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Learning Outcomes By the end of this chapter you will be able to accomplish the following objectives:

1. Define and differentiate among the four domains of language.

2. Analyze why meaning might be considered the “fifth dimension” of language.

3. Explain the relationship between language and culture.

4. Define culture shock and describe how culture interacts with learning.

5. Analyze the intersection of language, culture, and content, and assess their influence on ELL curriculum and teaching.

Language, Learning, and Culture 2

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Section 2.1 Basic Competencies: The Four Domains

Introduction How do we know when a learner has truly mastered a language? Colloquially, we speak of fluency, proficiency, and competency as though they are interchangeable. In fact, there are slight differences, depending on the purposes for which the terms are used. For ours, they are subtle:

• Fluency refers to the smoothness or flow of speech, oral reading, and writing. It is the ease with which sounds, words, and phrases, are put together. Although the term has particular significance in language pathology, for our purposes it refers to one’s ability to be understood.

• Proficiency refers to an individual’s ability to speak, read, and write, with both accuracy and fluency, in an acquired language. The term also has operational defini- tions in standardized tests and measurements.

• Competency refers to the system of linguistic knowledge possessed by speakers of a language. It is what the learner understands of the structure and vocabulary of a language.

Mastery of a language occurs when a learner is proficient in speaking, reading, and writing it—listening being a necessary prerequisite to speaking. It can be difficult for English lan- guage learners to achieve equal competence in these four domains. Central to proficiency in each domain is meaning; if learners do not understand the meaning of what they hear, they will not remember it—they will not learn. Their understanding is embedded, at least in the early stages, in their own experience of language and learning, that is, what they have expe- rienced in their own culture. Some understanding of the cultural influences on language and on learning is, thus, very useful for teachers. For ELLs, language and content are necessarily taught simultaneously. Ideally, teaching language and content simultaneously, or language through content, usually without translation, reinforces the learning of both. We begin with a description of the four domains of language that must be acquired in order for a learner to achieve fluency, proficiency, and ultimately, competency.

2.1 Basic Competencies: The Four Domains To succeed in school and to become fully competent in English, learners must acquire both conversational and literacy skills. Doing so depends on their developing skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It is tempting to think about the oral and literacy skills as related opposites—listening and reading involve decoding and speaking, and writing involves encoding. But to characterize the four domains as related in these ways runs the risk of over- simplifying what cognitive, linguistic, and psychological, processes are involved in each and how they differ. In general, the productive skills (speaking and writing) are more difficult to acquire than the receptive skills (listening comprehension and reading). Whether productive or receptive, however, all four domains must be learned and they each present challenges for the learner and the teacher.

Even though we can describe, and to some degree assess, each of the four domains indepen- dently, they are in fact interlinked, particularly in the classroom. As Ellen Rodriguez learned

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Section 2.1 Basic Competencies: The Four Domains

in A Lesson for the Teacher, proficiency in one or more domains does not imply proficiency in the others.

The question for Ellen Rodriguez was how Mai’s strong oral language skills could be used in teaching her to read and write. The first step in assisting Mai, as well as Quy and the Korean twins, Ye-jun and Ji-woo, was to get an accurate assessment of English language proficiency. Ellen Rodriguez had made assumptions about each child’s proficiency based on what she had observed, but what she was observing was something different, more akin to acquisi- tion level. Language proficiency levels refer to what a learner is able to demonstrate on a formal language assessment, whereas acquisition level refers to a stage that a learner achieves in the process of acquiring language proficiency. The former is the result of a mea- surement, whereas the latter has been determined by researchers on the basis of obser- vation of many children. Because the ability to function effectively in a language involves competency in all four domains, describing the five levels of acquisition considers develop- ment in each (see Table 2.1).

As Table 2.1 shows, four of the five levels of language acquisition could last longer than a school year. To assess the progress students make in language learning, it would thus be nec- essary to conduct proficiency assessments in each of the four domains. In 1985, there were some such measures available to Ellen, but today there would be more, most of them used statewide (Chapter 1). As we examine each domain, we also look at how to measure profi- ciency in each.

A Teacher’s Story: A Lesson for the Teacher

Ellen Rodriguez was feeling a little overwhelmed that first week of school in 1985. She had several ELLs in her class, with what appeared to be varying abilities. Quy, a boy from Viet- nam, didn’t speak at all but appeared to understand her directions, which she was careful to word simply and articulate slowly. The twins from Korea had a little more oral language than Quy, knew the English alphabet, and could print their names, but neither the boy nor the girl could identify more than a few printed words. These three children were going to need a lot of individualized planning and teaching in her class of 23 fourth graders, and so she was relieved when she first met Mai, also from Vietnam. Mai was a happy little chatterbox. There were some slightly odd word choices in some of her descriptions, and occasionally the question she answered was not exactly the one she’d been asked, but Ellen was confident that Mai would need a lot less attention than the other three ELLs in her class. A month later, she wondered how she had been so wrong. Mai’s oral language skills were impressive, but she was struggling to learn the alphabet and could identify only a half dozen printed words, one of them her name. Ellen Rodriguez had learned, first-hand, that proficiency in one or two domains of language or the apparent ease of learning them do not predict proficiency or success in learning the others.

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Section 2.1 Basic Competencies: The Four Domains

Table 2.1: Recognizing the levels of second language acquisition

Acquisition Level

Approximate Time Frame

Learner Behaviors Teacher Prompts

Pre-production 0–6 months • Exhibits minimal comprehension. • Verbalizes in single or two-word

utterances or not at all. • Nods “yes” and “no.” • Points and gestures. • May communicate through

drawing. • Has very limited vocabulary having

to do with basic interpersonal skills (e.g., name, age).

• May communicate in home language.

• Show me . . . . • Where is . . . . • Point to . . . . • Circle the . . . . • Who has . . . .

Early production

6–12 months • Has limited comprehension. • Speaks in fragments. • Speaks in one- or two-word

sentences. • Uses familiar phrases (e.g.,

greetings, leave-takings, language for classroom routines).

• Uses mostly present-tense verbs. • Can usually be comprehended,

but errors may hinder intended meaning.

• Has a basic, but limited, vocabulary.

• All of the above, plus

• Yes/no questions. • Either/or

questions. • Who? • What? • When? • How many?

Emergent speech

1–3 years • Demonstrates good comprehension.

• Produces simple sentences, usually with correct word order.

• Grammatical errors. • May have pronunciation errors. • Uses predominantly past or present

tense. • Demonstrates understanding of

content-area knowledge. • Misunderstands jokes or irony.

• Why? • How? • Explain . . . . • Describe . . . . • Questions

requiring only short answers.

Intermediate fluency

3–5 years • Very good to excellent comprehension.

• Few grammatical errors. • Errors rarely interfere with

meaning. • May have to read passage more

than once for meaning. • Has acquired academic vocabulary. • Able to use detail when telling or

retelling story. • Improved narrative writing but

with some errors. • Has sufficient vocabulary to

express ideas. • Uses variety of sentence structures.

• Why do you think . . . ?

• What would happen if . . . ?

• Questions requiring longer responses (more than a sentence).

• What do you think will happen next?

• What’s the difference between . . . ?

(continued)

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Section 2.1 Basic Competencies: The Four Domains

Listening Listening comprehension is the most foundational of all language domains. It precedes and is necessary to the development of speech in normally hearing children, and research indicates that it even plays a role in reading. Researchers have shown that readers often call on phono- logical information when reading silently, even when such a strategy negatively affects their comprehension (Treiman et al., 2003). When readers in one study were asked to make rapid decisions about whether a word belonged to a specific category—such as food or animal— they were more likely to misclassify a homophone (e.g., meet/meat, right/write) than words that were visually as similar (e.g., meet/melt, write/white). The same study also revealed that the confusion was greater with hearing than nonhearing readers—hearing readers had more difficulty processing He doesn’t like to eat meet than with He doesn’t like to eat melt, whereas deaf readers showed no difference (Treiman & Hirsh-Pasek, 1983). The ability to process spoken language accurately is, thus, at the heart of all language learning and use.

Although linguists and educators sometimes characterize listening as a “passive” skill, it is pas- sive only in the sense that it is not observable. Listening is hard work for ELLs. Indeed, for every- one listening comprehension entails a complex network of cognitive processes. These processes involve the listener calling upon both linguistic and nonlinguistic knowledge. Linguistic knowl- edge includes information about the relevant sounds in a language (the phonemes), how they go together to form words, word identification and meaning, sentence structure, and discourse structure. Nonlinguistic knowledge refers to the real-world information and experience the lis- tener has and includes content information about the topic and the speaker’s intent, that is, why it is being communicated. Of course, the two kinds of knowledge must interact—listeners can’t identify the topic much less bring relevant prior knowledge to bear if they don’t first under- stand at least the major nouns and verbs and the sentence structure that carry the meaning.

While we have a good grasp of what kinds of knowledge must be processed to understand spoken language, we know less about how the processes fit together. What we do know is that they differ depending on the listener’s language ability, knowledge of the content, relationship with the speaker, and the context of the situation. We know, in brief, that the process is not a linear, predictable one in which the listener processes first the sounds and then figures out

Acquisition Level

Approximate Time Frame

Learner Behaviors Teacher Prompts

Advanced fluency

5–7 years • Near-native fluency. • Writes narratives. • Uses a variety of sentence

structures. • Has extensive social and academic

vocabulary. • Has grade-level or better language

abilities. • Reads for meaning. • Few, if any, errors in speaking;

occasional errors in writing, but none interfere with meaning.

• Retell . . . (can be lengthy story).

• Explain why . . . • Decide if . . . . • What is the

argument for (or against) . . . ?

• Why do some people believe that . . . ?

Sources: Syrja (2011); Hill & Bjork (2008)

Table 2.1: Recognizing the levels of second language acquisition (continued)

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Section 2.1 Basic Competencies: The Four Domains

It’s Fun to Recognize Speech Anyone who has used voice recognition software, such as the kinds used on visual voice mail, knows that the software sometimes gets it badly wrong. Such software would find it difficult to distinguish these two sentences:

It is fun to recognize speech.

It is fun to wreck a nice beach.

Builders of speech recognition software build language prediction models based on millions of language discourse samples in their databases. Native speakers of a language have similar stores of information, so if a sentence is uttered in any kind of context—conversation, lec- ture, television show—the human listener can usually get it right. How? What kinds of specific knowledge might be brought to bear? Why are ELLs at a disadvantage?

What information would you need to distinguish the following two utterances?

Recognize speech using common sense.

Recognize speech using calm incense.

Describe what linguistic knowledge is needed and what particular challenges an ELL might face in distinguishing between He showed her the baby pictures and He showed her baby the pictures. Source: Lieberman et al., 2005

Monkeybusinessimages/iStock/Thinkstock

Active listening is an essential skill to develop in elementary school children because it is a precursor to comprehension.

where the word boundaries are (there is no “space” between spoken words), what they mean, and how the order in which they are uttered creates the meaning. It is more a matter of simulta- neously processing all levels of linguistic and nonlinguistic information, revising as new information is received, check- ing against prior knowledge and the context, and then, possibly, starting all over again. Scientists who develop and work to perfect speech recognition soft- ware have to think about how to make a machine comprehend, as we see in It’s Fun to Recognize Speech.

The centrality of listening comprehension to ELLs eventually achieving competence is under- scored in language acquisition theory in Krashen’s input hypothesis (1981). We will return to this hypothesis later in this chapter in our discussion of meaning, and again in Chapter 5 when we examine theories of second language acquisition. According to the input hypothesis, a learner’s ability to understand language is the only mechanism that leads to an increase in linguistic competence. Output—or speaking and writing—are important skills, but they do not, in Krashen’s view, advance the learner’s underlying competence. In educating ELLs, however, the other three domains are equally essential to achieving academic success.

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Section 2.1 Basic Competencies: The Four Domains

Speaking Even if Krashen is correct that listen- ing comprehension (input) is the only skill that actually advances underly- ing proficiency in the language, it is nonetheless true that to be able to communicate in the language, learn- ers have to be able to speak. Unless learners are able to communicate orally, they will not succeed academi- cally or function well in an English language environment. Speaking is the skill that we are most likely to use in judging someone’s overall profi- ciency with language. With children who are learning their first language, we judge their progress on the num- ber of words they produce. With ELLs, if their pronunciation is good and they speak fluently with appropriate vocabulary, we usually judge them to be proficient even when we may have no evidence about proficiency in the other domains except for listening. What constitutes speaking ability? According to Kayi (2006) and Nunan (2003), it entails the ability to

• Produce English speech sounds and replicate sound patterns correctly. • Use word and sentence stress appropriately. • Reproduce the intonation patterns and rhythm of the language being learned. • Make vocabulary choices and organize words into sentences appropriate to the con-

text—social situation, audience situation, and subject matter. • Organize spoken thoughts in meaningful and logical sequence. • Use language to express values and judgments. • Use the language fluently—confidently, quickly, and with few unnatural pauses.

(Kayi, 2006)

How? As might be expected, there are a number of different models that attempt to explain how the mind and articulators work together to form spoken utterances. There are two basic types of explanations: holistic and componential. Holistic models assume that an entire phrase is processed at once, while componential models assume that the components of a phrase are processed separately. None of the models of either type can provide a complete or certain account of the process, but in attempting to answer the same question—how speak- ers retrieve language information and assemble it during continuous speech—they also share certain other characteristics:

1. They agree that linguistic information is organized in a hierarchy of distinctive fea- tures—phonemes, morphemes, syllables, words, and phrases.

2. They agree that speakers need to have access to both semantics (meaning) and syntax prior to the sounds of an utterance. In other words, the speaker has to know the meaning she wishes to convey before searching for the words and the sounds to produce them.

3. They agree that the process is sequential.

Fuse/Thinkstock A child’s piece of art provides stimulus for oral language development. The artist can explain the picture, other children can ask questions, and the teacher can use the opportunity to introduce or reinforce new vocabulary.

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Section 2.1 Basic Competencies: The Four Domains

4. The order of the process must be

a. Deciding on the message to be conveyed (i.e., conceptualization). b. Sentence formation, which involves selecting the appropriate words for the mes-

sage and the appropriate order in which to place them, as well as other gram- matical information (e.g., verb tense, plural or possessive morpheme).

c. Articulating the phrase by executing the motor movements necessary to produce the sounds of the phrase. (Fromkin, 1973; Clark, E. & Clark, H., 1977)

Important as it is to ELLs’ academic success, speaking is one of the hardest skills to teach. One reason has to do with how classrooms are organized. Speaking, unlike reading, writing, and even listening, requires an immediate co-communicator. In other words, while a teacher can work with a group on listening skills or use listening stations or other media for learners to work on their own, and while reading and writing can, to some degree, be taught as group activities or be done by ELLs on their own, meaningful activities to develop speaking skills require active participants to engage and react. Much oral language will be learned in interac- tion with other children on the playground at recess. But ELLs also need academic language, as Ellen Rodriguez learned in There’s Talk and Then There’s TALK.

A Teacher’s Story: There’s Talk and Then There’s TALK

After a year of teaching, Ellen was feeling more comfortable and more confident in Septem- ber of her second year in Chicago, even though she once again had a very diverse group of children in her third grade class. Then she met Juan. When she first saw him, he was arriving with a group of friends who were chattering away in Spanish as they came into the class- room. Juan appeared to understand Ellen’s directions in English and responded appropri- ately, but after a week he had uttered hardly a word in English. She wasn’t too concerned. Then another week went by, and although he answered simple yes/no questions, he said almost nothing else. Okay, Ellen thought, so he is in the stage of early production and would speak when he had acquired more language. Then, in the third week, she was on playground duty and witnessed Juan playing with Spanish and English speakers, and he was talking in English. And talking a lot! Ellen didn’t know what was going on, and so she went to the library that night and started doing research. That’s when she figured it out. He had basic interpersonal skills in English, and his use of the language with his peers was excellent. What he was lacking was academic language. But she knew that he’d get it because his com- prehension was so good. She just had to give him unthreatening opportunities to practice. At least now she knew what her job was!

There was a great deal that Ellen could do for Juan and that all ELL teachers can do to assist learners, and we will examine some approaches in Chapter 5. Some of them involve using reading activities to introduce and reinforce academic language.

Reading Learning to read well in the early years of elementary school is a key to all childrens’ academic success. ELLs who enter public school in kindergarten or first grade have to acquire reading skills simultaneously with listening and speaking. However, reading is

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Section 2.1 Basic Competencies: The Four Domains

fundamentally different from listening and speaking. Whereas humans are “hardwired” to learn oral language (Piper, 2012; Daggett & Hasselbring, 2007), reading and writing have to be taught, which puts pressure on teachers and schools to focus on reading from the very beginning of schooling.

“Reading is the key enabler of learning for academic proficiency across all subject areas and over all grades” (Daggett & Hasselbring, 2007, p. 1). ELLs who begin schooling in English in later years will also have to learn the three domains simultaneously, but some will benefit from having the foundation of literacy in another language. As we see in A Bilingual Child Learns to Read, Isabelle was such a child.

A Bilingual Child Learns to Read (Part 1) Isabelle, age seven, is able to read in both English and French. With a Francophone mother and Anglophone father, Isabelle has spoken both languages since birth. When she was five, she announced that she wanted to learn to read, and so her grandmother, a teacher, taught her. The approach that worked for Isabelle was using flashcards, at first with pictures of the accompanying word and then later without pictures. At the beginning, Isabelle appeared to be following a holistic approach, identifying a word by its shape—she would occasionally con- fuse lake with take, for example, or mice and nice. But when she became frustrated by these errors, her grandmother switched strategies, helping Isabelle to associate letters with sounds. After a week, using a combined holistic sight-word and phonics approach, Isabelle was able to identify 55 words, and at the end of a month she had learned more than 100. Throughout, her grandmother also read to her and Isabelle would try to follow along. By the time her grand- mother left to return to her own home after a month, Isabelle was well on her way to becoming a proficient reader. In English. But Isabelle attended a French language school, and her mother worried that her English reading would interfere with learning French. Did it? (We will find out in Chapter 6.)

What is involved in learning to read and how is it taught? Hundreds of thousands of studies have been done on the reading process, and yet there is still a reading crisis in U.S. schools. Researchers have reached broad consensus on a few points:

• One of the things that researchers learned very early is that the model of the profi- cient reader—or how an able reader processes written text—does not tell us a great deal about how that reader became proficient. In Good Readers . . . we identify some of the behaviors that good readers use. But what do they tell us about how to teach reading, especially to beginners?

• Not every child learns to read in the same way. Failure to appreciate this reality is one of the reasons that an estimated one-third of children designated as special edu- cation students have been so categorized because of the lack of reading proficiency. (President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education, 2002)

• There remains “a persistent gap . . . in reading abilities along the racial and pov- erty divide” (Daggett & Hasselbring, 2007, p. 5). Reading is also a skill that is most often measured as an indication of ELLs’ progress and readiness to move up a grade level.

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Section 2.1 Basic Competencies: The Four Domains

Knowing how proficient readers behave helps teachers develop strategies to improve reading comprehension, but what do we know about the process of actually learning to read? In part, the answer depends on the writing system of the language they are learning to read. Writing systems range from alphabetic to logographic, as shown in Table 2.2.

The first task of the beginning reader is to figure out how the written language relates to the spoken language. Chinese children must learn to associate each symbol, or character, with a meaning. Considering that a literate adult knows somewhere between 5,000 and 7,000 char- acters, children need to learn at least 500 per year, and they do so after first spending a year learning to read an alphabetic system called pin yin (Rayner et al., 2001, p. 32). Pin yin uses letters of the Roman alphabet to spell Chinese words, adding diacritic markings to indicate tones and pitch variations. Most Chinese learners will, therefore, have some understanding of an alphabetic writing system to bring to the task of learning English.

Table 2.2: Writing systems and their characteristics

Writing System Characteristic Description Languages

Alphabetic Graphic units, called letters, are asso- ciated with sounds, called phonemes.

English, Italian, French, German, Rus- sian, Korean

Modified alphabetic Essentially alphabetic, but vowels are predictable (i.e., can be omitted).

Hebrew, Persian

Syllabic Graphic units, or syllabaries, cor- respond to syllables rather than individual sounds.

Japanese Kana

Logographic Units (characters) correspond to specific words or morphemes.

Chinese (although modern Chinese has evolved into a morphosyllabic system in which the characters are mapped onto syllabic units that are usually morphemes)

Good Readers . . . Good readers are active, and will

• Identify a purpose for their reading—for pleasure (e.g., letters, stories, novels), to gather specific information (e.g., where a gathering will take place and when), for general knowledge (e.g., the news account of a local robbery), and to learn (e.g., textbooks).

• Preview the text before reading. Good readers will scan through a text quickly to look for clues about whether the information they seek is there or what might be coming up next in the text.

• Predict, strategize, visualize, and do whatever they can while reading to help them make sense of and to remember what they are reading.

• Develop and use strategies for figuring out unfamiliar words. • Think about what they have read after finishing it. Some will make a few notes or talk to

other people about what they have read.

Source: Center for Distance and Independent Study, http://muhigh.missouri.edu/exec/data/courses/ 8236/public/lesson01/lesson01.aspx

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http://muhigh.missouri.edu/exec/data/courses/8236/public/lesson01/lesson01.aspx

Section 2.1 Basic Competencies: The Four Domains

It might seem that an alphabetic system is more efficient—it is, in theory at least, easier to learn a small number of sound-symbol correspondences and use them to map written words onto meanings—assuming that the learner knows the meaning of the word once it is decoded. But learning to read English is not easy for two reasons:

1. The notion of phoneme is abstract. We think of phonemes as our smallest units of sounds, but in fact a phoneme actually represents a number of different versions of a sound, all of which native speakers tend to recognize as the same sound. How many distinct sounds in the word toasts? Native speakers will say three: /t/ x2 /o/ (represented by digraph, oa) /s/ x 2

In fact, there are five. The phoneme /t/ has two separate pronunciations, depend- ing on where it is in the word. Native speakers, however, do not hear this distinction because the differences are “predictable”: The one at the beginning of the word is aspi- rated, meaning it has a little puff of air preceding the vowel, while the one between the /s/ sounds is not. Even the two /s/ sounds are slightly different in length. Which one do you think is longer?

2. There is no one-to-one correspondence between sound and symbol. The sound /o/ can be represented in writing in several ways: a. both b. boat c. owe d. mow e. aloe f. oh g. dough

Conversely, if we think we have cracked the code by learning these spellings for the /o/ sound, we will likely not recognize:

a. sloth b. gown c. shoe d. tough e. bough

Word identification is only the first stage in learning to read, and probably not the hardest. Emphasizing the importance of children developing early reading skills through “Reading First,” NCLB identifies five essential components of reading programs:

1. Phonemic awareness 2. Phonics 3. Fluency 4. Vocabulary 5. Reading comprehension strategies

The Common Core State Standards also recognize the critical foundation that these skills provide by requiring demonstrated growth in the reading foundational standards from kin- dergarten through fifth grade. Whether or not there is a reading crisis in the United States,

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The prewrite phase

Step 1. Is for brainstorming and getting ideas down on a piece of paper.

The draft phase

Step 2. Is for organizing ideas in a logical format for the speci�ed purpose, topic, and audience.

The edit phase

Step 4. Is for �xing the little errors that detract from the writing.

The revision phase

Step 3. Is for revising the text to improve the order, examples, style, tone, etc.

The publish phase

Step 5. Is for �nalizing and sharing the �nished product.

Section 2.1 Basic Competencies: The Four Domains

there is no arguing the fact that a high level of reading competence is necessary, not only for academic success, but for citizens to function fully and productively in society. In Chapter 5, we will return to the topic of reading for ELLs.

Writing Writing is a means of communication and, thus, a social process. It is not just reading in reverse. It is often the last of the four language levels to be learned, and proficiency in the other four does not ensure success in writing. Nevertheless, we do know that both reading and writing need to be built on a firm foundation of oral skills. Reading and writing can be taught simultaneously, although writing skills will always lag behind reading skills. Writing, like speaking, is an encoding skill, but this does not mean that articulate, orally fluent speakers are necessarily able to convey the same meanings in print.

Writing involves several different stages, as shown in Figure 2.1. It is a difficult and onerous process for many learners; many native speakers with excellent reading ability become frustrated when trying to express them- selves in writing. ELLs can begin to learn to write at the same time they are acquiring vocabulary and learning to read—they don’t have to achieve a certain level of language proficiency first. For ELLs, writing is easier and more purposeful if it is fully integrated into other language activities and with the broader curriculum. Because writing is a social skill, and to make classroom writing more like “real” (purposeful) writing, it is use- ful to make writing an integrated classroom activity.

It is not only possible, but helpful, to engage ELLs and other children in the classroom throughout most of the writing process. At the prewriting stage, learn- ers can brainstorm together with the teacher about whatever they are preparing to write about. Or more advanced learners can make notes on what they know or what information they may need to seek. Even for beginners, this cooperative activity can be made to work. For beginners the writing task may be writing a few descriptive words or a sentence or two about one or more of the ideas captured. The ini- tial drafting of a piece is a solitary activity, but other learners can work together in revising and editing a first draft. And, of course, they provide a valu- able audience for the final product, whether it is a sentence or a paragraph, a description, or an entire story. Reading a draft aloud helps writers to discover errors or awkward expressions, and reading to an audience—of one or several—makes the activity more purposeful. The teacher’s role is to guide and

The prewrite phase

Step 1. Is for brainstorming and getting ideas down on a piece of paper.

The draft phase

Step 2. Is for organizing ideas in a logical format for the speci�ed purpose, topic, and audience.

The edit phase

Step 4. Is for �xing the little errors that detract from the writing.

The revision phase

Step 3. Is for revising the text to improve the order, examples, style, tone, etc.

The publish phase

Step 5. Is for �nalizing and sharing the �nished product.

Figure 2.1: The writing process

ELLs can simultaneously learn to read and write in their new language.

Adapted from http://261095.medialib.glogster.com/ thumbnails/a188514252983603828c28daa190fd 32a8cba2becefa3f510ca96f8ba5cdd995/the- writing-process-source.jpg

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http://261095.medialib.glogster.com/thumbnails/a188514252983603828c28daa190fd32a8cba2becefa3f510ca96f8ba5cdd995/the-writing-process-source.jpg

Section 2.2 The Fifth Dimension: Meaning

support students throughout the process and to provide specific instruction in the mechanics and conventions of writing in English.

The most important thing for teachers of ELLs to remember about teaching writing is that it should not stand alone as an end in itself; it has to be linked with or integrated into the other language domains that the children are learning. Not to do so misses an important opportu- nity to improve ELLs’ writing and overall language proficiency simultaneously.

It is inconceivable that anyone could write without being able to read, and, significantly, com- petence in both literacy skills are best built on a foundation of oral language—and when the learners are children, this is always the case. And yet, there are instances when the primary focus of a lesson needs to be on one domain or the other. Especially for beginners, it is impor- tant to focus on oral language first, but for all learners it is sometimes necessary to concen- trate on helping them develop comprehension and speaking ability before embarking on the journey to literacy. Whatever language skill or ability is being fostered, whether the focus of the activity or lesson is specifically targeted or integrated, central to all language learning— and, thus, teaching—is the ability to understand and create meaning.

2.2 The Fifth Dimension: Meaning Before language begins to emerge, from the time an infant cries to signal hunger, thirst, or dis- comfort, the intention is to communicate meaning. Although we are, arguably, hard-wired to learn language, and although it is inextricably entwined with cognitive processing, the moti- vation to acquire language is to communicate with the people around us. Some older read- ers may remember the experience of foreign language classes in which they were forced to memorize Paul Adams est un jeune étudiant américain vivant à Parisan (Paul Adams is a young American student living in Paris) or La brosse à cheveux de ma tante est sur le bureau le matin (My aunt’s hairbrush is on the bureau in the morning). Lessons were memorized and trans- lated, and although they were sometimes constructed around narratives that were memorized through sentence-by-sentence buildup (i.e., beginning with two words, “Paul Adams,” and then adding a word or phrase at a time until the sentence was complete), there was little that was meaningful to the learner in the passages or the lessons. When people report that they didn’t learn a language until they spent time in the country where it was spoken, it is because that was when it became necessary to understand and create meaning. Chances are that Paul Adams, if he existed, did not learn his French by studying with this text or this method!

Comprehensible Input Making meaning the focus of lesson planning, teaching, and all interactions with ELLs, makes the experience of learning more natural and thus easier. In fact, as noted earlier, if what learners hear or see in print is not comprehensible, there is no learning. Nobody can learn Mandarin by only listening to Radio Beijing, because the information, while meaningful to the broadcasters, has no meaning to English speakers. And, more importantly, listeners have no way of discerning meaning absent a translation. Television news programs from the same sources might be mod- erately more successful when photographs or video footage accompany the stories. But even so, the listener usually needs more help. Input, whether oral or written, needs to be at or just beyond the learner’s level of understanding for it to have an impact on learning. Just beyond means that the learner understands enough words or enough about the context to make inferences about

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Gestures

Field trips

How to make input

comprehensible

Advance organizers

Realia

Visuals

Paraphrase

Demonstration

Section 2.2 The Fifth Dimension: Meaning

the meaning. The quality of the input is therefore very impor- tant from a practical and a theoretical perspective. In fact, comprehensible input is one of the five pillars of Krashen’s com- prehension hypothesis model (Krashen, 1981). Even theorists who object to Krashen’s theo- retical model of second language acquisition cannot credibly fault the relevance of comprehensible input from a practical perspective.

What comprehensible input implies for teachers is the need to find just the right level of language for each learner—too easy and language learning does not progress, but if the input is not at all comprehensible, learn-

ing does not occur either. How do we ensure that linguistic input is comprehensible or poten- tially comprehensible? By providing familiar context, using visuals and gestures, using probes to guide the learner to understanding, linking new language structures to prior knowledge, and even slowing and repeating or paraphrasing their own speech, teachers strive to make language comprehensible. Figure 2.2 shows a few of the many tools available to teachers.

Finding ways to make input comprehensible takes us right to the heart of language teaching methods, particularly those linked to content-area teaching. The question faced by every ELL teacher across the country is the same: How do I make content comprehensible, foster cogni- tive development, and nurture and grow language competency simultaneously for learners who are likely diverse in language background and English language proficiency? The answer is simple, although its implementation may not be: Use every possible opportunity to create and reinforce meaning. In brief, make meaning everywhere.

Making Meaning Everywhere It may seem obvious that everything that happens in the ELL classroom should be centered on meaning—even when a teacher is working on a particular distinction in pronunciation, such as the difference between /b/ and /v/, which creates an opportunity to introduce new vocabulary, expand definitions of existing vocabulary, and even to work on sentence struc- ture. For example, Spanish speakers often have trouble distinguishing long and short vowels in word pairs such as ship/sheep, blip/bleep, fit/feet/, sit/seat, and so on. One way of working on this problem is to drill, making students point to the correct word when it is spoken, or to speak the word shown on a flashcard. But the exercise might be even more effective if it is contextualized as the response to a question: If we want to sail to Bermuda, should we take a sheep? Or Can we get wool by shaving a ship?

In the context of the entire curriculum, meaning is the basis for planning all content and skills instruction. One of the most basic ways of giving learners the tools they need to understand what they hear and read is to build vocabulary skills. Learning the names of objects and actions

Gestures

Field trips

How to make input

comprehensible

Advance organizers

Realia

Visuals

Paraphrase

Demonstration

Figure 2.2: Some strategies for making language comprehensible for ELLs

Teachers need to find the best language balance for each ELL to help ensure the language input is comprehensible.

pip82223_02_c02_029-056.indd 42 6/30/15 2:12 PM

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/SLA/Krashen.htm

Section 2.2 The Fifth Dimension: Meaning

is the first language behavior we observe in infants. Starting with one word, then two, three, and onward, they are able to make themselves understood long before they are able to form sentences. So it is with ELLs; if they have a good store of words to draw from, the context or situation will often help them to figure out what is being said (whether orally or in writing), and that in turn advances their knowledge of sentence structure. Moreover, the more English words an ELL has learned, the easier it is to use the context of a situation to figure out the meaning. For example, suppose two ELLs hear this sentence:

Fainting can be caused by factors ranging from dehydration to low blood pres- sure and even serious illness.

Neither has learned enough about English sentence structure to identify the subject, verb tense, or much of anything else. One ELL hears only three familiar words, can, blood, illness, and so the sentence is totally incomprehensible—the speaker could be talking about some- body named Fainting who has leukemia. The second ELL, however, knows fainting, cause, hydration, blood pressure, serious, and illness. This learner will make a far more accurate guess at the meaning of the sentence.

Having Common Core standards in place for language and content means that ELL teach- ers necessarily teach content and language simultaneously. One of the most successful approaches to doing so is immersion (Genesee, 2004). Immersion teachers begin with simpli- fied language—controlled vocabulary with few or no idioms, high-frequency words, simple sentence structures, and frequent paraphrasing. Another tactic used by immersion teachers is to model tasks as they talk their way through them—whether something as simple as put- ting on a coat and mittens for beginners, or as complex as locating places on a map and giving directions. The success of these tactics depends on teachers doing regular and frequent com- prehension checks. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” or “Now, show me,” for example, are ways of establishing that an ELL has understood before moving on. In Chapter 4, we will see how some immersion practices can be used in another program option for ELLs.

Meaning and Accuracy Teachers also have to find a way of dealing with developmental errors. When the focus is on content and meaning, learners will make errors, and excessive correction may discourage ELLs from speaking (or writing). Very young children will eventually figure out the correct forms without correction, but for older learners it is sometimes just more efficient to provide correction. There is no formula for when to correct and when not to, but as a rule teachers do not interrupt a speaker or the flow of a lesson to make corrections. It is usu- ally more effective to make a note and address the matter later. For example, if a child uses be for is or are while speak- ing in class, the wise teacher does not correct on the spot, but plans a mini-les- son on the forms of to be to be presented later. How learners respond to correc- tion is partly a matter of culture.

Monkeybusinessimages/iStock/Thinkstock

Arts and crafts activities provide excellent opportunities for expanding vocabulary and making meaning.

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Section 2.3 Learning Language and Culture Simultaneously

2.3 Learning Language and Culture Simultaneously “At the intersection of multiple native and target cultures, the major task of language learners is to define for themselves what this ‘third place’ that they have engaged in seeking will look like, whether they are conscious of it or not” (Kramsch, 1993, p. 9). M. J. Bennett frames this notion of adaptation as a question: “How is it possible to perceive in culturally different ways and still ‘be yourself ’?’’ (2004, p. 8). In a sense, when ELLs come to the English language classroom, they are caught between cultures: their home culture and the dominant one of the school. They have to negotiate a kind of subculture that has elements of both and is likely unique to each learner, and they have to do so as they learn language and content in a new language.

The Relationship Between Language and Culture Language exists to meet the needs of the people who speak it. Those needs are social, edu- cational, vocational, and even spiritual. When we say that language is culturally determined, we refer to the fact that “different cultures have different perceptions, different beliefs, and different communicative needs that their languages must serve” (Piper, 2012, p. 15). Because we are all human, there are similarities between cultures, but because the world’s languages evolved in different locations and under different conditions, there are also differences among cultures and, thus, languages. Some of these differences have an impact on how ELLs react to classroom settings and on how they are treated when they get there. To understand why learners may have difficulty comprehending intended meaning, it is helpful to understand the three-way relationship between language, learning, and culture.

Culture in the Classroom . . . traditional methods of uniform instruction seem to be ineffective with a student group that is very diverse, with students from different backgrounds and with different approaches to learning (De Vita, 2005, p. 165).

One important reason that it is so important for teachers to become more culturally aware is to avoid succumbing to a view that equates cultural diversity with deficit. ELLs are over- represented in special education (Rhodes et al., 2005), in part because schools sometimes do not know what else to do with them, but also because culturally determined differences are mistakenly identified as learning or cognitive deficiencies.

Even when ELLs are not misidentified as needing special education, they are made to take the same standardized tests and are part of the school’s accountability data. The pressure is on ELLs and their teachers to negotiate that “third place” as quickly as possible. So how do teachers learn everything they need to know about the different cultures represented in their classrooms?

The simple answer is that they don’t. Just as it is impossible for teachers to speak the lan- guages of every ELL student in their classrooms, so it is impossible for them to have detailed knowledge or understanding of the culture. What teachers can develop, however, are certain sensitivities that allow them to avoid communication conflicts or misunderstandings.

Individuals employ different learning styles and strategies; some need to see print in order to understand and remember, while others prefer “listen and learn.” There are many other kinds of individual differences, but there are also more general differences based on culture. Older children who have attended school in another country may have particular experiences of learning that differ from the expectations of teachers in this country. In fact, even young

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Social You prefer to learn in groups

or with other people.

Solitary You prefer to work

alone and use self-study.

Musical/Auditory You prefer using sound

and music. Verbal

You prefer using words, both in speech and writing.

Physical/Kinesthetic You prefer using your body, hands and sense of touch.

Logical/Mathematical You prefer logic, reasoning

and systems.

Visual You prefer using pictures,

images, and spatial understanding.

What is your Learning

style?

Section 2.3 Learning Language and Culture Simultaneously

ELLs who have not attended school in another country may bring a different view of learning, and how to learn, than other children in the classroom.

Individual Learning Styles and Strategies People have different ways of learning. Actually, individuals usually employ more than one learning technique, although many people will have a dominant or preferred style. Some differ- ences are gender-based, but many others are simply individual preferences. For example, some learners are more tolerant of ambiguity than others. They understand that some problems have multiple answers and can tolerate not knowing while a teacher develops an idea. Other learners see the world in more absolute terms and want to know “which one is true?” when faced with multiple possibilities. As Figure 2.3 illustrates, some learners are able to recall material after

Figure 2.3: Learning styles

People learn in different ways; individuals may use different techniques depending on what they are trying to learn. Which of these styles would you likely employ to learn to play saxophone? To learn 20 new words in Mandarin? Teachers should be aware of their students’ different learning styles and adopt strategies to help meet unique needs.

Musical/Auditory – Fuse/Thinkstock; Verbal – Fuse/Thinkstock; Physical/Kinesthetic – ZoiaKostina/iStock/Thinkstock; Logical/Mathematical – Hongqi Zhang/iStock/Thinkstock; Social – Minerva Studio/iStock/Thinkstock; Solitary – AmmentorpDK/iStock/Thinkstock; Visual – Fuse/Thinkstock

Social You prefer to learn in groups

or with other people.

Solitary You prefer to work

alone and use self-study.

Musical/Auditory You prefer using sound

and music. Verbal

You prefer using words, both in speech and writing.

Physical/Kinesthetic You prefer using your body, hands and sense of touch.

Logical/Mathematical You prefer logic, reasoning

and systems.

Visual You prefer using pictures,

images, and spatial understanding.

What is your Learning

style?

pip82223_02_c02_029-056.indd 45 6/30/15 2:12 PM

Section 2.3 Learning Language and Culture Simultaneously

hearing it and, perhaps, repeating it orally, whereas others need to see it in print and, perhaps, write it down. Some people learn more readily on their own, but others learn more effectively in groups. Teachers need to be aware of these variations and respectful of them, while assist- ing learners to add to their repertoire of styles and strategies. Layered onto this complexity are those attitudes and approaches to learning that are culturally determined.

Cultural Influences on Classroom Behavior Even in very young children, the way they learn may be partly culturally determined. With older children who have experienced formal education in another country, this is may appear to be more significant because of differences in how countries approach formal education. Chinese children, for example, are accustomed to memorization, a technique rarely employed in U.S. schools. Because memorization is a solitary activity, these children may be less accus- tomed to group work. Asian children may, for cultural reasons, be quiet in class and be reluc- tant to make eye contact with teachers, whereas U.S. children are usually expected to be active participants in class and to make contact with the teacher as a sign of respect (Bennett, J. M. et al., 2003). In some Hispanic cultures, parents may view teachers as expert and defer to them on major decisions about their children’s education (Valdés, 1996, cited in Rosenberg et al, 2010). As Ellen Rodriguez learned in Ellen Learns about Comprehension and Culture, such differences in cultural expectations about education may have an impact on judgments and decisions teachers make about ELLs. Cultural differences might play a role in a child’s claim- ing to understand when he doesn’t.

A Teacher’s Story: Ellen Learns about Comprehension and Culture

Just before Ellen went back to full-time teaching, she was substituting in a third grade class. She had been instructed to review certain concepts in arithmetic for half an hour before adminis- tering a quiz. She did so, and she was careful to check to see that the children understood one step before moving on to the next—it was a very orderly lesson. She repeatedly asked, “Do you understand?” and occasionally some of the children would indicate they didn’t. One little boy always smiled and nodded eagerly, and Ellen assumed he was following the review lesson well and had mastered the material. Imagine her surprise when she looked at his quiz at the end of the day and saw that he had scored a bare 25%! His name was Tahn, he was East Asian, and his English had appeared to be good. He said he understood, and yet he clearly hadn’t. On reflec- tion, Ellen learned three significant things from this experience:

1. Asking children if they understand is not always the best way of finding out whether they do, which . . .

2. . . . is true of language and content! 3. Cultural differences might play a role in a child’s claiming to understand when he doesn’t.

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Section 2.3 Learning Language and Culture Simultaneously

Although there are many dimensions along which cultural attitudes can be measured, one of the more revealing is the individualist-to-collectivist continuum. Table 2.3 shows the major differences between the two extremes. Countries that are representative of the more indi- vidualistic end of the spectrum are the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hungary, and the Netherlands, while countries representative of the other end of the continuum include most Asian countries, Brazil, Portugal, Greece, and Mexico.

Table 2.3: Two broad cultural perspectives on education

Individualist Perspective Collectivist Perspective

Students work independently; helping others may be construed as cheating.

Students work with peers and help each other.

Students actively participate in discussion and argument and are encouraged to think critically.

Students consider being quiet and respectful a more efficient way to learn.

Emphasis is placed on deadlines and schedules. Relationships are more important than tasks.

Personal opinions are expected and encouraged. Individuals will speak in class when called upon to do so but are not likely to volunteer opinions.

Property belongs to individuals, and others must ask permission to borrow it.

Property is communal.

The teacher manages the environment indirectly but encourages students to develop self-control.

The teacher is the primary authority, but children may guide each other’s behavior.

Parents are considered important to children’s academic success and are encouraged to be active participants.

Parents defer to teachers’ expertise both for instruction and for academic guidance and advice.

Confrontation is allowed and may be considered opportunity for learning.

Harmony should be maintained; disagreement should be avoided.

“New and trendy” are generally viewed positively. Greater emphasis on tradition.

Self-improvement and education considered life- long undertaking (“permanent education”).

Education is for the young; it is harder for adults to accept student role.

Competence and the acquisition of skills are more important than acquiring certificates.

Certificates and diplomas are valued in themselves.

Sources: Adapted from Collectivist vs. individualist perspectives, Very Informed Parents Newsletter, February 21, 2012, http://veryinformedparents.blogspot.com/2012/02/collectivist-vs-individualistic.html. Based on Gouveia & Ros, 2000.

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Section 2.4 Culture Shock

Keep in mind, however, that no country or cultural community is purely one or the other. Simi- larly, there is as much variability in learning style within cultural groups as between them. While it may be true that children from different cultural backgrounds may exhibit distinctive patterns of intellectual abilities, not every child from the culture will have that ability. Moreover, research provides little support for the effectiveness of tailoring instruction according to generalized assumptions about any particular cultural group. Nevertheless, as Perkins states, “Building on students’ prior knowledge, which is built on their (cultural) backgrounds and experiences, is a foundation of effective and efficient learning and teaching” (2011, p. 33). Perkins’ reminder is appropriate for all teachers and all children, regardless of language ability or culture.

What is especially important for teachers is cultural sensitivity and understanding: knowing about the history, shared experiences, traditions, and valued practices of dif- ferent cultures. What is not as important is to design instructional techniques for a particular group. Rather, it is better to understand the needs and struggles of individual students. Developing cultural sensitivity also helps teachers recognize and deal with the reality of culture shock.

2.4 Culture Shock Culture shock refers to the stress that people experience when they are immersed in a new and unfamiliar environment. Normally, we think of it as applying to people moving to a new country, but it can also occur within a country when people move from one region to another, such as from New England to the deep South. However, when people move from one region of a country to another, it’s often the case that the language is not different, although the dialect may be, and so there is a substantial commonality from which to learn. Also, when a child moves from Boston to Savannah, the school will be new but the basic configuration of the school and the underlying assumptions about teaching and learning will be fundamentally the same.

For ELLs, however, especially those who are newly arrived, the situation is very different. They do not share a language with others in their new homeland, and they are also facing cultural adaptation at two levels—the society or country and the school. Depending on how long they have lived in the community and a number of other factors, including the degree to which their parents have integrated into the community, ELLs will experience different levels of culture shock and school shock, or they will be at different phases.

Phases of Culture Shock Researchers commonly agree on four phases of culture shock (Figure 2.4), but some also add an initial stage, called preliminary or awareness. This initial phase includes the preparatory activity that occurs before the move to the new culture and is more applicable to culture shock than to school shock. The other four phases shown in Figure 2.4 are considered univer- sal and would apply to both culture and school shock.

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http://veryinformedparents.blogspot.com/2012/02/collectivist-vs-individualistic.html

Euphoria Acceptance

Adaptation

Shock L

e v e l o

f S

a ti

s fa

c ti

o n

Time

Section 2.4 Culture Shock

1. Euphoria or “honeymoon”. This begins with arrival in the new place. It is a period of excite- ment mixed with anticipa- tion. There is no timeline on any of the phases, but this phase can vary accord- ing to a number of factors, including the proximity of the new culture to the old.

2. Shock. Once the euphoria wears off, a period of irritability occurs as the newcomer begins to acclimate to the new environment. Typically, this phase is character- ized by a focus on the differences between the host culture and home. Sometimes, because of the stress, even minor differences will take on major significance—not being able to find a familiar brand of tea or a home language newscast can be a major cause of irritability. During this phase, it is not uncommon for members of the home culture to cluster together, clinging to the familiar and complaining about the new.

3. Integration. This is a period of gradual adjustment to the new culture. Often, people are not even aware that this is happening, but they find themselves increasingly comfortable with the new ways.

4. Acceptance. The ultimate goal is biculturalism, which occurs when a newcomer is fully able to function in the new culture and feels less “foreign” than before. This stage in no way implies that the home culture is abandoned, but rather that newcomers begin to feel that they have a second home. It is the phase at which the newcomers are comfortable enough to begin to negotiate that “third place” described earlier.

Although the length of time individuals spend in each phase varies according to environment and circumstances, the phenomenon of culture shock itself is universal for everyone except for very young preschool children—which means that ELLs will be affected both at home and at school.

Classroom Implications Children are usually more resilient and adaptable than adults; nevertheless, it would be a mistake to underestimate the effects of culture shock and school shock on any learner. Just as there is diversity in terms of language and language ability, there will also be a great deal of variation in the degree to which ELL children have adapted to the new culture and the new school. In terms of cultural adaptation, the task in school is to facilitate learners’ acceptance of and into the new culture while respecting their first culture. Doing so requires that we be able to recognize that certain behaviors may occur because of cultural differences.

ELL children who act out in class may well be suffering from culture or school shock. Many of the differences between the home and host cultures that lead to culture shock in the broad sense may be realized in particular in the classroom. For example

Figure 2.4: Stages of culture shock

Notice that in these stages of culture shock the “road” has a few bumps.

Euphoria Acceptance

Adaptation

Shock L

e v e l o

f S

a ti

s fa

c ti

o n

Time

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Section 2.5 Language, Content, and Culture in the ELL Classroom

1. The emphasis in U.S. schools on thinking and analyzing over memorization may take some time for an ELL to adapt to, and may result in apparent nonparticipation in class. In a sense, they have to relearn how to learn.

2. The tendency of teachers to call out or chastise students publically rather than pri- vately will be alien to some learners from cultures where “face” is valued, and may also result in lack of participation in class.

3. The relative informality that teachers exhibit may seem strange.

4. The punctuality and maintain- ing of schedules that teachers and schools demand will be strange to some ELLs and their families from cultures where time is considered more fluid.

5. The stress on individual rather than cooperative effort, especially on tasks that are evaluated, may be unusual.

6. The fact that it is permissible to ask questions of teachers that appear to challenge their authority will seem disrespectful to some ELLs.

7. ELLs may expect teachers to “know everything” and reach faulty conclusions when they do not.

Creating an environment in which all ELLs and, indeed, all children are comfortable requires sensitivity to these cultural elements. It is very difficult to help anyone learn without first understanding how that person learns or the barriers that may exist to impede learning. The role of the teacher is clear, if not easy: Planning for and teaching the diverse range of stu- dents in today’s classroom requires the integration of curricular content with language and culture teaching objectives, tailored to the need of each student, and assisting the learner to adapt to the new culture.

2.5 Language, Content, and Culture in the ELL Classroom Educators do not believe that all learners are the same. Yet visits to schools throughout the world might convince us otherwise. Too often, educators continue to treat all learners alike while paying lip service to the principle of diversity (Burke Guild, 2001, p. 1).

It is understandable that with the emphasis on common standards and the increased pressure of accountability as measured by standardized tests, schools might opt for “consistency” in curriculum and instructional methods. Particularly since such measures are interpreted with only scant regard for cultural and language differences, teachers can be forgiven for seeking

Creatas/Thinkstock

Holding up the hand to signal willingness to participate is a custom in U.S. schools that children beyond kindergarten do not usually need to be taught. Should a third grade teacher assume that all his pupils will understand and meet this classroom expectation?

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Section 2.5 Language, Content, and Culture in the ELL Classroom

ways to have the greatest impact on the greatest number of learners. And yet, the job is to realize the potential in all children. To do so, educators must find ways to respect and even take advantage of the language and language skills that learners bring with them along with their learning styles and experiences. In broad terms, educators have to find ways of realizing a common mission while respecting diversity. How?

1. Accept that there is no single best way to teach or learn anything, and that this is truly independent of culture or language. If a method or technique is not working, it doesn’t help to do it more often. As an example, if children are struggling with phonics, doing more phonics isn’t necessarily the best approach to remediation. The goal is not skill at phonics but skill in reading, and so trying another approach might be called for. Teachers should be open to alternatives.

2. When possible, connect with the families of ELLs. Family members can be a valuable source of information not only about the child’s educational background, skills, interests, and even language ability, but also about the home culture. This kind of information helps teachers evaluate children’s needs and understand and deal with problems they may be having. Enlisting and involving parents in the education of their children helps to ease culture shock for the entire family.

3. Become culturally competent. Cultural competence, or proficiency, is the goal of a process that begins with cultural knowledge and progresses through cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity to the ability to operate effectively in new or dif- ferent cultural settings. Cultural knowledge is what we know about the characteris- tics of a culture, cultural awareness refers to the development of sensitivity to and understanding of another ethnic group, and cultural sensitivity means that cultural similarities and differences can be recognized without value judgment. Progressing from cultural knowledge, awareness, and sensitivity, leads to cultural competence. Although cultural competence has many definitions, the one that is most useful for educators is “ . . . a set of academic and interpersonal skills that allow individuals to increase their understanding and appreciation of cultural differences and similarities within, among, and between groups” (Mizrahi & Davis, 2008, p. 64).

Acquiring cultural knowledge, the most basic phase in becoming culturally com- petent, involves acquiring information about aspects of the culture’s history, values, beliefs, customs, and behaviors. It is a kind of overview of the new culture. Cultural awareness entails developing some understanding of, and sensitivity to, members of a cultural group, progressing beyond information to some kind of internal adjust- ment—or transformation—of attitudes and values. Building on knowledge and awareness, cultural sensitivity entails understanding that cultural similarities and differences exist without making value judgments about the rightness or wrong- ness of one over the other. Educators who can lay claim to cultural competence have progressed through these three phases (Figure 2.5) to the point at which they are able to integrate and transform the knowledge, sensitivities, and awareness, into their curricula and teaching practice in ways that help all their students realize their learning potential.

4. Implement culturally responsive teaching. Culturally responsive teaching is defined as “a pedagogy that empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically, by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (Ladson-Billings, 1994, p. 382). Educators such as Sam Perkins argue that the best

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http://www.intime.uni.edu/multiculture/curriculum/culture/teaching.htm

Cultural Awareness Integrating knowledge and changing attitudes

Cultural Sensitivity Understanding

differences but making no value judgments

Cultural Knowledge Facts and �gures,

what we think we know

Cultural Competence System of knowledge, attitudes, and feelings that allow us to work in a new cultural setting

Section 2.5 Language, Content, and Culture in the ELL Classroom

approach to curricular development that respects cultural diversity is transforma- tive in nature:

With the “transformation approach” to curricular development in mul- ticultural education, the structure of existing curricula is fundamentally changed to enable your students to view concepts, content, events, issues, and themes from the perspectives of diverse cultural groups. The infor- mation is brought from the margins to the center of curricula, which no longer focus just on the dominant cultures. The goal is to assist your stu- dents to understand that knowledge is socially constructed and that it reflects the attitudes, beliefs, biases, experiences, and/or values of its cre- ators. Finally, there is a focus on teaching your students to think critically and to justify their own interpretations of events and situations. (Perkins, 2011, pp. 38–39)

Through reading, study, reflection, and practice, teachers come to view the diversity in their classroom as beneficial and find therein opportunities for everyone in the class to reach higher understanding of, and respect for, each other. They create a safe environment for chil- dren to progress toward common goals while learning in different ways. Culturally proficient

Figure 2.5: Stages of becoming culturally competent

Cultural competence is the result of having cultural knowledge, awareness, and sensitivity.

Cultural Awareness Integrating knowledge and changing attitudes

Cultural Sensitivity Understanding

differences but making no value judgments

Cultural Knowledge Facts and �gures,

what we think we know

Cultural Competence System of knowledge, attitudes, and feelings that allow us to work in a new cultural setting

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Summary & Resources

Summary In this chapter we have examined the broad intersection of language, learning, and culture as it impacts ELL teachers and their classrooms. We began with a description of the four domains or levels of language that learners must master: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. We went on to analyze the effect that previous learning and expectations of school- ing might have on how diverse learners acquire skills in each area. Diverse classrooms require teachers to be sensitive to culture and to develop their own cultural awareness so that they are able to think about curriculum not as a set of directives or prescriptions for all learners, but as a general set of goals that may be achieved differently by each learner. The goal of teaching is not to replace the experiences that ELLs bring to school, but to find ways of helping them to build upon those foundations.

In Chapter 3, we will attempt to deepen our understanding of diversity, and what it means for the classroom, by looking at the differences between first and second language acquisition, and the stages that second language learners pass through in acquiring a new language.

teachers do not know everything there is to know about every child or every culture repre- sented in the classroom, but they do take advantage of teachable moments to advance their students’ awareness and their own. It’s just good teaching.

We will end this chapter with a word from Marissa, who tells us what the experiences of cul- turally diverse learners mean to her.

Why I Teach: Every Day Is a New Day Marissa teaches kindergarten in a small elementary school near Miami, Florida. It was in the middle of her fourth year of teaching that she explained why she chose to teach and why she chooses to remain in the profession.

I had other jobs before I got my teaching degree. Some of them I liked well enough, but noth- ing compares to this one. Of course I like the fact that I feel useful, like I’m really contributing, but what really keeps me here is that there is no possibility of ever being bored. Every year is different. Actually, every day is different, and it’s because of the kids. This year especially I have a really diverse group. There are 12 in the class, but those 12 represent four different languages and backgrounds, and only five of them are English speakers. One of the English language learners is really advanced—she knew the alphabet and could count in English at the start of the year. But I have one student who could barely speak English when she started the year. Most of the kids didn’t know each other and they didn’t know me. About the only thing they had in common was that they were born outside this country. And me! I love the fact that out of this diverse class of strangers I was able to help us to forge a unit—a kind of family, really—and while we’re doing that, they are also learning so fast. They amaze me, they exhaust me, but they never, never bore me.

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Summary & Resources

acquisition level A stage that an ELL achieves in the process of acquiring lan- guage proficiency. Based on observation.

competency What the ELL understands of the structure and vocabulary of a language.

comprehensible input Language that lis- teners can understand despite being unable to understand all the words and structures in it.

cultural awareness The ability to under- stand and be sensitive to members of a cultural group, progressing beyond informa- tion to some kind of internal adjustment—or transformation—of attitudes and values.

cultural competence “A set of academic and interpersonal skills that allow individu- als to increase their understanding and appreciation of cultural differences and simi- larities within, among, and between, groups.”

cultural knowledge The ability to acquire information about aspects of a culture’s his- tory, values, beliefs, customs, and behaviors.

cultural sensitivity Understanding that cultural similarities and differences exist without making value judgments about the rightness or wrongness of one over the other.

Key Ideas

1. To be considered fully proficient, learners must master all four domains of language: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

2. The purpose of learning language is to communicate, and thus the ability to under- stand and create meaning is at the heart of language learning and teaching.

3. Language exists to meet the social, educational, vocational, and spiritual needs of the people who speak it.

4. There are similarities between cultures, but because the world’s languages evolved in different locations and under different conditions, there are also differences among cultures and languages.

5. Teachers should have some knowledge, awareness of, sensitivity to, and respect for the cultures their ELLs represent.

6. While an important part of teaching is to help ELLs adapt and accept the new cul- ture, it is important to remember that they are not replacing a culture but adding and integrating one.

7. Culture shock has four stages: euphoria, shock, integration, and acceptance. ELLs may experience school shock simultaneously.

8. Language, culture, and content intersect to shape curriculum and instruction for ELLs.

9. To be effective in planning for and teaching ELLs, teachers need to

• Understand that different children have different learning styles, no matter their language background or the language being taught.

• Be willing to change tactics if one isn’t working. • Strive toward becoming culturally competent. • Implement culturally responsive teaching that allows learners to view concepts,

content, events, and issues from different cultural perspectives. 10. The goal of English language teaching is not to replace a language and culture, but to

build upon them while helping learners to acquire a new language and culture.

Key Terms

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Summary & Resources

culture shock The stress that people expe- rience when they are immersed in a new and unfamiliar environment. The four stages of culture shock are euphoria, shock, integra- tion, and acceptance.

fluency The smoothness or flow of speech, oral reading, and writing, reflecting an ease with putting together sounds, words, and phrases.

homophone A word that sounds identical to another word but has a different meaning and spelling.

input hypothesis An assumption under- lying Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition, holding that a learner’s ability to understand language is the only mecha- nism that leads to an increase in linguistic competence.

language proficiency levels What a learner is able to demonstrate on a for- mal language assessment. Based on measurement.

learning styles The usual or habitual tac- tics, patterns, or approaches an individual uses to learn or acquire new information or knowledge.

proficiency An individual’s ability to speak, read, and write with both accuracy and flu- ency in an acquired language.

school shock A specific kind of culture shock that ELLs may experience when they begin schooling in a culture different from their home culture.

Critical Thinking Questions

1. Based on the limited information you have about Quy, Mai, Ye-jun, and Ji-woo, at what level of acquisition would you place each?

2. If a learner can read a passage flawlessly, pronouncing all words correctly and with an appropriate intonation pattern, can you say confidently that the person can read?

3. How does the notion of fluency apply to reading comprehension (as opposed to oral reading)?

4. Why is meaning central to all language learning? 5. Why is it important to do frequent comprehension checks with ELLs? 6. Some human societies have a “future” orientation, whereas others place greater

value on the past and present. Which do you think best describes mainstream U.S. culture? What are some of the issues that children from the opposite orientation might face in U.S. schools?

7. How might the euphoria or honeymoon stage of culture shock be manifested in school shock? That is, how might ELLs at this stage behave?

8. How might an ELL teacher involve children’s families to reduce or minimize the effects of school shock?

9. How does their teacher’s cultural competency affect ELLs’ language and content learning?

Additional Resources For an insightful but highly technical description of the factors involved in language process- ing (i.e., listening comprehension), see http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~schuler/paper_COLING_2008_memory.pdf

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http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~schuler/paper_COLING_2008_memory.pdf

Summary & Resources

For concise notes on Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition, see http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/SLA/Krashen.htm

For assistance in teaching standards-based writing to ELLs, see http://www.colorincolorado.org/educators/teaching/writing/

For an excellent list of resources for teaching content and language simultaneously, see http://www.cal.org/resources/archive/rgos/content.html

For a useful definition of cultural competency, see Advocacy Unlimited, 2013, http://www.mindlink.org/online_courses/cultural_competency_1.html and http://cecp.air.org/cultural/Q_howdifferent.htm

For a discussion of the “third place” as a component of acculturation, see http://lrc.cornell.edu/events/past/2008-2009/papers08/third.pdf.

For definitions of culture and mini-lessons on the role of culture in teaching, see http://coerll.utexas.edu/methods/modules/culture/01/

For useful tips for creating an ELL-friendly classroom, see http://www.educationworld.com/a_issues/chat/chat124.shtml

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http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/SLA/Krashen.htm

http://www.colorincolorado.org/educators/teaching/writing/

http://www.cal.org/resources/archive/rgos/content.html

http://www.mindlink.org/online_courses/cultural_competency_1.html

http://coerll.utexas.edu/methods/modules/culture/01/

http://www.educationworld.com/a_issues/chat/chat124.shtml