LANGUAGE TRANSFER AND EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES AND ASSESSMENT FOR BILITERACY DEVELOPMENT

LANGUAGE TRANSFER Concepts:  “transfer” represents the learners’ dependence on first- language knowledge  The application of knowledge, skill, and specific strategies from one domain to other new situations  Transfer occurs when the person’s learning in one situation influences learning in novel situation

LANGUAGE TRANSFER Linguistic Transfer:  Krashen (1983): “filling with known information, as the result of falling back on old knowledge, the L1 rule, when new knowledge... is lacking”  Gass and Selinker (1983): “transfer of prior linguistic knowledge results IL (interlanguage) forms which, when compared to the target language norms, can be termed ‘positive,’ ‘negative’, ‘or neutral”  Odlin (1989): “influence from similarities and differences between the target language and any other language that has been previously (and perhaps imperfectly) acquired”

LANGUAGE TRANSFER Linguistic dependence:  Second, the reliance on first-language knowledge is, more or less, associated with initial acquisition of of second-language knowledge;  Transfer of first-language knowledge tends to cease when relevant second-language knowledge has been acquired;  Dependence on L1 becomes minimal once sufficient proficiency (however defined) is attained

METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS Concept:  ability to identify, analyze and manipulate language forms;  understanding of language in its most fundamental sense;  once properly formed, is believed to regulate the perception ad interpretation of linguistic input, thereby guiding and facilitating both language learning and processing

METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS Learning to read is metalinguistic:  recognition of functionally important units of spoken language, awareness of the relation of these units to the writing system, and the skills to map between the two Literacy:  It occurs when the child understands that written symbols correspond to speech units, understands what each symbol represents, and knows how symbols can be combined to form a word. Lacking these basic insights, written symbols are perceived as nonsense scribble and their learning is apparently both useless and meaningless

METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS Examples:  syntactic awareness: realization that the order in which words are strung together determines sentence meaning  phonological awareness: understand that written symbols correspond to speech units, understand what each symbol represents, and know how symbols can be combined to form a word  morphological awareness: being able to use inflectional and derivational morphemes in writing and speaking and ability to use combine morphemes during word and sentence comprehension

METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS Examples in English:  While English orthography is alphabetic, bound by phonemic constraints, it tends to preserve morphological information in its graphic representation. To master an alphabetic script, children not only must recognize that words can be divided into sequences of phonemes. but they must also acquire the capability to analyze a word’s internal structure and identify its phonemic constituents

METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS AND BILITERACY WHAT ARE THE CRITICAL FACTORS THAT MANY L2 CHILDREN LACK?  Learning to read is to develop skills with which to map spoken- language elements onto graphic symbols. The L2 learner typically does not have full oral proficiency in the second language L2 at the time when second-language literacy-learning begins limited oral-communication experience, make the L2 learner less sensitized to the functional significance of linguistic features L2 learners undertake the task without adequate knowledge of the actual elements to be mapped, and without the metalinguistic facilitation which guides such mappings. 

METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS AND BILITERACY CRITICAL FACTORS…  These children have limited prior literacy experience. Therefore, they must undertake the learning task without benefit of either linguistic knowledge or print-information processing competence. They are not likely to have a clear conception of how print relates to speech because of their limited literacy experience. Lacking such a basic understanding, linguistic knowledge cannot automatically be used to “decipher” print information.

METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS AND BILITERACY ARE THERE THEN MECHANISMS TO FACILITATE LEARNING-TO-READ FOR THESE CHILDREN WITHOUT ORAL PROFICIENCY AND WITHOUT PRIOR LITERACY EXPERIENCE?  One possibility is phonological awareness: child’s growing understanding of the segmental structure of spoken sounds awareness which precedes and supports initial literacy acquisition

METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS AND BILITERACY WHAT TRANSFERS FROM L1 TO L2 IN THE PROCESS OF LITERACY TRANSFER?  Phonological features: equivalent sounds, letters- sound correlation, phonemic awareness;  Morpho-phonological features such as cognates, prefixation, suffixation, invariant words trigger phonological memory, linking of oral and written language,;  Syntactic processes: combining words into sentences;

METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS AND BILITERACY WHAT TRANSFERS FROM L1 TO L2 IN THE PROCESS OF LITERACY TRANSFER?  CONT…  Reading strategies: meaning construction such as guessing, confirmation from context clues, activation of background knowledge, discourse skills used in comprehending communicative intent;  Critical thinking skills: prediction, hypothesis, use of knowledge of logical structure and expository text;  At a more general level: Basic, automatic, internalized aspects of reading (i.e., how to move eyes over a page, recognizing letter/sound relationships, recognizing very basic vocabulary); Learning to transfer mindful strategies (i.e., summarizing, problem solving, studying, writing for multiple audiences, editing, etc.)

METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS AND BILITERACY WHAT CRITICAL POINTS HINDER LITERACY TRANSFER?  No equivalent sounds in L1 and L2;  Unfamiliarity with L2 morphology, variant of absent,  Lack of familiarity with L2 grammatical and syntactical structures  Inadequate contextual redundancy  Unfamiliar concepts and vocabulary  False cognates, idioms or lack of L1 equivalent,  Lack of experiential background incongruity or crosscultural schemata

METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS AND BILITERACY WHAT ARE THE TEACHING/INTERVENTION STRATEGIES THAT TRIGGER TRANSFER?  Extend phonemic awareness in the primary language and in English  Teach syllabification and word derivations such as prefixes and suffixes. Teach cognates in the first and second language. Reinforce attention to spelling patterns through holistic word recognition and analysis strategies.  Teach sentence structure and word order patterns to increase predictability of words in context. Provide opportunities for students to practice rapid recognition of high-frequency words.

METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS AND BILITERACY WHAT ARE THE TEACHING/INTERVENTION STRATEGIES THAT TRIGGER TRANSFER?  Link oral and written language by determining the relationship between oral language proficiency and the biliteracy development. Use texts with high levels of redundancy.  Explain unfamiliar idiomatic expressions and vocabulary in context in pre-reading activities so that these will not impede fluent reading and comprehension.  Establish an experiential and cultural context through schematic mapping. Focus in the specific cultural attributes of the text.  Guide students in examining the purpose and logical structure of expository and narrative text. Select universal and meaningful messages in literature.