Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T12:29:57.351Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Second language acquisition by low-literate learners: An under-studied population

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2009

Elaine Tarone
Elaine Tarone*
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota, USAetarone@umn.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Many adolescent and adult L2 learners in language classrooms, both in the US and other countries, have little or no alphabetic print literacy. Language teachers may turn to SLA research for assistance, yet almost all research on oral SLA has focused on educated, highly-literate learners (Bigelow & Tarone 2004; Tarone, Bigelow & Hansen 2009). The assumption seems to have been that the findings of this research hold for ALL learners, including learners with little to no literacy. However, research in cognitive and experimental psychology shows that the acquisition of grapheme–phoneme correspondence – the ability to associate a phoneme and a visual symbol – changes the way oral language is processed. The present paper shows the relevance of these findings for SLA. It summarizes a three-part study on oral L2 processing, a partial replication of previous SLA research, carried out in a population of low-literate adolescent Somali learners of L2 English. The findings confirm that alphabetic print literacy level had a significant impact on oral L2 processing. The paper concludes with a call to replicate current SLA studies and findings with populations of learners who have little or no alphabetic literacy.

Type
Plenary Speeches
Information
Language Teaching , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 75 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adrian, J. A., Alegría, J. & Morais, J. (1995). Metaphonological abilities of Spanish illiterate adults. International Journal of Psychology 30, 329–353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baddeley, A. (1986). Working memory. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Bigelow, M., delMas, B., Hansen, K. & Tarone, E. (2006). Literacy and the processing of oral recasts in SLA. TESOL Quarterly 40, 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bigelow, M., Hansen, K. & Tarone, E. (2007). The impact of alphabetic print literacy on oral second language acquisition. In Condelli, L. & Faux, N. (eds.), Research, practice and policy for low-educated second language and literacy acquisition – for adults: Proceedings of the 2006 LESLLA Conference. Richmond, VA: Literacy Institute at Virginia Commonwealth University, 99–122.Google Scholar
Bigelow, M. & Tarone, E. (2004). The role of literacy level in SLA: Doesn't who we study determine what we know? TESOL Quarterly 38, 689–700.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bley-Vroman, R. & Chaudron, C. (1994). Elicited imitation as a measure of second-language competence. In Tarone, E., Gass, S. M. & Cohen, A. D. (eds.), Research methodology in second-language acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 245–262.Google Scholar
Castro-Caldas, A., Petersson, K. M., Reis, A., Stone-Elander, S. & Ingvar, M. (1998). The illiterate brain: Learning to read and write during childhood influences the functional organization of the adult brain. Brain 121, 1053–1063.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clahsen, H., Meisel, J. M. & Pienemann, M. (1983). Deutsch als Zweitsprache: Der Spracherwerb ausländischer Arbeiter. Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar
Dellatolas, G., Braga, L. W., Souza, L. N., Filho, G. N., Queiroz, E. & Deloche, G. (2003). Cognitive consequences of early phase of literacy. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society 9, 771–782.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Effron, B. & Tibshirani, R. J. (1993). An introduction to the bootstrap (Monographs on Statistics and Applied Probability 57). New York: Chapman & Hall.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, K. (2005). Impact of literacy level and task type on oral L2 recall accuracy. M.A. thesis, University of Minnesota.Google Scholar
Hill, J. (1970). Foreign accents, language acquisition and cerebral dominance revisited. Language Learning 20, 237–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loureiro, C., Willadino-Braga, L., Souza, L., Filho, G., Queiroz, E. & Dellatolas, G. (2004). Degree of illiteracy and phonological and metaphonological skills in unschooled adults. Brain and Language 89, 499–502.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morais, J., Bertelson, P., Cary, L. & Alegría, J. (1986). Literacy training and speech segmentation. Cognition 24, 45–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morais, J., Cary, L., Alegría, J. & Bertelson, P. (1979). Does awareness of speech as a sequence of phones arise spontaneously? Cognition 7, 323–331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Native Language Literacy Screening Device (no date). Glenmont, NY: Hudson River Center for Program Development. http://www.hudrivctr.org/products_el.htm.Google Scholar
Petersson, K. M., Reis, A., Askelof, S., Castro-Caldas, A. & Ingvar, M. (2000). Language processing modulated by literacy: A network analysis of verbal repetition in literate and illiterate subjects. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 12, 364–382.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Philp, J. (2003). Constraints on ‘noticing the gap’: Nonnative speakers' noticing of recasts in NS–NNS interaction. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 25, 99–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pienemann, M., Johnston, M. & Brindley, G. (1988). Constructing an acquisition-based procedure for second language assessment. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 10, 217–243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Read, C., Zhang, Y., Nie, H. & Ding, B. (1986). The ability to manipulate speech sounds depends on knowing alphabetic spelling. Cognition 24, 31–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reis, A. & Castro-Caldas, A. (1997). Illiteracy: A cause for biased cognitive development. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society 3, 444–450.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tarone, E. & Bigelow, M. (2005). Impact of literacy on oral language processing: Implications for SLA research. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 25, 77–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarone, E. & Bigelow, M. (2007). Alphabetic print literacy and oral language processing in Mackey, SLA. In A. (ed.), Conversational interaction in second-language acquisition: A series of empirical studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 101–121.Google Scholar
Tarone, E., Bigelow, M. & Hansen, K. (2009). Literacy and second language oracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tarone, E., Swierzbin, B. & Bigelow, M. (2006). The impact of literacy level on features of interlanguage in oral narratives. In Baldwin, T. & Selinker, L. (eds.), Interlanguage: Current thought and practices. Special issue of Revista di Psicolinguistica Applicata 6, 65–77.Google Scholar