1

YES, READING IN L1 IS IMPORTANT, BUT WHAT KIND OF BOOKS?

TESL Ontario

Aiko Sano

OISE/UT

2

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

3

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?

4

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

5 The Role of Vocabulary

6

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)

7

The reciprocal relationship between reading and vocabulary

Better comprehensi

on of text

More reading

More incidental vocabulary acquisition

High motivation to

learn vocabulary

8

But…reverse is true, too!

Little vocabulary knowledge

Poor Text comprehensio

n

Low motivation to

read

Little incidental vocabulary

learning

9

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)

10

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?

11 The Role of Background Knowledge

12

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)

13

“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

14Need to encourage students to read L1 books related to the topics they are studying in L2

15

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)

16

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).

17

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

18 At a library at a Japanese school

19

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

20

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

21

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

22

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

23

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

24

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.

25

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.)

26

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

27

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

29

December 10, 2009

TESL Ontario Aiko Sano OISE/UT

Thank you very much for listening!

Click icon to add picture