Teaching Young Second Language Learners

Practices in Different Classroom Contexts

Rhonda Oliver, Bich Nguyen, Rhonda Oliver, Bich Nguyen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138556089
• eBook ISBN: 9781351369381
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

Adopting a learner-centred approach that places an emphasis on hands-on child SL methodology, this book illustrates the practices used to teach young second language learners in different classroom contexts:

(1) English-as-an-Additional-Language-or-Dialect (EAL/D) – both intensive EAL/D and EAL/D in the mainstream

(2) Language-Other-Than-English (LOTE)

(3) Content-and-Language-Integrated-Learning (CLIL),

(4) Indigenous

(5) Foreign-Language (FL). It will be particularly useful to undergraduate teachers to build upon the literacy unit they undertake in the first years of their course to explore factors that constitute an effective child SL classroom and, in practical terms, how to develop such a classroom.

The pedagogical strategies for teaching young language learners in the six chapters are firmly guided by research-based findings, enabling not only pre-service teachers but also experienced teachers to make informed choices of how to effectively facilitate the development of the target language, empowering them to assume an active and effective role of classroom practitioners.

1
Teaching Young Second Language Learners

Practices in different classroom contexts

Rhonda Oliver and Bich Nguyen

Introduction

Many children come to school speaking a home language different to that used in schools. In Australia this includes children who speak a language other than Standard Australian English as their first language or dialect. We also know that “foreign” languages in Australia – languages other than English – are taught to students in primary and secondary schools. In many other countries, English is the primary foreign language being taught to children. Despite this, most language education text books focus either on adults learning a second language or on developing language and literacy in children’s first language (although there are a few very good books about single contexts such as about English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) learners and about Aboriginal children, and a few very good ones specifically about helping child language learners in mainstream classes). To us this seems to present a real gap in the information available to teachers.

To overcome this gap we have assembled a number of authors who have considerable expertise and who come from diverse backgrounds and together we will explore the range of contexts in which children are learning a second language (L2). We will not only explore the various contexts in which younger learners can learn an L2, but importantly how they might be assisted to do so. In this volume are descriptions about learning in EAL/D contexts (e.g., intensive EAL/D settings), in EAL/D in mainstream contexts (i.e., especially where there are just a handful of EAL/D children in a classroom), in Indigenous contexts where Standard Australian English is not the primary language spoken by the students, in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts, in Language other than English (LOTE) contexts and lastly, but by no means least, in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) contexts.

You will see that like recent changes in Australian curriculum documents we have adopted the term EAL/D – English as an Additional Language or Dialect. This change from the term English as a second language (ESL) has happened for a number of reasons. First, ESL can have negative connotations. Some believe that using the word “second” reinforces a deficit view of multilingual students. Also, the term ESL can be misleading because for many students (e.g., Aboriginal students, other students whose families have a range of language backgrounds, and those from places like Singapore, Malaysia or India), English is not their second language and instead it can be their third, fourth or fifth language. The picture can be particularly complex for Aboriginal students who may have one or more traditional languages as their first language, or English as their first language, but who also speak a distinct dialect called Aboriginal English. That is why we need the term EAL/D as it acknowledges students as competent multilingual speakers who are already fluent in one language and recognises the knowledge and experiences that they bring to learning additional languages and dialects.

Other aspects of this book also reflect the Australian Curriculum (ACARA, 2013), not only the EAL/D component, which was updated in 2014, but also those parts concerned with teaching languages, including Chinese, French, Indonesian, Italian, Arabic, German, Japanese, Korean, Modern Greek, Spanish and Vietnamese languages (especially Chapters 6 and 7). Although the framework for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages are “currently being revised following public consultation” (ACARA, 2013, para. 5), we include content relevant to this in Chapter 4.

Before we turn to the accounts of these different L2 contexts and so we can understand the pedagogical foundations on which the teaching approaches for these context are built, in this first chapter we provide a description of young L2 learners and how their journey differs from the way adults learn a second language. We are doing this because age is an important factor in the process of second language acquisition (SLA). Although it doesn’t affect everything, it does matter if the learners are younger rather older – not only to their learning but also to how we teach and assess such learners. It is not enough for us as teachers to just read about adult learners and apply that information to children, nor is it appropriate to use methods intended for first language learners for those who are learning in their second language. We begin by describing how children and adults acquiring an L2 differ. We explore this from a range of theoretical perspectives, and also by examining the cognitive and social differences of these two different groups of learners. Next we look at how first and second language acquisition varies. We believe an important part of this is developing an understanding of how children learning a second language interact and how this can help or hinder their language learning.

To support you as you read this book we have included a number of interactive tools that you may choose to do (or not!). First to direct your attention we use focus questions throughout this book – as you read try to reflect on how the information helps you answer these questions. You will also see key terms highlighted in bold. Next we include some exercises – things that you can do that represent the approach we are describing. Finally we provide some case studies and examples that illustrate, in real terms, the content we are discussing and questions to consider in relation to these vignettes. All these tools are labelled and appear separately to the main text, appearing instead in boxes.

Differences between child and adult language learners

We hope you are familiar with the hare and the tortoise story as this is can be used as an analogy for the way that different aged learners experience the SLA journey. Children are the tortoise of the story – they start slower than adults, but in the long term they actually win the race. The reason for their initial success is that adults bring to the learning process well-developed first language and memory skills which help their acquisition, at least at the beginning, whereas children are still learning their first language(s) and cognitively they are not as advanced as older learners and so it takes them a bit longer to get started. However, things such as opportunity, social and psychological factors and the plasticity of the younger brain mean that eventually children overtake adults and end up being more successful. That is, the ultimate attainment of children in the SLA process is generally better than that of adults.

Focus Question

What are some of the reasons for children generally having greater ultimate attainment than adults?

This does not mean that language learning later in life is impossible. There is much anecdotal evidence of migrants who have arrived as adults, or people who studied a language as mature-aged students who went on to be quite successful in their new language (we provide some examples a bit later in this chapter). There also have been a number of studies where success has been reported for learners starting at an older age. Abrahamsson and Hyltenstam (2008), for instance, reported that eleven adult learners who had Spanish as their first language (L1) did go on to high levels of achievement in the grammar of their second language (L2) – namely Swedish. Even so, the general rule remains the same – children tend to do better in the long term when it comes to learning a second language.

A number of theories have been developed to explain why this is the case. For example, historically the psycholinguistic perspective explored such notions as a critical period, later described as sensitive period, which concerns the optimum time to learn a language and this seemed to favour children. Other theories are based on the importance of interaction (i.e., using the language they are learning meaningfully) and include the role of comprehensible input, the need for learners to produce meaningful output, to receive feedback on their attempts and how opportunities for children may be better (again these are things that we describe in more detail later in this chapter). On the other hand, a sociolinguistic perspective suggests that it is context of learning (e.g., learning through play and in school) that favours younger learners. Similarly a systemic-functional linguistic perspective, one that has been widely advocated in Australia, also considers the importance of context for language learning.

Maria and My Phuong: Case Studies of an Adult and Child Language Learner

Maria arrived in Australia from Italy as a young bride. She did not speak any English. Sadly after only a few years her husband died. Fortunately for her she was embraced by the Italian community in the suburb in which she lived. She met with her friends daily and they took her shopping and to the doctors and so on. She mostly shopped at the Italian food store and her doctor also spoke fluent Italian. She also only read Italian books and newspapers, although she did watch television programs where only English was spoken. Over the years she picked up a few words of English, and could greet her English speaking neighbours, however, in the main her proficiency in English was very limited.

My Phuong arrived in Australia at the age of 8 years with her family as a refugee. In her first year in the country she attend an Intensive English program not too far from where her family lived, although she did have to use public transport with her elder brother to get to and from school. In her second year in Australia she started to attend her local school where there was an EAL/D teacher who supported her as she worked in her mainstream class. She was extremely hard working, made friends easily, but was also very competitive. In addition, her family had very high expectations for her. By high school she excelled in all her subjects and later studied medicine at university.

Why do you think the outcomes were so different for Maria and My Phuong?

Ultimate attainment

Very early on in the field of language learning, Canadian neurologists Penfield and Roberts in 1959 suggested that adults could not learn language as efficiently as children due to their loss of cerebral plasticity. Based on this, Lenneberg (1967) put forward the idea of a critical period for language acquisition. He suggested that during this time learners are remarkably sensitive to what is in their environment. For example, it allows them to distinguish subtle sound differences in language(s) they hear. However, this sensitivity declines over time.

Later, Long (1990, 2013) suggested that the differences in ultimate attainment of adults and children can be accounted for by what he terms maturational constraints. He describes how children’s language acquisition is affected by physiological scheduling – that is, aspects of language are acquired at particular times or what can be described as developmental milestones, similar to the way animals develop instinctive behaviours at certain stages in their lives, for example, mammals being able to see (e.g., kittens and puppies open their eyes and learn to focus between 7 and 14 days after birth) and birds learning to fly (but only once their muscular structure is ready). According to Long these genetically determined constraints means that language learning may become more difficult as we get older.

This does not mean that language learning later in life is impossible. As we indicated above, there are stories of adult migrants and other people who study a language as mature-aged students who have been very successful second language learners. Given this type of evidence it is not surprising that the idea of a critical period has been increasingly replaced by the term sensitive period in the research literature. Although this more moderate position has been adopted, there is a general pattern that applies with respect to age, namely that the age that someone begins learning a language will have a considerable impact on their ultimate attainment in that language. The term used to describe this age of commencement for SLA is described as the age of onset.

Age of onset

In this book we use the term age of onset (AO) to mean the age when the learner is first exposed to an L2 or foreign language and when they commence language learning, but others have also referred to it as age of acquisition. There is a body of evidence that suggests that there is an optimum time for this to happen. Specifically children with an early AO consistently have been found to have greater success. That is, if learners begin their SLA journey quite young, they will end up sounding and using the language as if it was their first (remember they are the tortoise in the story). In other words these learners will have pronunciation, grammar and voc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Contributors
• 1 Teaching young second language learners: practices in different classroom contexts
• 2 English as an additional language learning: a specialist approach with young learners
• 3 Teaching young EAL/D learners in mainstream contexts
• 4 Τeaching English as an additional language or dialect to young learners in Indigenous contexts
• 5 Teaching EFL to young learners
• 6 Teaching young second language learners in LOTE contexts
• 7 Getting two for one: learning another language through CLIL
• Index