Assessing and Teaching Adult and Adolescent NESB Students Paper delivered at ACTA-QATESOL National Conference Reclaiming the ground in TESOL, Brisbane July 2000
Abstract This paper discusses the interlinking problems encountered by NESB learners with very low print literacy levels in L1: listening, pronunciation, sentence structure, decoding and encoding, transfer of knowledge and skills. It also touches on the higher order problems of skimming and scanning, print media format conventions and genre. It outlines a quick, straightforward method of initial assessment which provides teachers with a logical starting point in programming for these students. It discusses the establishment of a suitable learning environment and proposes a detailed programme which encompasses mastery of the basic sound-symbol relationships of English, aural discrimination exercises, reading whole texts (both decoding and reading for meaning), guessing techniques, writing (from the encoding of single words to the writing continuous text). Introduction: This paper grew out of many years teaching NESB students who had arrived in Australia with very little or no print literacy in Language 1 or in any Roman alphabet language. In particular it was sparked by an encounter, during a formal case study several years ago, with a 16 year old Spanish speaker from Central America who had spent 4 years in the Australian education system before anyone recognised that she was functionally illiterate in Spanish as well as English. Understandably in this situation the frustration levels of both student and teachers were extremely high and discouragement was the order of the day. The author spent the following nine months working once a week on a
one-to-one basis with this student. The three most significant comments to
other teachers by the student at the end of this period were: Why didn't someone teach me this alphabet
stuff before? The Problem 1.
Listening . Carmel did not
hear accurately what native English speakers said to her and often
misunderstood even when both she and her interlocutor thought she had
understood. 2.
Pronunciation. As a result of
her listening problems, Carmel had parallel pronunciation problems because it
is not possible to imitate what is not heard. While her pronunciation problems
did not overly hamper casual spoken communication, they had a significant
impact on her ability to encode. 3.
Sentence
structure. Again Carmel could not imitate
what she did not hear. In particular,
her verb forms were very largely habitually defective (e.g., I going, he go)
and her understanding of the English tense system was inadequate. This severely
limited her ability to predict when she tried to read. 4.
Decoding. Students in
Carmel's position generally have a belief that written English is a completely
irrational system. They believe that you must learn by rote every single word
in English and they see this, of course, as a hopeless task. 5.
Encoding. The Carmels among
our students do not hear words accurately; they have little or no grasp of the
sound-symbol relationships of English; and they have no bank of sight words (commonly used, irregularly
spelt words (e.g., you, come)).
Therefore, when they are asked to write, they are at a complete loss. Indeed,
often because of their very limited decoding skills, they find it very
difficult even to copy a text which has been provided for them: they work
excessively slowly, they lose their place in the original text, they cannot
read back what they have written. 6.
Transfer of
knowledge and skills. We who have been in formal education environments
for many years, assume that our students will do as we do: that they will
remember some piece of information or skill learned in one context, see its
relevance and transfer it to a new context as appropriate.
However, this is rarely true of students like Carmel. They may have learned to
produce the sound represented by a particular symbol but often cannot reverse
the process to write the symbol when their hear the sound. They may be able to
spell a word (e.g. mother) and not
recognise the word a few minutes later in a written text, or vice versa. 7. Higher order problems. All of the above are very basic problems but at least a start must be made towards their solution before we can usefully approach the higher order issues on which these basic problems seriously impinge. At some stage (earlier or later, according to the progress and confidence of the student and the professional judgement of the teacher) attention will need to be paid to: scanning and skimming techniques, strategies resulting from an understanding of the conventions of text layout, summarising and paraphrasing as aids to obtaining meaning from text, understanding and imitating the various written genres in English. Assessing the Problem The following is a quick, fairly rough and ready assessment procedure which ordinary classroom teachers can use to check whether or not students have a grasp of the most basic tools for decoding. These tools, of course, are not the end of the reading process, but they are the beginning of it. Here we have the usual aim of finding out what the student already
knows. Since we are starting with the most basic of skills, some tact is
necessary. So it is generally useful to
start with an apology of the sort, You
probably know most of this but I need to check in case there are some gaps. 1.
Alphabet. Use alphabet
cards in random order to ask
the student for the name and the sound of the letter. 2.
Digraphs. Start with a
version accompanied by pictures (but watch later to see if the student
remembers without the aid of pictures) 3.
Read continuous
text. Use a series of increasingly difficult books. Start
at a very, very low level (Apologize and let student see pile of books. Move
through them very rapidly, not bothering to read more than a sentence or two if
the student can clearly cope.) By now, the teacher should have a rough and ready picture of reading skills and can probably assume similar strengths and weaknesses will occur in encoding, but in all probability the problems will be more pronounced. Establishing a programme Reading There is an appropriate alphabet sheet in English Spelling CD Vol. 1 See Current Publications / Spelling Materials on this site.
b) short/long vowels - say short
vowels, then long; repeat each short and long vowel with
their exemplar words; contrast those which your student regularly confuses
(e.g., short a & e, short a & u, short e & i) There is a useful chart for this purpose in English Spelling Vol. 2 See Current Publications / Spelling Materials on this site.
c) un/voiced consonants - put your
hand on your throat and demonstrate that you can feel the vocal cords vibrate
in the production of the voiced consonants There is a useful chart for this purpose in English Spelling Vol. 2
See Current Publications / Spelling Materials on this site
There is a useful chart to demonstrate the difference between l & r in English Spelling Vol. 2
See Current Publications / Spelling Materials on this site
e) alphabet cards - student gives the name and sound in random order. Then the teacher gives each sound which the student writes There are alphabet hand cards in English Spelling CD Vol. 1
See Current Publications / Spelling Materials on this site
f) individual words - start with
regular 3-letter words, say and sound and the student writes what s/he hears;
then you write the correct version and discuss confusion in sound/meaning;
progress to regular 2- or 3-syllable words as student's competence and
confidence grows See Appendix below
g) minimal pairs - for some students this is very
useful. For example, Spanish speakers who habitually confuse short a and u . Make yourself a list of words (e.g., cat, cut; fan, fun ); read some to the student who must identify
the relevant sound in each See Appendix below
h) digraphs - gradually build up the
student's knowledge; start with examples accompanied by pictures ; then
progress to examples without pictures in sound groups; finally work in
alphabetical order. There are illustrated digraphs in English Spelling Vol. 2
See Current Publications / Spelling Materials on this site
Aural discrimination See Bibliography below. 2)
Reading texts Note: Since 2000 when I delivered this paper, Dorothy & I have published five sets of reading materials suitable for adolescent and adult students. See Current Publications / Reading Materials on this site.
A lot of very short books/texts are needed to start with so that the learner
can gain a sense of achievement very quickly. It is important to avoid getting
"bogged down" in a longer or more difficult text, even if that text
appears to be appropriate to the reader's age and interests. After all, these
learners have often spent quite long periods trying to grapple with texts
beyond their competence level and the only thing they have learned from that
experience is that they cannot read! (Many have also concluded that they are
stupid.) 3)
Higher order
reading activities. Some students, particularly those who have arrived in their mature years, are unlikely to reach this level. However, some will and at this point,
additional students may also benefit from the activities described
below, particularly those learners who
have adequate levels of literacy in L1 and who can decode competently in
English, but who come from educational philosophies which place great emphasis
on rote learning and translation using bilingual dictionaries. Outlined below
are merely a few of the possibilities which may not be familiar to all
teachers. It in no way purports to be a comprehensive list of suggestions. There are comprehension exercises at three levels in the Workbooks accompanying our reading materials. See Current Publications / Reading Materials on this site.
b) Summarising and paraphrasing. Many students at first find it surprisingly
difficult to explain the main idea in a text in, say 6 words, and then list the
main events or facts from a text in note form with a maximum number of words
prescribed for each entry. When this can be achieved, the notes (but
not the original text) can be used to paraphrase There are exercises of this type in the Hard level in the Workbooks accompanying our reading materials. See Current Publications / Reading Materials on this site.
There is copy of the vocabulary guessing table in Conference Papers & Journal Articles / How to choose an outstanding text on this site. See also Bibliography for Paul Nation's work. Writing 1) Letter formation. Some students will need
training in holding a pencil and forming the letters of the alphabet. It is important that good habits are formed
right from the beginning so that students are not later hampered by awkwardness
at a time when they should be starting to increase the physical speed of their writing.
In most instances junior primary teachers will be able to provide a sample of
the printing & cursive styles used in your area. Fonts used in each Australian state are available at a very modest price from www.schoolfonts.com.au They include dotted and outlined letters and a version with lines to teach letter formation and position. 2) Encoding There are manipulation exercises suitable for these learners in English Spelling CD Vol. 1 a) Choice of text type. Initially texts attempted should be short enough not to bog down and discourage. At first, it is better not to distract the student from the encoding task by introducing the concept of genre. Any topic is suitable: simple recount, description of friend or family member, followed later by highly modified school assignment, writing for family members or some domestic writing task which interests the student.
b) Guided writing from pictures. A
set of pictures representing a story, preferably with a humorous ending, can be
supplied. These need to be discussed with the student. Then some key vocabulary
can be provided, including relevant verbs. The verbs can then be conjugated in
present simple, and continuous, as well as the simple past. Then the teacher
provides a tense cue: What is happening?
Every day... Last week... and the student can select the relevant tense
from the table already constructed. (see Appendix) The story can be written more than once to
give practice in different tenses. At a later stage, the structure of a
narrative can be discussed and analysed. There are examples of this type of exercise in the Medium level of the Workbooks of our reading materials See Current Publications / Reading Materials on this site.
c) Planning. Generally students like
Carmel have no planning skills which they can use in their writing. They can
sometimes talk fluently about what they want to say and then will be at a
complete loss when it is time to start writing.
The teacher need to discuss a plan with the student. At first the
teacher may need to help the student simplify and shorten what s/he wants to say
to match what s/he can encode. Sometimes it is helpful as a next step to ask
the student to speak into a tape recorder. After that the tape can be played
back a few words at a time and the student can attempt (with assistance from
the teacher in spelling) to write from his/her own dictation. Finally it is
crucial that the student read back what s/he has written. This not only gives a
sense of achievement but also checks that the transfer from encoding to
decoding is in place. Conclusion These learners need thorough mastery of each stage of the process of learning to read and make sense of print texts. They cannot be rushed from one stage to another before they are ready. Particularly for adult learners, the learning process generally takes a very considerable amount of time. There will be phases of startling progress, generally followed by set-backs or plateaus where no learning appears to be taking place but where, in reality, necessary consolidation is under way, or where other influences in the student's life are impeding concentration on study. For both teacher and student progress is generally slower than either would like but the rewards are great: there is a real rush of adrenaline for a teacher who is privileged to witness the power and freedom which print literacy brings, however tardily, to an adolescent or adult student. Appendix:
Regular Three-Letter Words
Regular 2- & 3-Syllable Words
Minimal Pairs
Sight Words
Bibliography: 1. Catts, H. and Vartiainen, T.: Sounds Abound, Listening, Rhyming and Reading 1993 LinguiSystems, East Moline IL 61244, ISBN 1 55999 394 4 2. Clarke, D.F. and Nation, I.S.P.: Guessing the meaning of words from context: strategy and techniques in System, Vol. 8, pp.211-220 3. Rosner, J.: Helping Children Overcome Learning Difficulties 1979,Walker & Company NY , ISBN 0 8027 7178 5 |