What reading teachers should know about ESL learners; Drucker, Mary J
The Reading Teacher 09-01-2003
What reading teachers should know about ESL learners
Byline: Drucker, Mary J
Volume: 57
Number: 1
ISSN: 00340561
Publication Date: 09-01-2003
Page: 22
Type: Periodical
Language: English
Good teaching is teaching for all. These strategies will help English-language learners, but they will help typical learners as well.
Suggested strategy implementation
What you can do in the classroom
Orthography and phonology
What you can do in the classroom
Cultural differences and schema
* when the story took place-past, present, or future;
* what Mary wondered;
* the meaning of would;
* the definition of kite;
* the definition of piggy bank;
* the nature of the party in the text;
* if Mary and Johnny are adults or children;
* how the kite is related to the party;
* why Mary shook her piggy bank; and
* what Mary's big problem was.
Droop and Verhoeven (1998) studied third graders becoming literate in Dutch both as a first and second language. The children read three different kinds of texts: texts that referred to Dutch culture, texts that referred to the cultures of the immigrant children, and neutral texts. It is not surprising that the researchers found that the children had better reading comprehension and reading efficiency with texts that were culturally familiar.
What you can do in the classroom
When possible, choose texts that will match the cultural schemata and background knowledge of your English-language learners. Folk tales that are translations of stories children may have heard in their native language are especially helpful. Students will be able to relate more easily to books that depict characters that are similar to them. Two concept books for kindergarten and first-grade children, Red Is a Dragon and Round Is a Mooncake (Thong, 2000, 2002), have delightful illustrations of Asian children and simple language introducing colors and shapes. The Ugly Vegetables (Lin, 1999) is a picture book suitable for grades 1 through 4. It tells the story of a young Chinese girl who feels different from her American friends because of the strange vegetables her mother grows in their garden. When the vegetables ripen, her mother makes a delicious soup that everyone in the neighborhood enjoys, and the girl learns to value her culture as a result.
Another picture book good for first through third grade, The Iguana Brothers (Johnston, 1995), tells the tale of two lizard siblings in English, with an occasional word in Spanish. The Spanish vocabulary can be easily understood through context by native English speakers. However, the Spanish language and culturally appropriate illustrations may provide native Spanish speakers with a cultural context that makes the meanings that much more accessible.
Multicultural literature is a positive addition to the classroom for all students in all grades, from kindergarten through high school. Native speakers of English "need to be familiar with quality literature which can give the reader a realistic look at those many cultures" (McDonald, 1996, p. 1). In increasingly diverse U.S. classrooms, it is critical for books to reflect the cultural backgrounds of all students. Shioshita (1997) has culled information from several sources on how to select quality multicultural literature and offers the following tips:
* Books should be accurate and contain current information.
* Books should not reinforce stereotypes, but rather they should reflect the experiences of individuals.
* Illustrations should realistically depict individuals of different ethnicities.
* Stories should be appealing.
Another way to be certain that students fully share the context of the material they are reading is through the Language Experience Approach (LEA; Rigg, 1981). Language learners of all ages enjoy this approach, but in a classroom containing native English speakers LEA is generally more successful with students in grades 1 through 3. LEA involves having students tell the story of an experience they have had. The teacher acts as scribe, writing down the words so that the students can see what they look like. If the students have had a shared experience, such as a field trip or a visitor to the classroom, parts of the story come from all of the students in the class. After a story has been completed, the teacher can copy it onto a large sheet of chart paper so that students can practice reading it together. The rationale for using LEA can be summed up in these lines:
What I can think about I can talk about.
What I can say I can write.
What I can write I can read.
I can read what I write
and what other people write for me to read.
(R. Van Allen & G. Halvoren, as cited in Cantoni-Harvey, 1992, p. 178)
Interactive writing (McCarrier et al., 2000), in which children share the pen with their teacher, also allows children to share in the writing of a text that grows from their own experiences. In interactive writing, the teacher and the children negotiate the meaning of the text together and work together to produce it; the children are invited to contribute to the writing of the text on the basis of their instructional needs.
The idea is to help children attend to powerful examples that can enable them to learn something about the writing process that they can incorporate into their own writing. As children gain control of the process, the examples and areas of focus shift. (McCarrier et al., p. 11)
Interactive writing has been successful in the early grades, generally first through third.
Vocabulary
On a very basic level, vocabulary is critical to the reading process. Fluent first-language readers have large recognition vocabularies. There have been numerous studies attempting to quantify the actual number of words second-language readers need to know in order to comprehend a text. It is not surprising that some researchers have found that second-language learners need approximately the same number of words in their lexicon as first-language readers (Goulden, Nation, & Read, 1990). This need presents a particular challenge because of the large amount of prerequisite information ELLs must learn in order to be at a reading level comparable to their peers. W. Nagy & P. Herman (as cited in Bell, 1998) found that students between 3rd and 12th grade learn up to 3,000 new words each year. Classroom teachers are simply unable to teach this amount of vocabulary item by item.
In addition, many of the standard vocabulary-teaching approaches have been ineffective with ESL learners. Freeman and Freeman (2000) noted that although ELLs enjoy vocabulary exercises, they have trouble applying the information they memorize in context. According to Yeung (1999),
Given a separate glossary, when readers encounter an unfamiliar word, they need to leave the text, turn to the vocabulary list, temporarily store its meaning, and then revert to the text and try to incorporate the meaning into the text. (p. 197)
Yeung posited that the difficulty with providing students with preteaching vocabulary exercises or glossaries creates a cognitive load that splits the learner's attention. He found that when definitions are placed next to the challenging lexical items, students were better able to learn the meanings of unfamiliar words. He suggested that in this integrated format, students' attention is not split, and the cognitive load is lowered.
What you can do in the classroom
Although we cannot edit the materials our students use so that vocabulary definitions are integrated with the text, it is possible to encourage students to write word meanings on labels that are placed in the margins or as near the challenging item as possible. This may help to reduce the cognitive load and enhance vocabulary acquisition. Labeling tends to be more successful with students who have a greater ability to work independently, generally grade 4 through high school. We can also explain meanings, or add synonyms for words that seem to cause (or seem likely to cause) difficulty for some of the students, as challenging words appear during the shared reading exercise described earlier.
Schunk (1999) suggested a different approach to vocabulary acquisition. She found that elementary school children (kindergarten through grade 5) who engaged in singing as a form of language rehearsal, paired with sign language, improved on receptive identification of targeted vocabulary. This approach is reminiscent of a language teaching methodology known as total physical response (TPR). TPR is "built around the coordination of speech and action; it attempts to teach language through physical (motor) activity" (Richards & Rodgers, 1998, p. 87). Encouraging children to act out songs such as "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and having them play games associated with language like Simon Says are other examples of this approach. Having children physically act out songs, poems, or readings-all forms of TPR methodology-is an effective way to support vocabulary development.
Schmitt and Carter (2000) suggested narrow reading as an effective method for developing vocabulary. In narrow reading, learners read authentic writing about the same topic in a number of different texts. By doing this, students are exposed to a common body of vocabulary. In this way, these words are recycled and ultimately integrated with the learner's vocabulary. There is not clear agreement about the number of times that a language learner must encounter a new lexical term before it is actually learned, but Zahar, Cobb, and Spada (2001) found that estimates range between 6 and 20 times, depending on the context in which exposure to the word occurs. Depending on the materials available, students in grades 2 or 3 all the way up through high school can engage in narrow reading.
Schmitt and Carter (2000) suggested the following kinds of narrow-reading activities to support vocabulary acquisition.
* Collect newspaper stories on a continuing topic for students to read. Be certain each story is one that will appeal to them.
* Ask students to bring in magazines on subjects they like. Have them read several articles from the magazines.
* Use the Internet-there is a wide variety of texts available on almost any topic.
* Assign books for the students to read. The vocabulary in any given novel tends to recycle.
* Have students read texts written by a single author.
Finally, do not underestimate the power of read-alouds in supporting vocabulary development. Freeman and Freeman (2000) pointed to a study in which teachers read aloud a story to students three times a day for a week. Group vocabulary scores rose by 40%. "The key was finding interesting books and coaching teachers to use reading techniques such as pointing to pictures, gesturing, and paraphrasing...to be sure students understood the story" (p. 123).
Many possible approaches
In classrooms that are becoming increasingly diverse, culturally relevant teaching is an important component of literacy instruction. Culturally relevant teaching is "the kind of teaching that is designed not merely to fit the school culture to the students' culture but also to use student culture as the basis for helping students understand themselves and others, structure social interactions, and conceptualize knowledge" (Ladson-Billings, 2000, p. 142).
Effective literacy instruction is not simply a collection of strategies and approaches that will help English-language learners succeed in mainstream classrooms. The environment in which ELLs study and learn is at least as important as the methods, strategies, and approaches you may choose to employ. Using a culturally relevant teaching approach means that students' second languages can be viewed as an additive to the classroom environment, rather than as a deficit that needs to be remedied. Realize that academic language proficiency in a second language takes a long time to develop. To facilitate that process, permit students to use their native languages when necessary (Nichols, Rupley, & Webb-Johnson, 2000). The classroom needs to be a validating environment for all students. Williams (2001) suggested asking yourself, "Would I want to be a student in my classroom?" (p. 754).
The strategies listed in this article are not intended to be prescriptive solutions for particular issues in literacy development. They are a few of many possible approaches that can be useful for all students, both native speakers of English as well as English-language learners in the classroom. Like native speakers, "Second language learners benefit from reading programs that incorporate a range of contexts, both social and functional, and in which reading begins, develops, and is used as a means of communication" (Nichols et al., 2000, p. 2).
It is also important to remember the concept of Krashen's I + 1 (1981), mentioned earlier. Texts must be at a level appropriate to the student's ability. Recall also that academic language proficiency takes much longer to develop than conversational proficiency. "In other words, encourage students to read at their reading level-not at their oral proficiency level" (Williams, 2001, p. 751). There is nothing like reading to promote reading. "Read aloud to students every day. This practice supports language development...as well as literacy development" (p. 751).
Finally, give students plenty of opportunities to read independently. "People learn to read, and to read better, by reading" (Eskey, 2002, p. 8). Students learn to read well when they are engaged in reading materials that are not only at an appropriate level but also interesting and relevant to them.
REFERENCE
References
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AUTHOR_AFFILIATION
Drucker teaches education courses at Utica College of Syracuse University in Utica, New York (1600 Burrstone Road, Utica, NY 13502-4892, USA), E-mail mdrucker@utica.edu.
Copyright International Reading Association Sep 2003
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