YES, READING IN L1 IS IMPORTANT, BUT WHAT KIND OF BOOKS? TESL Ontario Aiko Sano OISE/UT 1.
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Transcript of YES, READING IN L1 IS IMPORTANT, BUT WHAT KIND OF BOOKS? TESL Ontario Aiko Sano OISE/UT 1.
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Can you think of a good book to recommend for this boy?
A native speaker of Japanese Age 8 Came to Canada last September Starting to communicate with his teachers and
friends in English but needs extra help in comprehending subject contents
Can read Magic Tree House by himself if he tries. Has age-appropriate literacy skills in Japanese Enjoys being read to, but not so enthusiastic
about reading himself
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Conversational fluency and academic language proficiency
Approximately 2 years for conversational fluency but 5-7 years for academic language proficiency (Cummins,1981 )
The amount of formal schooling in L1 is the strongest predictor of how fast ESL learners catch up with their native speaking peers (Cummins et al., 1984)
What do we do with the ESL children who have come to Canada at very young age/Canadian born?
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Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunner, 1986)
Reading comprehension
Language comprehension
Background knowledge
Linguistic knowledge
Phonology
Syntax
Semanticsvocabulary
Decoding
Orthographic knowledge
Letter knowledge
Knowledge of alphabetic principles
Grapheme-phoneme
correspondence knowledge
Phonemic awareness
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Reading and Vocabulary
A strong relation between V and RC (Anderson & Freebody, 1981), especially in L2 learners (Coady, 1993; Laufer, 1997; Nation, 2001b) 2% or more unfamiliar V blocks RC(Carver, 1994) V played a stronger role in RC in ESL students than
in native speakers (Droop &Verhoeven, 2003) Positive change in V knowledge can have a direct
effect on RC (Proctor et al., 2005) Reading helps incidental learning of V
(Nagy et al., 1985; Sternberg, 1987)
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The reciprocal relationship between reading and vocabulary
Better comprehensi
on of text
More reading
More incidental vocabulary acquisition
High motivation to
learn vocabulary
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But…reverse is true, too!
Little vocabulary knowledge
Poor Text comprehensio
n
Low motivation to
read
Little incidental vocabulary
learning
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The Beginner’s Paradox
“How can L2 learners learn vocabulary through extensive reading when they don’t know enough words to read well?” (Coady, 1997, p. 229)
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To make a breakthrough…
Graded readers (Wodinsky & Nation, 1988, Nation ,2001a)
Explicit vocabulary teaching (e.g. teaching cognate awareness, Nagy et al. 1993; Proctor & Mo, 2009; teaching morphological awareness, Nunes, et al. 2006; benefit both L1 and L2 readers, August et al., 2005; Carlo et al., 2004)
L1 reading in the area related to what they are studying in L2 classrooms….why?
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The importance of background knowledge
Schema theory (Anderson & Pearson, 1984; Carrell, 1983, 1984, 1987; Floyd &Carrell, 1989; Williams, 1987)
Teachers should encourage students to continue to develop their knowledge of
the world and curriculum content in their L1 while they are acquiring English since this knowledge increases their cognitive
power to comprehend and acquire English.
Cummins (1996/2001, p.90)
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“On the one hand, an important part of teaching background knowledge is teaching the vocabulary related to it and, conversely, teaching vocabulary means teaching concepts, new knowledge” (Carrell, 1984, p. 335).
Needs of teaching vocabulary in semantically and topically organized manner: in that way words meaning and background knowledge would improve concurrently. (Williams, 1987)
Cyclical nature of teaching concepts and teaching vocabulary
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Importance of information books as part of the “healthy diet”
Reading information books provide schemata about the content and the rhetoric organization of expository texts. (Beck& McKeown, 1991)
Young children are capable of, and interested in reading information books. (Dreher, 2003; Papas, 1991)
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Information books for ESL students
“In addition to encountering subjects with which they may have no prior knowledge or experiences, English learners find the structure of textbooks confusing and the level of new vocabulary-especially technical terminology-almost paralyzing” (Vardell et al. 2006, p. 737).
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Positive relationship between reading in L1 and L2 comprehension
more content-related L2 vocabulary
more background knowledge in content area
L1 reading in related area
more content-related vocabulary in L1
Intentional learning of related L2 vocabulary
Better
comprehension
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Books available at Japanese school (in proportion)
2% 1%
7% 4%
Natural Sci-ence 9%
2%1%
4%
2%
Literature68%
0 Reference100 Philosophy200 Geography, history300 Social sciences400 Natural Science 500 Technology600 Industry700 Arts and recreation800 Language 900 Literature
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Number of books available at Japanese school
Reference
Philosophy
Geography, history
Social sciences
Natural Science
Technology
Industry
Arts and recreation
Language
Literature
262
143
903
452
1137
292
159
492
259
8743
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Number of books checked out by each grade at Japanese School over 9 weeks
grade 1
grade 2
grade 3
grade 4
grade 5
grade 6
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
language natural scienceshistory and geographyfictionother
Nu
mb
er
of
books
check
ed
by
each
gra
de
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The proportion of fiction and non-fiction books checked out at Japanese School over 9 weeks
grade 1
grade 2
grade 3
grade 4
grade 5
grade 6
871
627
557
299
205
143
190
207
158
138
113
55
non-fiction fiction
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Recommended proportion of books at school libraries
Reference; 6 Philosophy; 2
History; 18
Social Studies; 9
Science; 15Technology; 6
Industry; 5
Art; 9
Langugae; 4
Litera-ture; 26
Source: Gakkou Tosyokan Kihon Tosyo Mokuroku, 2009
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Practical suggestions for the teachers at Canadian schools
The question is not if bilingualism gives students advantages or disadvantages, but the important issue in the classroom is to take advantage of the bilingualism of your students because it is the reality.
ESL students not as someone needing help, but as experts who has access to things written in their L1.
Parents of these students are experts in doing so as well.
But they need to be able to identify the content areas that they can contribute in teaching their children/class.
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Provide the parents with enough resource to find out what their children are studying at school. Keep them updated.
Provide them with the vocabulary lists required in comprehending the texts. Encourage them to look up these words in bilingual dictionaries and provide explanations to that in their L1.
Practical suggestions for the teachers at Canadian schools (Cont.)
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Be aware of what the students are studying under Ontario curricula.
Make the link between what they learn at Canadian schools and at heritage language schools explicit.
Practical suggestions for the teachers at heritage language schools
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Help children learn new concepts in both languages at the same time.
Provide related readings in L1. Explain important concepts in their
everyday languages as well we introducing more formal languages.
Practical suggestions for parents
28
Have enough materials in various languages available in topics related to their study in Ontario curricula. Make sure enough informative books are available, not just literature books.
Ask parents to help choose appropriate books for children. They have a better sense of the content and language quality of the books.
Be aware of what percentage of children speak what language as their first/heritage languages.
Practical suggestions for the librarians