Why are we here?. Linguistics, Language and Literacy Acquisition

Why are we here?

Linguistics, Language and Literacy Acquisition


What is the acronym for this title?



Triple L A



Triple L A variation on: AAAL


• low – educated learners

• second language


+

• low – educated learners

• second language

=

Low-Educated Second Language and

Literacy Acquisition = LESLLA

So far ….

Much research on: Much research on: literacy focused on: reading and writingliteracy focused on: reading and writing L2 acquisition focused on:L2 acquisition focused on:

high-educated / instructed learnershigh-educated / instructed learners on naturalistic (uninstructed) adult learners on naturalistic (uninstructed) adult learners

who were low-educatedwho were low-educated educational practices: teaching and educational practices: teaching and

course materialcourse material

So far ….

Little research on L2 Little research on L2 NONNON-literate adults’-literate adults’ reading and writing developmentreading and writing development oral competenceoral competence metalinguistic processesmetalinguistic processes

So far ….

Literacy :Literacy : psychologistspsychologists L2 acquisition:L2 acquisition: linguistslinguists Practice:Practice: educational scientistseducational scientists

These scientists have joint concerns but few These scientists have joint concerns but few opportunities for interactionopportunities for interaction..

Joint topics

phonological competencephonological competence phonological awarenessphonological awareness verbal working memory and L2 learningverbal working memory and L2 learning development of oral competence in L2 by non-development of oral competence in L2 by non-

literates literates links between oral and written development in links between oral and written development in

L2L2 transfer from research to classroom practicetransfer from research to classroom practice L2 teaching of low-educated and non-literatesL2 teaching of low-educated and non-literates

The LESSLA meeting

wants towants to draw attention to the unique group of low-draw attention to the unique group of low-

educated adult learners (>16 years)educated adult learners (>16 years) bring together bring together

researchers of language and language researchers of language and language acquisitionacquisition

researchers of script and literacyresearchers of script and literacy psychologists and psycho-linguistspsychologists and psycho-linguists educational scientists, practioners.educational scientists, practioners.

Support of the script

Written L2 input leads to faster progress Written L2 input leads to faster progress ( (VanPatten 1988; Krashen VanPatten 1988; Krashen

19931993)) The script may be an important support for The script may be an important support for

memorizing and pronunciation of L2 words.memorizing and pronunciation of L2 words.

So, teach non-literate L2 learners how to So, teach non-literate L2 learners how to read and write. But ….read and write. But ….

Support of the script ?

Script also useful for bad L1 readers and illiterates…?Script also useful for bad L1 readers and illiterates…?

if we know that adults have great difficulties to learn if we know that adults have great difficulties to learn to read?to read?

But what makes it so difficult to learn an alphabetic But what makes it so difficult to learn an alphabetic script?script?

Main question for Main question for Astrid GeudensAstrid Geudens (Antwerp): (Antwerp):Phonological awareness and first time (late) L1 readersPhonological awareness and first time (late) L1 readers

First time L2 readers

First time reading is even more difficult for L2 First time reading is even more difficult for L2 adults when their oral L2 (phonological and adults when their oral L2 (phonological and morpho-syntactic competence) is not well morpho-syntactic competence) is not well developed. developed.

Learning to read is often so difficult for adults Learning to read is often so difficult for adults that that Martha Young-ScholtenMartha Young-Scholten (Newcastle) (Newcastle) will ask:will ask:

Is there a critical period for learning to read?Is there a critical period for learning to read?

First time L2 readers

What is the non-literate’s knowledge of What is the non-literate’s knowledge of language?language?

How does this relate to the knowledge of pre-How does this relate to the knowledge of pre-reading children? reading children?

Main questions for Main questions for Jeanne Kurvers Jeanne Kurvers (Tilburg):(Tilburg):

Knowledge on language of illiterate adultsKnowledge on language of illiterate adults

Cognitive factors If it is so difficult to develop phonemic awareness in the L2, If it is so difficult to develop phonemic awareness in the L2,

isn’t it better not to teach reading and writing to adults and isn’t it better not to teach reading and writing to adults and only oral skills?only oral skills?

Or should we focus on improving oral competence in Or should we focus on improving oral competence in phonology?phonology?

Is it possible to assess the verbal aptitude of non-literate Is it possible to assess the verbal aptitude of non-literate L2 learners?L2 learners?

What is the role of working memory in this context?What is the role of working memory in this context? And in the context of lexical and syntactic development in And in the context of lexical and syntactic development in

the L2?the L2?

Main questions for Main questions for Alan JuffsAlan Juffs (Pittsburgh) (Pittsburgh)Cognitive factors: working memory and lexical developmentCognitive factors: working memory and lexical development ..

Cognitive factors

We should know more on working memory for We should know more on working memory for enhancing the effect of teaching:enhancing the effect of teaching:

Does an adult process larger bits of Does an adult process larger bits of information than children?information than children?

(‘less is more’ ‘starting small’ hypothesis,(‘less is more’ ‘starting small’ hypothesis, Newport 1990, 1991 a.o.) Newport 1990, 1991 a.o.)

Does that influence the learning of phonology, Does that influence the learning of phonology, and also of morphology?and also of morphology?

Research and practice in USA

How much L2 proficiency is necessary before we can How much L2 proficiency is necessary before we can start with phonological awareness, with reading start with phonological awareness, with reading instruction?instruction?

What is the best method for teaching literacy to adult What is the best method for teaching literacy to adult L2 learners?L2 learners?

Larry CondelliLarry Condelli (American Institutes for Research) will (American Institutes for Research) will deal with such questions: deal with such questions:

Instructional practices: Effect of language and literacy Instructional practices: Effect of language and literacy on L2 proficiency.on L2 proficiency.

Research and practice in USA

How can we bring teachers to adopt effective research-How can we bring teachers to adopt effective research-based methodologies in L2 acquisition and literacy?based methodologies in L2 acquisition and literacy?

Nancy FauxNancy Faux ((Virginia Adult Learning Resource CenterVirginia Adult Learning Resource Center) will ) will explore explore some some issues of professional developmentissues of professional development::

Getting the research to the classroom: Preparing Getting the research to the classroom: Preparing teachers to help low-literacy adult ESOL learnersteachers to help low-literacy adult ESOL learners

Research and practice in Sweden Overview of adult literacy education in Sweden

Ingrid Skeppstedt (Stockholm, National Centre for Swedish as L2) shows collaborative learning methods for enhancing discourse and language awareness.

Qarin Franker (Göteborg, Institute for Swedish as L2) will focus on multimodality and the function of images for L2 literacy training.

Policy and practice in the Netherlands

Much controversy between politics and policy and the Much controversy between politics and policy and the findings of L2 acquisition and literacy research, in findings of L2 acquisition and literacy research, in particular, with regard to the Resettlement exam for particular, with regard to the Resettlement exam for low-educated learners.low-educated learners.

Policy makers at three levels:Policy makers at three levels: a policy maker of the Council of Tilburg: a policy maker of the Council of Tilburg: Rémy Rémy

KalaloKalalo a director of the center for adult education: a director of the center for adult education: Bert Bert

van Leeuwenvan Leeuwen an innovator: an innovator: Willemijn StockmannWillemijn Stockmann who established who established

a national portfolio for L2 literacy learners. a national portfolio for L2 literacy learners.

* * *

2 short introductions

Ineke van de CraatsIneke van de Craats ( (Radboud univ. NijmegenRadboud univ. Nijmegen))

Learner properties of non-literate and low-Learner properties of non-literate and low-educated learnerseducated learners

Martha Young-ScholtenMartha Young-Scholten ( (univ.univ. of of NewcastleNewcastle))

Need for research on low-schooled adultsNeed for research on low-schooled adults

Who is the non-literate learner?

Ambiguity of terms

Literacy Literacy Literate Literate (geletterd)(geletterd)

- a person who has read a lot - a person who has read a lot

- a person who can read and write- a person who can read and write Illiterate (ongeletterd)Illiterate (ongeletterd)

- a person who hasn’t read much- a person who hasn’t read much

(functioneel-analfabeet, ongeletterd)(functioneel-analfabeet, ongeletterd)

- - a person who cannot reada person who cannot read ( (analfabeetanalfabeet)) Schooling in how to read : Schooling in how to read : alfabetiseringalfabetisering

Terms used

Alfabetisering = Literacy Alfabetisering = Literacy AlfabetiseringsonderwijsAlfabetiseringsonderwijs Alfabetiseringscursist - Alfabetiseringscursist - alfa-cursistalfa-cursist Alfabetiseringsmethode –Alfabetiseringsmethode – alfa-methodealfa-methode Alfabetiseringsdocent –Alfabetiseringsdocent – alfa-docentalfa-docent NT2 - Nederlands als tweede taalNT2 - Nederlands als tweede taal

ANT2 – alfabetisering for Dutch as L2ANT2 – alfabetisering for Dutch as L2

Alfa-nieuws Alfa-nieuws

Terms used (English)

Pre-literate:Pre-literate:someone whose native language isn’t writtensomeone whose native language isn’t written

Non-literateNon-literate:someone whose native language is written, but someone whose native language is written, but they’ve never had the opportunity to learn to they’ve never had the opportunity to learn to

read and writeread and write Illiterate:Illiterate:

someone who has had the opportunity, but someone who has had the opportunity, but hasn’t hasn’t succeededsucceeded

Functional illiterateFunctional illiterate: : someone who can read and write, but not someone who can read and write, but not

enough enough to use it freelyto use it freely

Terms used (English)

Which term are we going to use here?Which term are we going to use here?

Someone who has not learned to read and write:Someone who has not learned to read and write:

non-literatenon-literate

But …But … in the classroom non-literate and in the classroom non-literate and illiterate adults sit together.illiterate adults sit together.

Who is this artist?

Who is this artist?

Who is this artist?

The ‘analfabeet’ (non-literate)

cannot read at all

can often not understand and talk in the L2

no schooling at all in native country

can often not handle scissors or pencil

small concentration span

troubles in interpreting pictures

Interpretation of pictures

What is this?

Interpretation of pictures

R. Briggs: The Snowman

The ‘analfabeet’ (non-literate)

troubles in understanding instructions

little phonological awareness: analysis at word level

little meta-linguistic awareness: what is a word? etc.

troubles with sentence-imitation tasks

often a good memory

often used to live in an illiterate or semi-literate culture

The low-educated learner

a slow reader (learning process not completed; not

automatized)

tendency to read aloud, or half aloud

not used to read small characters

not used to type-writing

little meta-linguistic awareness

not used to writing conventions as: punctuation marks, bullets, brackets, etc.

cannot carry out grammaticality judgment tasks properly

Grammaticality judgment

Is this sentence correct English?

If no, what is incorrect?

My mother’s bike has been stolen again.

Consequences

These learners properties have consequences for:

the teaching methods

the curriculum

the textbooks

the tests

the research methods

* * *

Existing SLA research on

low-schooled adults

Martha Young-Scholten

Driving question

The driving question since the 1970s:

Are adult L2 learners using the same innate mechanisms generative linguists assume drive L1 (or L2) language acquisition for children?

What evidence is considered?

1970s cross-sectional studies pointed to a common route of development across learners from various L1 backgrounds;

L1A child L2A adult L2A

de Villiers& de Villiers Dulay & Burt Bailey, Madden & Krashen

1. plural -s 1. plural -s 1. prog. -ing

2. progressive -ing 2. prog. ing 2. contractable copula

3. irregular past 3. ctr. copula 3. plur.-s

4. articles 4. ctr. aux. 4. articles

5. ctr. copula 5. articles 5. contr. aux

6. poss.-s 6. irreg. past 6. irr.past

7. 3SG -s 7. 3SG -s 7. 3SG -s

8. ctr.auxiliary 8. poss. -s 8. poss -s

A quick tour of the research on naturalistic learners

The 1970s - 1990s studies:

longitudinal methodology used on L1 children

studies of naturalistic L2 adults

(if certain aspects of language can be learned via instruction, eliminate this factor when asking to what extent adults acquire language like children do).

Study L1 and L2 subjects type of study

issue introduced

Cazden et al.

L1 SpanishL2 English

2 children 2 adolescents2 adults

10 months longitudinal

social factors: Schumann’s ‘Pidginization’

ZISA L1 Spanish,Portuguese andItalianL2 German

45 adults

12 adults

cross-sectional + 2 years longitudinal

L2 adult access to Universal Grammar; Pienemann’s Processability

ESF six L1sfive European L2s

40 adults 2 ½ yearslongitudinal

Klein & Perdue’s Basic Variety

Lexlern L1 Korean and Turkish L2 German

17 adults cross-sectional

L1 knowledge at the initial state of L2 acquisition

Research on naturalistic learners

Current SLA issues

Two current SLA issues in more detail:

access to Universal Grammar

the L2-initial state

Access to Universal Grammar: interlanguage rules

L1 Turkish/L2 learner (ESF) Cevdet places the verb (Schwartz and

Sprouse 1994)

in 2nd position for a subject pronoun (wir ‘we’)

Dann trinken wir bis neun Uhr.

then drink we until nine o’clock

‘Then we’ll drink until nine o’clock.’

Access to Universal Grammar: interlanguage rules

But ….

in 3rd position for a full NP (der Lehrer ‘the teacher’):

In der Türkei der Lehrer kann den Schüler schlagen.

in the Turkey the teacher can the pupil hit

[In der Türkei kann der Lehrer den Schüler schlagen].

‘In Turkey the teacher can hit pupils.’

Issues that again involve naturalistic (often low or uneducated) L2 adults.

The L2-initial state

Three positions regarding the initial state/earliest stage of L2A:

How much of the learner’s L1 is relied on?

What other influences are there? (UG for example)

The non-UG position The earliest stage involves a system neither that of

the learner’s L1 nor the L2.

Development is not directly driven by the same mechanisms children use

The canonical SVO word order strategy for L2 German (Clahsen & Muysken, Klein & Perdue; and Pienemann (ZISA and ESF data),

e.g. an SOV Turkish learner

Ich kaufen Brot so türkishe Geschäft. (Mine; Lexlern data)

I buy-INF bread so Turkish shop

[Ich kaufe Brot im türkischen Geschäft.]

‘I buy bread in a/the Turkish shop.’

The UG access + full transfer position

the learner’s entire L1 grammar is available

acquisition involves acquiring L2 morphology and syntactic adjustments.

Here grammaticality judgments provide evidence that the learner (subconsciously) assumes his/her L1-based knowledge of complex syntax applies in the TL (but low educated naturalistic learners may be unable to make such judgments).

The UG access + partial transfer position

For both children and adults, only a minimal grammar (‘minimal tree’) based on the NL is available (there is no inflectional morphology, no complex syntax, with elements in their ‘base’ position).

Adult L2ers’ and children’s data are similar:

Auto hier fahren (Katrin 1;5)

Car here drive -INF

‘ ‘Das Auto fährt hier.’

‘ ‘The car goes here.’

Adults’ utterances look very similar:

Eine Katze Fisch alle essen. (Changsu/Korean L1)

a cat fish all eat-INF

[Eine Katze hat den ganzen Fisch gefressen.] ‘A cat ate the whole fish.’

Peter lernen die Buch. (Paul/English L1, month 2)

Peter learn-INF the book.

[Peter liest das Buch.] ‘Peter reads the book.’

Rote man Bier trinken. (Russian #10; Dimroth 2002)

red man beer drink-INF

[(Der) rote Mann trinkt Bier.] ‘ (The) red man is drinking beer.’

Additional evidence for UG access

Additional evidence for UG access typically comes from educated, metalinguistically skilled L2 learners:

Do adult L2ers demonstrate sensitivity to constraints which do not apply in their L1?

Can they judge as ungrammatical sentences which they won’t have heard in the input?

Grammaticality judgments

L1 speakers of wh-in situ languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean:

Zhang San xihuan shei? Mary likes _____.

Zhang San like who Who does Mary like____?

‘Who does Zhang San like?

Do judgements show learners are sensitive to UG-constrained violations in L2 English:

*Who did Mary meet the man who saw?

Who did Mary believe that the man saw?

(*ungrammatical wh-extraction out of a relative clause vs. an embedded clause)


Can L2 learners distinguish between possible and impossible interpretations?

Prononimal reference is subject to varying cross-linguistic constraints. Can learners for whom L1 constraints differ assign the correct meaning to pronouns, e.g. Japanese learners of English?

Barbara thinks that Lisa is proud of herself. herself = Barbara? Lisa?

Barbara forced Lisa to help herself.

Barbara thinks that Lisa is proud of her. her = Barbara? Lisa?

Barbara forced Lisa to help her.


SLA researchers who’ve investigated the development of morpho-syntax have inadvertently provided a wealth of findings about low-educated adult L2ers.

This gives us a solid foundation from which to pursue unaddressed issues such as individual variation in attainment in non-literate L2 populations.

Conclusion

More research specifically on

the population of

completely unschooled L2 adults

is needed.

The next step

MeetingMeeting Should there be a next meeting, or a real conference Should there be a next meeting, or a real conference

with refereed abstracts?with refereed abstracts? When, how and by whom will this be organised?When, how and by whom will this be organised?

PublicationPublication Should there be a publication of this meeting?Should there be a publication of this meeting?

The research agendaThe research agenda What issues should be on the international agenda?What issues should be on the international agenda? Collaboration is of added value: how to organise that?Collaboration is of added value: how to organise that?

Documents

Why are we here?. Linguistics, Language and Literacy Acquisition