I have been involved in ESL for decades in and out of the USA, as a classroom teacher, teacher trainer, textbook writer, advisor, manager, etc. and have ended up after retiring from the Defense Language Institute English Language Center back where I am happiest; in a beginning to intermediate classroom in Austin, Texas teaching ESL to adult immigrants at very basic levels. In the trenches lies reality and I really enjoy what I do now. Along the way I have developed a very strong interest in early concentration on the sound systems of English and those of my students. I have experienced that this is perhaps the most neglected area in teacher training, despite its importance in all aspects of their language acquisition. That includes reading.

You and many other persons in our profession use a term that I find somewhat lacking; "phonemic awareness." The idea is wonderful and it's really not quite enough. Let me explain. What I have to say relates to many languages. However, most of our students in Texas and elsewhere are Spanish speakers. The problem is that what both teachers and students need is "phonetic awareness." My own studies and those of others with an interest in this area have shown that a majority of the problems in listening, identification and production of English sounds are not due to a lack of these sounds on the basic phonemic level in the spoken language. The problem is the allophonic behavior of these sounds within words or sentence environments.

English has 38 phonemes; 24 consonant sounds, 11 vowel sounds and three diphthong phonemes. In their "raw" phonemic descriptions, a majority of the consonant sounds are the same or very close to their counterpart Spanish phonemes. The problem comes with factors that come up at the phonetic level. For example, the voiceless stops /p/ /t/ and /k/ are aspirated in English. A little puff of air after any of these sounds is acoustically important in recognition and production. Aspiration is not phonemic in English. It is in some languages. They are not aspirated in Spanish and are often interpreted by English speakers as /b/ /d/ and /g/.  English and Spanish both have /b/ /d/ and /g/, however between vowel sounds, within a word, or between words these three voiced stops convert to fricative sounds. "Labor" sounds like "laver," "ladder" sounds like "lather" and the /g/ in "begin" makes a fricative sound that doesn't exist in English. As we go through all of the consonant sounds of English and Spanish in different word environments, the only consonant sound that seems to be the same in different environments in both languages is the /f/ of "fan/often/safe" in English and "fiesta/efecto/bif" in Spanish. To further make things difficult for the Spanish speaker is a heavy lack of consonant sounds at the ends of words. Most Spanish words end in vowel sounds. Spanish words only have five final consonant sounds. Even these sounds are often assimilated in words that follow. These are not phonemic factors, they are phonetic and morphophonemic. Spanish and many other languages that we deal with have no final consonant clusters. A word like "warmth's" could not occur in Spanish or any eastern Asian language or even a word like "books." Speaking of Asian languages, all of them with which I have had contact pre-glotallize final consonants in their languages and English. In English the glottis closes after the final consonant. In plain terms, these sounds are "swallowed." That is not a phonemic factor. The bad news is that all of the vowel sounds of English and Spanish and any other language that I can think of are phonemically AND phonetically different.

Therefore I would like to suggest that "phonemic awareness" on the part of teachers and students is valuable. It quickly gives the big picture. However, the next step needs to be finding out how these sounds behave in English for sure and preferably also in the students' native languages. In order to fix any problems we need to know what is causing them.   


Ted
www.tedklein-ESL.com   


----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Wrigley, Heide 
  To: Wrigley, Heide ; The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List 
  Cc: Lynda Terrill 
  Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 3:26 PM
  Subject: [EnglishLanguage 2390] ESL Reading - 2 or 3 things we know for sure


  Hi, all 

   

  Apparently, there's been a bit of a problem with the CAL server but we are moving along. 

   

  Hello again to those of you participating in the Reading for Adult ELLs discussion. As promised, I wanted to start us off with the two or three things we know for sure from research in reading (though not necessarily from research with adult English language learners - we don't yet have research that speaks directly to this population). 

   

  So here is my questions. Which one of these assertions really resonates for you?  If you are an ESL teacher do you have examples from you students that either supports or disproves one of these points 

   

   

    1.. You learn to read just once (this is also known as "breaking the code"; once you have developed phonemic awareness in one language and you know to decode one language), you don't need to start all over with developing phonemic awareness in another language - you just need to absorb the rules of the new system - that is, you must learn how English works, not how literacy works. 
   

    2.. Knowledge from the first language transfers to knowledge about the second language but transfer is not automatic. You may need to draw your students attention to certain common features of the language. 
   

    3.. We make sense of the world by connecting prior knowledge with new knowledge.  We gain meaning from print the same way. So if your knowledge of the world does not match the knowledge of the world that the writer assumes, the text is likely to be confusing to you even if your reading skills are ok. 
   

    4.. Reading is an interactive process between the reader, the text, and the writer.  The situation in which you read and write and your purposes for doing so play a role as well (think about opening a letter from the INS - now USCIS or a note from your ex-spouse). 
   

    5.. When we read, we activate two types of knowledge - what we know about meaning making (top down processes) and what we know about language (bottom-up processes).  It's important to keep in mind that the purpose of reading is comprehension. 
   

    6.. Although control over bottom-up processes is important for learning to read, it does not follow that new readers must have mastered all sub skills before they can focus on comprehension. Using sub skills effectively enhances comprehension, but control over sub skills does not automatically lead to comprehension. 
   

    7.. Language proficiency and reading comprehension are closely related. One way of increasing the reading skills of literate learners is to build language skills.  One way of building students comprehension of (pre) academic texts, is to present such information orally (mini-presentations) and visually (through PowerPoints or video clips) so you can build understanding of concepts without your students getting mired in print. 
   

    8.. Vocabulary knowledge is one of the key determinants of reading comprehension. Increases in vocabulary means increases in background knowledge and in reading comprehension, the same as in everything else, the more you know - the more you know 
   

  Looking forward to hearing your thoughts 

   

  Heide

   

   

   

  From: Wrigley, Heide 
  Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 12:18 PM
  To: englishlanguage at nifl.gov
  Cc: Lynda Terrill
  Subject: Reading and Adult English Language Learners 

   

  Good morning all 

   

  It's 7 am here in Southern New Mexico, it's still nice and cool and the roses are blooming big time and I should be going out to water soon (coffee first, though)

   

   

  I wanted to welcome you to the discussion on ESL Reading and am hoping that we'll have a lively back and forth as you pose questions, challenge assumptions, and share your own experience teaching reading to ESL students - either teaching these skills explicitly and systematically or just folding reading into your regular curriculum. 

   

  I would like to invite you to tell us a sentence or two about yourself and your work and your experience before you post your messages.

   

  Just a bit of background: I'm Heide Spruck Wrigley and my work revolves around the intersection of research, policy and practice. I've been involved in several studies on ESL literacy (broader than just reading) that we can talk about, and this year I'm doing quite a bit of work around workplace literacy.  Most of my work has been with language minority adults who are relatively new to English but I've also taught in intensive reading programs at the university level.  

   

  I've been working with the Texas GREAT Centers (professional development centers) for a number of years, and this year we started a series of institutes that focus on ESL Reading with a special emphasis on comprehension skills. So this discussion is an outgrowth of this work. 

   

  A bit later, I'll write a note about the 2 or 3 things we know for sure about reading (of any kind, not just reading in another language so we don't have to get caught up in the "reading wars"). 

   

  But in the meantime, I'd like to invite you to jump in and say a bit more about who you are  and what issues you are grappling with when it comes to helping your ESL students understand what they read.  

   

  And a special welcome to the Texas teachers who have been involved in the institutes. I'm hoping you will share your experience teaching reading and tell us what has worked for you. 

   

  All the best 

   

  Heide

   

   

   

  From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Lynda Terrill
  Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 7:21 AM
  To: englishlanguage at nifl.gov
  Subject: [EnglishLanguage 2374] Discussion on Reading and Adult EnglishLanguage Learners begins

   

  Dear subscribers,
   
  I am happy to announce that our discussion on reading and adults learning English as a second language is beginning.  Heide Wrigley will be facilitating this discussion along with Texas practitioners who have been working on a project related to reading.  I look forward to hearing what they have to share, butI  also look forward to hearing many of your experiences, questions, and answers about this important topic.
   
  Lynda Terrill
  lterrill at cal.org
   


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

  Stay in touch when you're away with Windows Live Messenger. IM anytime you're online.



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


  ----------------------------------------------------
  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 taklein at austin.rr.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/englishlanguage/attachments/20080513/fb4877e2/attachment.html