Hi Glenda,

Do you have sufficient command of your students' L1s and/or do you use a metalinguistic approach to bi-literacy?

Michael
www.mauilanguage.com

Sent via Blackberry by Turkcell

Glenda Lynn Rose wrote: 

> I am working one-on-one with a student who has very low native language literacy.  However, we are using a bilingual approach.  I am helping her with both L1 and L2 literacy.  This is somewhat of an experiment for me.  I have seen, however, that without my explicitly pointing out the similarities in decoding, she is making the connections and able to identify sight words in English as well as sound out words relatively well in Spanish.  She can also figure out some English words by the consonants if she takes her time. 

>    

>  We are not exclusively working on reading/writing.  Oral activities with her include general conversation (she's been in the US many years and has a  very basic vocabulary), listening/speaking lab (which she self-reports to be using constantly), picture prompts, multi-media computer programs (integrating listening, reading, and speaking), her cell phone voice mail, her own requests of "I need to say" and "what does this mean" and so on.  

>    

>  Writing is the most laborious for her and at this time I've elected to limit it to 10 minutes of our study time.  In fact, yesterday we didn't do it at all, because she had some additional personal worries that were clearly affecting her ability to concentrate on writing tasks.  I made the decision to ditch all reading/writing for the day and we focused on listening/speaking.  The end result was we had a great class.  She appreciated the consideration and promised to work on the writing when her head was less occupied by other concerns.  

>    

>  The ability to adjust to her life situations and individual needs is a great help.  I'm planning to conduct a bi-literacy class in the fall and am concerned about how I'm going to be able to adjust to individual learner needs of this sort in a group.  I think maybe limiting the class size to 5 or 6 may be necessary to be effective.  

>    

>  The idea is that after building confidence is this kind of class, they will be able to transfer to a general ESL class with a lower risk of stopping-out. 

>    

>  If you have any other ideas that you think might be helpful, please let me know.  I'm in the designing stage right now. 

>    

>    

>  Grace and Peace! Glenda Lynn Rose, PhD 

>  ESL Instructor 

>  Austin Learning Academy 

>  841-4777   --- On Thu, 7/2/09, Adam W Nathanson/FS/VCU <nathansonaw at vcu.edu> wrote: 

>  From: Adam W Nathanson/FS/VCU <nathansonaw at vcu.edu> Subject: [ EnglishLanguage 4535] Re: L1 vs. L2 literacy To: "The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List" <englishlanguage at nifl.gov> Date: Thursday, July 2, 2009, 11:01 AM 

>  Hello All, 

>    

>  I would like to mention that in addition to technology-based audio/text combinations, collaborative multi-level classes can pair the aforementioned upper intermediate students with lowest literacy learners to provide the audio orally in-person, especially if they share an L1.  Playback is even more instantaneous that way too.  Also, in certain settings, such as jails, even a tape recorder, CD player or computer may not be logistically feasible.  Some of my lowest literacy students would find operating the tape player etc. to be a barrier too. 

>    

>  I have found that the lowest literacy learners are very hesitant to self-select content, even more so during the first few classes.  I would caution that asking literacy level ESL students to do this early on could affect retention negatively because they feel they have nothing to offer and "You're the teacher, you tell me." 

>    

>  Later as a safe third space is built up, I think learner-directed content works wonderfully.  I guess it all depends on whether you're working in an open registration setting or a more managed enrollment scenario too because third space could already exist for current students, while newer ones may not be able to sense that zone of safety initially. 

>  Great discussion and links regarding the actual machinations of reading development. 

>    

>  Adam 

>  Educational Services 

>  Henrico County Regional Jails 

>  Henrico, Virginia 

>    -----englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov wrote: ----- 

>  To: <englishlanguage at nifl.gov> From: "Sarah Young" <syoung at cal.org> Sent by: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov Date: 07/01/2009 04:33PM Subject: [EnglishLanguage 4531] Re: L1 vs. L2 literacy 

>  Michael, 

>  I think you’re right about these key differences. Have you read the CAELA Network article “ How Should Adult ESL Reading Instruction Differ from ABE Reading Instruction?”? It highlights some of these differences and cites some of the research done on this topic. http://www.cal.org/caela/esl_resources/briefs/readingdif.html 

>    

>  Thanks, 

>    

>  Sarah Young 

>  Adult ESL Specialist 

>  Center for Applied Linguistics 

>  Washington, DC 

>    

>  syoung at cal.org 

>  202-362-0700 

>  www.cal.org 

>  "Improving communication through better understanding of language and culture" 

>    

>    

>  From: Michael Gyori [mailto:mgyori at mauilanguage.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2009 3:18 PM To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List Subject: RE: [EnglishLanguage 4529] Re: L1 vs. L2 literacy 

>    

>  Hi Steve, My point was to highlight what I regard to be key differences between L1 & L2 RL development: in the case of L2, AURAL phonemic productive and receptive discrimination; the need to ENcode many everyday words that are not known, in contrast to L1 speakers;   to a lesser degree, learning the Latin alphabet for learners who know another writing system or none at all. I often have my more  literate students (GLE 3+) listen to audio books prior to reading them. The need to tap into their sphere of interest is most important, as you indicate. Michael www.mauilanguage.com Sent by Blackberry via Turkcell 

>  Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 11:23:49 -0700 From: steve at thelinguist.com To: englishlanguage at nifl.gov Subject: [EnglishLanguage 4529] Re: L1 vs. L2 literacy Michael, You identified three goals for people who want to improve their reading in English. 1) Recognizing the words and the sounds of the words. 2) Decoding - presumably this means relating what is written to the words and how they sound, and probably the meaning as well 3) Spelling. My experience is that the fastest track to success is to provide the learner with a large selection of material which consists of audio and text. This material should be not too difficult for the learner. The learner can listen before reading, while reading and even after reading and then listen and read again, and again. The learner must be able to choose content of interest to the learner. This cycle

>  will take care of all three goals, unless the learner has a reading disability of some kind. This is my experience and is in line with the view of Stephen Krashen Does Intensive Decoding Instruction Contribute to Reading Comprehension? . The only difference is that Krashen often overlooks the importance of listening as a part of learning to read. In my view, only upper intermediate readers should be reading without having access to audio, in order to prepare and to reinforce. That is one of our principles at LingQ where all of our libraries consist of audio and text. Steve -- Steve Kaufmann www.thelinguist.blogs.com www.lingq.com 604-922-8514

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