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The video above is a little over 38 minutes long, but it is chock full of ideas and sources to get you started that are useful to any age group, not just adults. While the video does mention some groups and foundations with particular aims and goals pertaining to beliefs, the Supporting High School English Learners website does not endorse any of the groups or foundations. Please view this video as a place to help you know where to begin to help nonliterate and preliterate students of any age.
Definitions
Definitions
Preliterate: These are learners who speak a language for which there is no literate form. They come from places where there are no books, signs, or magazines. They often have no idea that those squiggles on the page (which we call print) have meaning.
Non-literate: These learners speak a language for which there is a written form, but they have not learned to read. They know that reading and writing have a purpose and that those marks have meaning, but they have not simply learned the skills.
Semi-literate: These students have very basic skills, such as they know how to write their names, but not much more than that.
Nonalpabetic: These are literate learners from countries whose languages do not have alphabetic writing systems. Logographic systems, such as Chinese, and syllabic systems, such as Japanese, use characters that represent complete words or syllables instead of individual letters as we have in English. These learners have learned the skills of reading and need to transfer them to the new language, but don't need to start again from the beginning "squiggles-are-words" stage.
Law, Barbara and Mary Eckes. The More-than-just-surviving Handbook: ESL for Every Classroom Teacher. 3rd ed. Winnipeg: Portage & Main. 2010, pp. 112-113.
Skills Preliterate Students Need to Learn
how to hold a book and turn pages;
that the markings on the page communicate meaning;
what a word is;
that in English, print moves from left to right;
to recognize similarities and differences in shapes, letters, numbers, and words;
to arrange items in a sequence, such as smallest to largest, beginning to end, left to right, including classifying items into categories and arranging pictures into a logical narrative order;
to recognize letters and numbers.
First encounters with reading must be interesting and of practical value. Help students learn the most useful vocabulary.
Start with their names;
Survival words;
Students' own addresses, telephone numbers, and other words they need to know to fill out forms;
Common signs ("Men," "Women," "Help," "Exit");
High frequency words such as classroom objects, home objects, public transportation, names of business and public buildings, facilities in the community;
Basic subject matter vocabulary including equipment terms, common instruments.
Law, Barbara and Mary Eckes. The More-than-just-surviving Handbook: ESL for Every Classroom Teacher. 3rd ed. Winnipeg: Portage & Main. 2010, pp.172-173.
How Preliterate and Non-literate Populations Differ from Other Groups of Learners
Preliterate and non-literate students have little or no experience in a classroom and therefore have little knowledge of the formal learning process and classroom expectations. Often these populations have had difficult, traumatizing life experiences. Things to keep in mind as teachers of preliterate and non-literate populations:
Utilize and honor the strong oral skills of the learners.
Realize that progress will usually be much slower than other groups of learners; celebrate the seemingly small achievements (holding a pencil; knowing which side of the paper is up).
Repetition is key and necessary for retention of new information.
Remember that everything is new: writing on lines, page numbers, titles, writing your name on the top of the page, which side of the paper is up, etc.
Learn about the backgrounds of your students; know what they have gone through to sit in your classroom.
Above from Shaughnessy, .Colleen, M.A., From: Savage, K. Lynn. (1993). Literacy Through Competency-Based Educational Approaches In J. Crandall And J.k. Peyton (Eds.),, and Approaches To Adult Esl Literacy Instruction. Washington Dc: Center For Applied Linguistic. "Working with Preliterate and Non-Literate Learners."
Eight Techniques and Methodological Suggestions
Eight Techniques and Methodological Suggestions
Use authentic, relevant material.
Authenticity and relevance become especially important with preliterate learners. In that they lack previous educational contexts with which to connect non-authentic/relevant materials, it becomes essential that you take this concept to a new level. Instead of using a hand-drawn picture of a school from a textbook or photo of a different classroom, take a picture of the actual school, classroom, library etc. Take pictures of their neighborhoods--grocery stores, banks, libraries, stores, etc. Use these pictures in your classroom to facilitate the learning of vocabulary and grammatical structures. Additionally, take pictures of your students and their families in order to work on familial terms, personal pronouns, etc.
2. Use culturally specific names, especially from your students' families.
Your students will need to learn names outside of their cultural context, but in the beginning give them an edge by using names with which they are familiar. Learn their family members' names and use them regularly within the classroom. After they are no longer in beginning level class, they can begin to work with a variety of names from a variety of cultures. Using names from their own culture not only provides a familiarity for your students, it also validates their home culture
Additionally, you may also consider using words from your students' language to facilitate the understanding of the fundamental concept of literacy: what we say is what is then written down. This will also allow you to approach the concept that letters are correlated to sounds within a context of more comfortable/familiar sounds than those of English.
3. Sequence vocabulary words from concrete to abstract.
Students who have not been exposed to literacy previously do not have the same understanding of doodles and stick figures that literate individuals easily recognize. A doodle of a sun does not differ that much from the letter O, P, or Q to a non/preliterate individual. This does not mean that you should not use stick figures. On the contrary, use them, but teach them first. Explain the concrete: that you are a person--a woman or a man. Move to a photograph of yourself. This is a less concrete representation of you.
From there, draw a picture of yourself on the board. Use more detail than you would in a stick figure. Make sure they are following that all of these things represent the same thing--a person. Then draw the stick figure and call it the same word that you have been using for yourself, the photo, and the more detailed drawing. Do the same thing for any other drawings that you plan to use in your teaching. Show your students the real item to class along with a real photo of the item. For example, if your book has a section on food with pictures of vegetables, bring a real potato, a photograph of a potato, and then make it clear to them that the drawing in the book is a representation of the same objects.
4. Teach your students how to be a student.
Preliterate learners have no educational background, so they do not know how to be students in the formal sense. This does not discount their ability to learn and the extensive knowledge each brings into the classroom about the real world. However, they do not have the skills to learn in a formal, structured environment. Teach your students how to care for their homework, raise their hands, etc. Allow your students to play an active role in the classroom, i.e., handing back papers. You may have to give your students pencils, but tell them to bring them each day. Everything is an opportunity for learning when the classroom is unfamiliar to your students.
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