SLAT6827 Second Language Literacy Semester 2, 2004

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SLAT6827 Second Language Literacy Semester 2,
2004

• Crosslinguistic Aspects of Literacy
• Week 12

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Aims of the lecture

• Reconsider the various types of literacy
  defined at the beginning of the course.
• Consider how literacy as a social practice and
  literacy as an autonomous cognitive skill
  interact.
• Examine how the social and political context
  affects the development of literacy skills
• Examine the acquisition of literacy skills in
  two very different crosslinguistic settings

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A definition of literacy (revisited)

• Literacy is a set of socially organised
  practices which make use of a symbol system and a
  technology for producing and disseminating it.
  Literacy is not simply knowing how to read and
  write a particular script but applying this
  knowledge for specific purposes in specific
  contexts of use. Scribner Cole, cited in
  Barton (1994) p20.
• in general, the study of language is undergoing
  a revolution, with the dominant view moving away
  from investigating a system which is described
  solely in terms of its structure the study of
  language is moving toward viewing language as a
  dynamic social activity which serves peoples
  purposes. (Barton, 1994) p54

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Two views of literacy

• Literacy as social practice
• - understood in the context of the social
  practices in which it is acquired and used.
• Literacy as autonomous skill
• understood as a cognitive skill independent from
  social context.

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• Is it possible to really understand literacy
  processes independent of the social settings in
  which they are embedded?

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Literacy and politics

• Durgunoglu (1998). Acquiring literacy in English
  and Spanish in the United States
• Long, largely unrecognised history of
  bilingualism in the US.
• Significant relationship with political trends
  and events.

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US education policy

• US Bilingual Education Act of 1968 guarantees the
  right of access to comprehensible education
• 1984 and 1988 amendments to the act allowed funds
  to be used for bilingual education programs in
  which the learners L1 is not used at all e.g.,
  ESL for language-minority children

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Bilingual education in the US

• Most bilingual education programs are
  transitional, designed to integrate the learner
  into the English mainstream.
• Very little emphasis on L1 maintenance
• Politically sensitive
• Uncertain funding
• Ambivalence by parents concerning effectiveness
  of bilingual education

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Ambivalence toward bilingualism

• Many Americans have long been of the opinion
  that bilingualism is a good thing if it is
  acquired via travel (preferably to Paris) or via
  formal education (preferably at Harvard) but it
  is a bad thing if it was acquired from ones
  immigrant parents or grandparents.
• Fishman, cited in Durgunoglu, p 136

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Paradoxical views about the economic value of L2
learning

• There is an inherent paradox in the educational
  policy that tries to teach (usually
  unsuccessfully) a second language (L2) to its
  high school students so that they can operate in
  the global economy, while at the same time
  devaluing the L1 of students who come from
  non-English backgrounds and who already have that
  foreign language. p136

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Paradoxical views about the cognitive effects of
child bilingualism

• concern about the ability of children to learn
  two languages is usually invoked in regard to
  poor and minority students. Upper class children
  are apparently assumed to have the intellectual
  potential necessary to cope with bilingualism.

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Advantages of bilingual education

• Better classroom learning outcomes
• Improved self-esteem of the learner
• Transfer of L1 literacy skills to the L2
• Interaction of language and literacy development

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The study

• Aim Observe how language and literacy processes
  evolve in a transitional bilingual education
  program

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Research questions

• How does Spanish literacy develop?
• What is the influence of Spanish literacy on
  English literacy development?
• What are the predictors of success in English
  literacy development?

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Reading as an interactive process

• Successful reading writing involve the creation
  and expression of meaning
• Limitations in basic processes of word
  recognition and spelling can hinder this process.
• Does L1 skill in word level processes facilitate
  development of the L2?

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Facilitators of word recognition and spelling

• Phonological awareness the ability to hear the
  small components of the spoken language
• Syntactic awareness understanding the basic
  structural properties of language
• Functional awareness understanding the functions
  and conventions of print.
• 
  p139

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Study context

• Participants. 46 first graders in two bilingual
  classrooms in large midwestern city in the US.
• Goal of bilingual program is to transition
  children to all-English classrooms by the end of
  the 2nd or 3rd grade.
• 1st grade students mostly instructed in Spanish
  with English as L2, taught with a focus on
  developing oral proficiency and listening
  comprehension

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Outcome measures

• English word recognition List reading and
  environmental print
• English spelling production
• Spanish word recognition list reading
• Spanish spelling production
• English phonological awareness Sound
  segmentation task

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Outcome measures results

• English word recognition measure very low, (8)
  but higher in context (62)
• Spanish word recognition 63
• Spanish spelling 70
• English spelling 62

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Predictor measures

• Spanish phonological awareness test
• Spanish syntactic awareness test
• Spanish listening comprehension test
• Letter identification test
• Functional print test
• e.g describe function of telephone book,
  birthday card, etc.
• Spanish concepts about print test
• e.g. how book is held, role of punctuation

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Relationship between predictors and outcomes

• spell spelling wr word recognition pa
  phonological awareness

SP spell
EN spell
EN wr
SP wr
SP pa other predictors
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Results

• 1. Development of Spanish literacy similar to
  monolingual development (Phonological letter
  awareness most important factors.)
• 2. Spanish literacy skills correlated with
  English literacy skills.
• 3. Spanish predictors (particularly phonological
  awareness) predicted L2 performance.

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Conclusion

• Evidence that proficiency acquired in the L1 will
  transfer and help development in the L2.

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Social and cultural aspects of literacy.

• Abu-Rabia, S. (1998). Social and cognitive
  factors influencing the reading comprehension of
  Arab students learning Hebrew as a second
  language in Israel.

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Israeli-Arab social/educational context

• Arab students required to learn Hebrew, the
  majority language.
• Intense political and social problems
• melting pot approach

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The study

• Aim Assess the relationship of attitudes and
  cultural background of Arab students in Israel to
  their reading comprehension of stories from
  Jewish and Arab culture.

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Schema theory

• The ability to understand L2 text is affected by
  amount and kind of background knowledge and its
  activation during reading.

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Motivation Instrumental Integrative

• Motivation is affected by attitudes to the target
  language and the target language learner.
• Positive social context is crucial for L2
  learning.

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Research questions

• 1. What type of attitudes do Arab students
  possess toward learning Hebrew in Israel?
• 2. What is the effect of story familiarity (Arab
  versus Jewish culture content) on comprehension
  in the Arab learners L1 and L2?

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Study

• Participants 78 Arab school students in middle
  school in an Arab school in southern Israel.
  Lower socio-economic background. Language of
  instruction and home is Arabic.

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Measures

• L1 proficiency (cloze)
• L2 proficiency (cloze)
• Attitudes toward learning Hebrew
• Integrative motivation
• Instrumental motivation
• Reading comprehension Hebrew L2 Arabic L1
• Multiple choice identifying
  inferencing information from texts with Arabic
  and Jewish cultural content.

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Results Attitude

• Attitudes toward learning Hebrew
• Integrative motivation 1.4/5
• Instrumental motivation 4.1/5
• Positive correlation between instrumental
  motivation and all proficiency scores

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Results Reading comprehension

• Higher scores on stories with Arabic cultural
  content in both Hebrew and Arabic.
• Instrumental motivation text content strongest
  predictor for both identifying and inferencing
  tasks.

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Conclusion

• Arab learners are instrumentally motivated to
  learn Hebrew and respond better to texts with
  Arab cultural content.

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