Transcript LANGUAGE TRANSFER AND EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTIONAL …

LANGUAGE TRANSFER
AND EFFECTIVE
INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES
AND ASSESSMENT FOR
BILITERACY DEVELOPMENT
LANGUAGE TRANSFER
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Concepts:
 “transfer” represents the learners’ dependence on firstlanguage knowledge
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The application of knowledge, skill, and specific strategies
from one domain to other new situations
Transfer occurs when the person’s learning in one situation
influences learning in novel situation
LANGUAGE TRANSFER
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Linguistic Transfer:
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Krashen (1983): “filling with known information, as the result of
falling back on old knowledge, the L1 rule, when new
knowledge ... is lacking”
Gass and Selinker (1983): “transfer of prior linguistic
knowledge results IL (interlanguage) forms which, when
compared to the target language norms, can be termed
‘positive,’ ‘negative’, ‘or neutral”
Odlin (1989): “influence from similarities and differences
between the target language and any other language that has
been previously (and perhaps imperfectly) acquired”
LANGUAGE TRANSFER
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Linguistic dependence:
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Second, the reliance on first-language knowledge
is, more or less, associated with initial acquisition
of of second-language knowledge;
Transfer of first-language knowledge tends to
cease when relevant second-language knowledge
has been acquired;
Dependence on L1 becomes minimal once
sufficient proficiency (however defined) is attained
METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS
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Concept:
 ability to identify, analyze and manipulate language
forms;
 understanding of language in its most fundamental
sense;
 once properly formed, is believed to regulate the
perception ad interpretation of linguistic input, thereby
guiding and facilitating both language learning and
processing
METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS
Learning to read is metalinguistic:
 recognition of functionally important units of spoken
language, awareness of the relation of these units to the
writing system, and the skills to map between the two
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Literacy:
 It occurs when the child understands that written symbols
correspond to speech units, understands what each symbol
represents, and knows how symbols can be combined to
form a word. Lacking these basic insights, written symbols
are perceived as nonsense scribble and their learning is
apparently both useless and meaningless
METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS
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Examples:
 syntactic awareness: realization that the order in which
words are strung together determines sentence meaning
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phonological awareness: understand that written symbols
correspond to speech units, understand what each symbol
represents, and know how symbols can be combined to
form a word
morphological awareness: being able to use inflectional
and derivational morphemes in writing and speaking and
ability to use combine morphemes during word and
sentence comprehension
METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS
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Examples in English:
 While English orthography is alphabetic, bound by
phonemic constraints, it tends to preserve
morphological information in its graphic
representation. To master an alphabetic script,
children not only must recognize that words can be
divided into sequences of phonemes. but they must
also acquire the capability to analyze a word’s internal
structure and identify its phonemic constituents
METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS
AND BILITERACY

WHAT ARE THE CRITICAL FACTORS THAT MANY L2
CHILDREN LACK?
 Learning to read is to develop skills with which to map spokenlanguage elements onto graphic symbols. The L2 learner
typically does not have full oral proficiency in the second
language L2 at the time when second-language literacy-learning
begins
 limited oral-communication experience, make the L2 learner
less sensitized to the functional significance of linguistic
features
 L2 learners undertake the task without adequate knowledge of
the actual elements to be mapped, and without the
metalinguistic facilitation which guides such mappings.
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METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS
AND BILITERACY
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CRITICAL FACTORS…
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These children have limited prior literacy experience. Therefore,
they must undertake the learning task without benefit of either
linguistic knowledge or print-information processing competence.
 They are not likely to have a clear conception of how print
relates to speech because of their limited literacy experience.
Lacking such a basic understanding, linguistic knowledge
cannot automatically be used to “decipher” print information.
METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS
AND BILITERACY
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ARE THERE THEN MECHANISMS TO FACILITATE
LEARNING-TO-READ FOR THESE CHILDREN WITHOUT
ORAL PROFICIENCY AND WITHOUT PRIOR LITERACY
EXPERIENCE?
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One possibility is phonological awareness:
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child’s growing understanding of the segmental structure
of spoken sounds
awareness which precedes and supports initial literacy
acquisition
METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS
AND BILITERACY
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WHAT TRANSFERS FROM L1 TO L2 IN THE
PROCESS OF LITERACY TRANSFER?
 Phonological features: equivalent sounds, letterssound correlation, phonemic awareness;
 Morpho-phonological features such as cognates,
prefixation, suffixation, invariant words trigger
phonological memory, linking of oral and written
language,;
 Syntactic processes: combining words into sentences;
METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS
AND BILITERACY
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WHAT TRANSFERS FROM L1 TO L2 IN THE
PROCESS OF LITERACY TRANSFER?
 CONT…
 Reading strategies: meaning construction such as
guessing, confirmation from context clues, activation
of background knowledge, discourse skills used in
comprehending communicative intent;
 Critical thinking skills: prediction, hypothesis, use of
knowledge of logical structure and expository text;
 At a more general level:
 Basic, automatic, internalized aspects of reading
(i.e., how to move eyes over a page, recognizing
letter/sound relationships, recognizing very basic
METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS
AND BILITERACY
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WHAT CRITICAL POINTS HINDER LITERACY
TRANSFER?
 No equivalent sounds in L1 and L2;
 Unfamiliarity with L2 morphology, variant of absent,
 Lack of familiarity with L2 grammatical and syntactical
structures
 Inadequate contextual redundancy
 Unfamiliar concepts and vocabulary
 False cognates, idioms or lack of L1 equivalent,
 Lack of experiential background incongruity or
crosscultural schemata
METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS
AND BILITERACY
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WHAT ARE THE TEACHING/INTERVENTION STRATEGIES
THAT TRIGGER TRANSFER?
 Extend phonemic awareness in the primary language and
in English
 Teach syllabification and word derivations such as prefixes
and suffixes. Teach cognates in the first and second
language. Reinforce attention to spelling patterns through
holistic word recognition and analysis strategies.
 Teach sentence structure and word order patterns to
increase predictability of words in context. Provide
opportunities for students to practice rapid recognition of
high-frequency words.
METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS
AND BILITERACY
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WHAT ARE THE TEACHING/INTERVENTION
STRATEGIES THAT TRIGGER TRANSFER?
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Link oral and written language by determining the relationship
between oral language proficiency and the biliteracy
development. Use texts with high levels of redundancy.
Explain unfamiliar idiomatic expressions and vocabulary in
context in pre-reading activities so that these will not impede
fluent reading and comprehension.
Establish an experiential and cultural context through schematic
mapping. Focus in the specific cultural attributes of the text.
Guide students in examining the purpose and logical structure of
expository and narrative text. Select universal and meaningful
messages in literature.