Dear Alicia
I am interested in this situation too. I think these learners, especially if beginners, are a neglected group. TESOL qualifications tend to assume L2 learners have L1 and even some L2 literacy already, and trainees tend to practise with literate learners. Experienced ESOL teachers in UK, especially in community classes, will have known many beginner learners with no L1 literacy! I currently have some beginners who have had no previous education.
I am of the opinion that a teacher needs to decide with such beginners who have little or no L1 literacy, whether or not they are going to be able to use L2 literacy as a study skill to help them in their language learning at the initial stage ie before they get near E1 level. In my experience my learners need and want to be able to understand and speak to meet their immediate needs first: to be able to independently go and buy stamps; to say hello to their child's nursery teacher; to ask 'where's his coat?' to respond when someone tells them to ' Take a seat over there'; to be able to call the Fire Service if the need should sadly occur. They cannot wait to be in a position to use literacy to support them. Mine benefit more from oral focussed teaching and learning with visual prompts, realia, and simple listening tasks and speaking tasks again with visual prompts. Some social sight words ( local supermarket names and other words that they realise they already can read like Post Office and Bradford; FIRE EXIT; toilets/men/women; entrance; exit; push; pull etc) and writing name and addresses on real forms which they bring in (often the actual form they need to send off somewhere!) etc but yes, the written text around many visuals in the materials depresses some with no L1 / L2 literacy. I cut out the pictures and laminate them to make visual prompts for listening and speaking. Collect as much visual material as you can. Many of the listening tasks in the materials can be used with no literacy to develp speaking skills.
After all, we understand our L1, then we learn to speak it, and then we begin to learn to read and write it.
Some of mine in this situation will never be able to use literacy as a study skill. But they can still develop speaking and listening skills, and some personal literacy skills eventually.
The book and the course ( "Teaching Basic Literacy to ESOL Learners" and 'Teaching Basic Literacy to ESOL students' ) are excellent for developing literacy.
Also try learning to speak and read at the same time a completely different language with a non-Roman script to experience what it is like but bearing in mind we have L1 literacy as a study skill!
Isabel Arnold
teaching ESOL in the community in Bradford
Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 11:28:53 +0100
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: ESOL Literacy
To: [log in to unmask]
Hi everyone,
I'm currently working for a college in Nottingham and labouring through my MA at the same time. I aim to design a course for students who are learning English but who have little or no literacy in their first language. In all honesty this is not something that was covered in my teacher training and it seems a big assumption within the profession that as we are teaching second language users, they already have all 4 skills in their first language.
Most notably I am finding the early stages of the curriculum problematic and am finding that students are often perplexed by written materials available for ESOL students. I've seen materials/assessments for primary school literacy which do focus on the basics of literacy and the way children link phonics and the spoken word to what they are seeing on a page. However, engaging adult learners in literacy is not something that is met by the techniques available for young learners.
Is anyone else in this situation? What approaches have you tried? What works best in terms of effective teaching and what works best in terms of student self esteem? What about materials?
Thank you in advance for helping me out on this.
Yours,
Alicia Bowman
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