READING AND VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT (Comprehension, reading, understanding, re-writing in own words)

READING AND VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT

As the English learner recognizes and produces the sounds of English, the student is simultaneously building vocabulary. Learning new labels for concepts, objects, and actions is a key building block for the integration of the language. The pathways in the English-language development (ELD) standards lead to the achievement of fluent oral and silent reading. Those pathways are created by building vocabulary and are demonstrated through actions and spoken words, phrases, and sentences and by transferring this understanding to reading. The successful learning of a second language requires that the instruction of students be highly integrated to include all language skills and challenging activities that focus on subject-matter content (Brinton, Snow, and Wesche 1989). Therefore, at the higher proficiency levels, the student is asked to apply knowledge of vocabulary to literature and subject-matter texts and achieve an appropriate level of independent reading.

At the lower ELD proficiency levels, reading materials should be at the student’s developmental level. Grade-level reading materials should be used with students working at the advanced level. In addition to demonstrating proficiency in the ELD standards, students at the advanced level must also demonstrate proficiency in the English–language arts standards at their own grade level and at all prior grade levels. To ensure each student’s success, schools must offer instruction leading to proficiency in the language arts standards. Instruction must begin as early as possible within the framework of the ELD standards. To ensure that all English learners achieve proficiency in the language arts standards, teachers must concurrently use both documents: the English–language arts standards and the ELD standards.

READING COMPREHENSION

Reading comprehension and literary response and analysis are the two pathways of the ELD standards that lead to mastery of the academic content of the language arts standards. The English learner requires instruction in which listening, speaking, reading, and writing are presented in an integrated format. The ELD standards vary according to the grade level and the age of the student: early childhood (ages five to seven years), middle childhood (ages eight to ten years), and young adult (ages eleven to sixteen years). The speed of acquisition of academic language in English differs within those three groups (Collier 1992). Older children and adults, over the short term, proceed more quickly through the very early stages of syntactical and morphological development (Scarcella and Oxford 1992). Young children proceed less quickly, but in the long run they achieve higher levels of proficiency in a second language than do older children and adults. The influence of age is most evident with younger children who are able to learn a second language and speak that language with nativelike fluency and pronunciation (Selinker 1972). Younger children exhibit few of the inappropriate (e.g., phonological, syntactical, or morphological) forms of the second language that often are problematic for older children and adults and that require extensive remediation.

When English learners reach the advanced level of the ELD standards, they must also be able to demonstrate proficiency in the language arts standards for their current grade level and all prior grade levels. Students at the advanced level of the ELD standards must use grade-level texts; however, students working at lower levels should use reading materials appropriate for their developmental levels. To ensure that English learners become proficient in both the ELD and the language arts standards, teachers must use the two standards documents concurrently and provide instruction leading to proficiency in the language arts standards at a level no later than the inter-mediate level of the ELD standards.

LISTENING AND SPEAKING

STRATEGIES AND APPLICATIONS

The listening and speaking standards for English learners identify a student’s competency to understand the English language and to produce the language orally. Students must be prepared to use English effectively in social and academic settings. Listening and speaking skills provide one of the most important building blocks for the foundation of second-language acquisition and are essential for developing reading and writing skills in English. To develop proficiency in listening, speaking, reading, and writing, students must receive instruction in reading and writing while developing fluency in oral English.

Teachers must use both the ELD and the English–language arts standards to ensure that English learners develop proficiency in listening and speaking and acquire the concepts in the English–language arts standards. English learners achieving at the advanced level of the ELD standards should demonstrate proficiency in the language arts standards at their own grade level and at all prior grade levels. This expectation means that by the early advanced ELD level, all prerequisite skills needed to achieve the level of skills in the English–language arts standards must have been learned. English learners must develop both fluency in English and proficiency in the language arts standards. Teachers must ensure that English learners receive instruction in listening and speaking that will enable them to meet the speaking applications standards of the language arts standards.

STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING SPEAKING SKILLS

Students often think that the ability to speak a language is the product of language learning, but speaking is also a crucial part of the language learning process. Effective instructors teach students speaking strategies. These instructors help students learn to speak so that the students can use speaking to learn.

1. USING MINIMAL RESPONSES

Minimal responses are predictable, often idiomatic phrases that conversation participants use to indicate understanding, agreement, doubt, and other responses to what another speaker is saying. Having a stock of such responses enables a learner to focus on what the other participant is saying, without having to simultaneously plan a response.

2. RECOGNIZING SCRIPTS

Instructors can help students develop speaking ability by making them aware of the scripts for different situations so that they can predict what they will hear and what they will need to say in response. Through interactive activities, instructors can give students practice in managing and varying the language that different scripts contain.

3. USING LANGUAGE TO TALK ABOUT LANGUAGE

By encouraging students to use clarification phrases in class when misunderstanding occurs and by responding positively when they do, instructors can create an authentic practice environment within the classroom itself. As they develop control of various clarification strategies, students will gain confidence in their ability to manage the various communication situations that they may encounter outside the classroom.

WRITING:              STRATEGIES AND APPLICATIONS

As English learners begin to develop language skills in listening, speaking, and reading, they also need to develop writing skills. Linguistic studies note that English learners will transfer language skills from their primary language to English (Odlin 1989), especially if similarities between English and the primary language exist and if students are substantially literate in their primary language. Research also indicates that integrating the four language skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) is crucial for English learners to develop the ability to write effectively (Mangeldorf 1989). Reading is particularly important because it provides English learners with opportunities to acquire grammar, expand vocabulary, gain increasing fluency with written texts, and improve speaking skills (Interactive Approaches to Second Language Reading 1988). Reading provides students with model sentence patterns and linguistic structures. However, improved writing does not necessarily follow from reading. For English learners to apply their knowledge of sentence patterns and linguistic structures, they must put into practice what they observe from reading by engaging in various types of writing. If these students are to become successful users of English, their integrated instructional program must include numerous opportunities to develop writing skills.

Because English learners working at the advanced level of the ELD standards are also expected to demonstrate proficiency in the language arts standards, it is essential for teachers to use the two standards documents concurrently and to monitor students’ progress on both sets of standards.

What Is Grammar?

Grammar is the structural foundation of our ability to express ourselves. The more we are aware of how it works, the more we can monitor the meaning and effectiveness of the way we and others use language. It can help foster precision, detect ambiguity, and exploit the richness of expression available in English. And it can help everyone--not only teachers of English, but teachers of any subject, for all teaching are ultimately a matter of getting to grips with meaning. (DAVID CRYSTAL, "IN WORD AND DEED," TES TEACHER, APRIL 30, 2004)

What Is the Difference Between Descriptive and Prescriptive Grammar?

  Descriptive grammar: the systematic study and description of a language. Descriptive grammar refers to the structure of a language as it is actually used by speakers and writers.

  Prescriptive grammar: a set of rules and examples dealing with the syntax and word structures of a language, usually intended as an aid to the learning of that language. Prescriptive grammar refers to the structure of a language as certain people think it should be used.

Both kinds of grammar are concerned with rules--but in different ways. Specialists in descriptive grammar (called linguists) study the rules or patterns that underlie our use of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. On the other hand, prescriptive grammarians (such as most editors and teachers) lay out rules about what they believe to be the “correct” or “incorrect” use of language.

Prescription vs. Description

When we speak of rules of grammar, we often mean prescriptive rules, i.e. rules that are intended to tell

people how they should speak or write according to some pre-established (arbitrary) standard. Prescriptive rules are of dubious origin and have no linguistic justification. The linguist is solely interested in understanding descriptive rules, i.e. rules that govern the way in which people actually do speak. Every spoken language is governed by rules in this sense. This does not mean that every speaker of English follows exactly the same rules: English has a number of different dialects, which are equally valuable but are nonetheless distinct.