How Does the First Language L1 Help Make Content Accessible in the L2
In teaching second language literacy to English-Language Learners (ELL), teachers must be aware of the similarities and differences of the linguistic features that exist in the student’s home language. Thus, for a student to acquire literacy in a second language, some form of literacy in the first language is also required.
The second language (L2) reading and writing process involves the interplay of two language system so that when reading or writing in second language readers often use their L1 as a reading strategy to access the material (Helman,2009).
This factor is particularly important for ELLs. Students who can read and write in their native language find literacy in English much easier than students who never learned to read and write in any language. ) The following literature review given the reader a background understanding of the how developing the L1 plays an basic part in helping student access the content in the L2.
Literacy
Literacy refers to the ability for comprehend and use printed information at work, home and all other daily activities. The ability allows persons to achieve their goals, enhance their knowledge and build their potential to acquire more knowledge. Since literacy has a wide definition, a more specific component, the functional literacy, will suffice for this review.
Street (1984) shows that functional literacy serves people by allowing them to solve their immediate problems. For example, literacy would enable farmers to take notes about the better ways of managing their crops. The same farmers should later be able to refer to what they wrote and use it to expand their knowledge, which may include listening or reading additional materials.
The extensive research by Street (1984) takes the reader through the different metamorphosis of theories and ideologies that shape the term literacy. The following sections of the literature review use the functional definition of literature as alluded before.
Richard (1993) examined the teaching of literacy to second language learners at a Municipal Workplace Language Training Program in British Columbia. He notes that, most programs are affected by the selection of teachers and their training. Teachers must have certain attributes, and these depend on their personality and attitude.
The teacher has to be trained on the ability to trust oneself to do the right thing. They need to believe in the learners and relate well to people. The main challenge is usually the schooling of the teacher. Richard (1993) observed with the workplace literacy education that, the active learner-centered teaching yielded the most benefits for workers, unions and management because it centers on students developing and using their own language.
The above observation was also apparent in the study by Benseman, Sutton and Lander (2005) who explained that, the involvement of the learner in the teaching allows students to increase their use of first language literacy in understanding the second language. Moreover, the method covers for the teacher’s shortcomings by allowing students to include cultural and social experiences in the classroom (Verhoeven, 1994).
Literature by Richard (1993) shows that, a good grasp of the first language and its usage led to useful attitudes and practices. This was contrary to the explicit use of the second language that was full of self-restrictive attitude and practices.
The first language use, leads students to use writing, to bring the wisdom of their earlier experiences into the new environment with the second language. Richard (1993) highlights the need to investigate the relationship between learner-centeredness and active teaching and their effect on developing the second language.
The general definition of literacy and the availability of many strategies for teaching may be a challenge for language teachers. Helman (2009) comes to the teachers’ rescue explaining that they must know the limitations of applying a specific strategy to teaching the second language.
One limitation is the difficulty in establishing comparison groups of those with and without L1 literacy ability, which means that one can normally describe correlations rather than direct effects. The wide range of factors, which affect literacy, must play a part, particularly for adults who have varied exposure, time constraints, prior educational experience, and so on, in addition to such personality variables as motivation (Helman, 2009).
Different Types of Literacy Students
The study conducted by Benseman, Sutton and Lander (2005) shows that the characteristics of learners influence their ability to learn a language. Therefore, they should be the focus of any language lesson plan. In general, learners have diverse needs. For example, English-speaking leaners may be good at speaking but average on reading and some may not be able to write.
Others could have no skill in any language and need to improve their spoken English. People who go back to school after previous failures have a low confidence while those who are learning a second language because of a change in environment have a high confidence (Benseman, Sutton, & Lander, 2005).
Post school participation periods also has an influence on the confidence of students. The language profiles of learners are usually different and in cases where they have had little schooling, their literacy profiles are distinct.
Different students will have unique abilities of commanding a second language. Various factors affect their abilities. These include length of stay in the country, their native language, age, experience and attitude towards the second language. The educational background of students also varies.
It is expected that learners at the university level will be very literate in their native languages. On the other hand, those who are illiterate are expected to have a maximum of two years of school in their indigenous language. Between the two extremes are semi-literate students who have at least eight years of formal schooling (Bell & Burnaby, 1984).
Bell (1995) says that studies done on the transfer of literacy have focused on children, or have involved learners where both L1 and L2 are European languages. She uses the experience in learning to be literate in Chinese’s script to suggest that literacy in one language or culture cannot necessarily be assumed as helpful in developing literacy in another.
A student may find that because the orthography of her first language was so distinctive from English, it does not help him or her. For example, a Chinese student will have a very different alphabet, and would probably think in Chinese. To transfer her literacy skills would require a translation.
However, since he or she does not know the second language, the translation will fail and so will the skill transfer. This student had the same experience as Bell (1995); the cultural differences add a layer of complexity to the learning experience. Therefore, it is important for teachers to consider the first language of the student in their strategies, for them to circumvent the challenges of skill transfer.
How Developing First Language Help Students to Develop the L2
According to Klaudia (1990), skills and knowledge learned in a student’s native language pass on to their learning of English as a second language (ESL). Klaudia (1990) studied the development native language literacy for minority adults who needed to learn both oral and written English as a second language.
Referring to her own work, the author notes that the linguistic strengths of the language already known to the adult from the first language determine how much they learn in the second language. Languages may have different writing systems.
Nonetheless, a transfer of the knowledge possessed in one language to the next always happens during the learning process. Therefore, as Klaudia (1990) and Benseman, Sutton and Lander (2005) show, a good command of the first language is important for the teaching and learning of the second.
Helman (2009) indicates that, the second language (L2) reading and writing process is the interplay of two language systems. When a person reads or writes in the second language, he or she mimics and rely on the first language (L1). Various observations by scholars support this claim especially for English-language learners (Helman, 2009).
Verhoeven (1994) explains that, when referring to the cognitive and social development of children, the acquisition of literacy relies on the linkage of instruction with his or her linguistic background. For the written communication, logical and ideational functions are essential.
Oral communication uses fewer formal characteristics. The explanation by Verhoeven (1994) shows that without a reference point to create logical and ideational similarities, language students will be at loss in their learning of the second language.
In another study, Verhoeven (1991) conducted an empirical study to determine the effect of first language, on the second language, in bi-literacy development. The study involved 138 first-grade Turkish children. It was conducted in the Netherlands. The participants were divided into two groups. One group went through a second language submersion curriculum and received L2 literacy instructions before L1.
The second group went through the same curriculum but received L1 literacy instruction before L2. Evidence from the research showed that the second group, which received L1 literacy instructions prior to L2, was superior in skill transfer from L1 to L2. It has a strong transfer of decoding and reading comprehension skills from the first language lesson to the next.
The first group showed a reliance on the L1 to decipher L2. This happened before they received guidelines on how to use L1. The group referred to their inherent knowledge of L1. The findings from the study show that the first language comprehension affects the development of the second language. It corroborates other studies by Helman (2009) and Klaudia (1990).
On the other hand, Jiang (2011) points out that, the transfer between first and second language does not seem to occur for all literacy skills. In the study, there is an indication of, transfer of pragmatic, phonological, and literacy skills from Turkish to Dutch. However, the study fails to obtain any handover of lexical and syntactic skills. In the previous study, Verhoeven (1994) did an investigation.
It was on the development of lexical, morphosyntactic and practical abilities. There were also phonological and reading abilities in the first and second languages. The study involved 98 Turkish children in Netherlands. Findings from the exploration show that reading skills are interdependent between L1 and L2. This supports the argument that reading skills in a general sense are transferable between L1 and L2.
Conversely, just like Jiang (2011), there was little evidence showing the interdependence for lexical and morphosyntactic skills. Fluent readers doing a reading assignment in their native language make use of information from three areas.
They look at the spelling of the word, the order of words within a sentence and the meaning, of each word within the context. They then relate the experience with what they are reading. Thus, when the second language has a similar structure, they are able to transfer the skill to decipher the new information. Often the decoding builds on their cultural and social experiences.
How Teachers Can Use the First Language For the Benefit of the Second
Teachers who understand the influence of the first language on learning the second are at a position to accelerate student learning of the latter. Therefore, it is essential for teachers to base their teaching curriculums on the factual findings of how L1 literacy affected L2 literacy.
Teachers must understand that, learners make more progress when they spend more time doing spoken communication exercises. They learn basic literacy skills in their second language when the program focuses on oral language competence. This method would allow them to extend their first language literacy skills to the second language. The original language helps the learners to ‘bring the outside in’ as explained by Benseman, Sutton and Lander (2005).
They show that bi-lingual teaching brings real gains to the student learning experience (Benseman, Sutton, & Lander, 2005). It allows teachers to explain concepts and learning tasks without overwhelming the learner. Most benefits occur when students learn reading strategies. These might include vocabulary acquisitions and comprehensions. Students rely on their familiarity with the first language.
In their report, Benseman, Sutton and Lander (2005) show that, learners will gain more when there are teacher aides, and the teacher works full time. In addition to the teaching time, they report that students benefit further when the teachers spend time to plan and undertake professional development. Furthermore, teachers should employ a variety of strategies in their teaching, which should consider the different challenges faced by individuals.
Conclusion
The various studies reviewed in this paper show an overwhelming support for the enhancement of literacy in the first language as a way of improving a student’s grasp of the second language. The review demonstrated that a blanket approach to teaching L2 is not desirable. Moreover, not all skills of L1 literacy can pass to L2; therefore, language teachers should have unlike strategies of enhancing the learning experience.
An understanding of the different reasons that compel students to learn the second language would help. Consequently, before developing the teaching strategies, it is important to profile students according to their current abilities in their native languages and their goals. The understanding of the inside world of a student assists in creating an outside world that would adapt and make learning possible.
References
Bell, J., & Burnaby, B. (1984). A handbook for ESL literacy. Toronto: OISE Press.
Bell, S. J. (1995). The relationship between L1 and L2 literacy: Some complicating factors. TESOL Quarterly, 29(4), 687-704.
Benseman, J., Sutton, A., & Lander, J. (2005). Working in the light of evidence, as well as aspiration: A literature review of the best available evidence about effective adult literacy, numeracy and language teaching. Auckland: Auckland UniServices Limited.
Helman, L. (2009). Literacy development with English learners. New York: Guilford Press.
Jiang, X. (2011). The role of first language literacy and second language proficiency in second language reading comprehension. The Reading Matrix, 11(2). Web.
Klaudia, R. (1990). Developing native language literacy in language minority adults. Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse on Literacy Education.
Richard, D. (1993). Teaching literacy to second language learners. Web.
Street, B. V. (1984). Literacy in theory and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Verhoeven, L. (1991). Acquisition of biliteracy. NLA Review, 8, 61-74. Web.
Verhoeven, L. (1994). Functional literacy: Theoretical issues and educational implications. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.