Tips for Teachers: Take Transfer Literacy Issues into Consideration

Transfer literacy is the process of transferring literacy skills from one language to another.  The transfer can go either from a new language to one's native language or vice versa.  In the language learning classroom, if a literacy transfer is taking place it will most likely be going from native language literacy to new language literacy.  However, realize that you may also have students who are transferring literacy skills from a second or third language to a new language (hence those students may not be literate in their native language).

Considerations:

1. Existing literacy level of the students:  Are your students literate?  Are they literate in their first languages?  Or have they developed their literacy skills in a second or third language?  How literate are they in their other languages?

2.  Writing System differences: Are your students familiar with the writing system of the language you are teaching?  Is a similar writing system used in the language in which they are most strongly literate?

• Types of writing systems: alphabet, syllabary, logographic/ morphemic, alpha-syllabary (abugida), abjad, featural 
• Writing system ambiguities: understand the ambiguities of the writing system of the language you are teaching.  For example, both English and French have words that are spelled a certain way for grammatical or morphophonemic reasons, while other words are spelled a certain way for phonemic reasons.  Because of this some words can be sounded out according to a phonemic pattern while others cannot.  These ambiguities can be very confusing for learners. 
• Diacritics: Are your students accustomed to giving attention to diacritics?  Are they familiar with the diacritics in the language you are teaching?  
• Punctuation: Are your students familiar with the punctuation marks used in the language you are teaching?  Do the same symbols carry the meaning your students assume?
• Directionality: If your students are learning to read in a new direction, they will need to give themselves time to become comfortable with such a change in eye movement.

Tips for Teachers: Correct Correctly

I posted about helpful correction a few weeks ago and I think it will be a helpful remind and follow up to yesterday's post.

Tips for Teachers: Believe That Your Students Can Reach Native Proficiency

This doesn't mean that all adults will reach native proficiency.  But if we as teachers are already convinced that native level proficiency is impossible for adult language learners, then we will be more likely to use methods that will not take our students there.  We need to give our students the benefits that we give to first language learners: patience, time, encouraging correction, explanation, experience, etc.; and the dignity that goes with being a capable adult even if it be in another language.

Tips for Teachers: Understand Phonetic Articulation and Phonemics

Below is a chart of the International Phonetic Alphabet symbols.  These symbols represent all the sounds that have been found in languages around the world.  The chart also distinguishes the place of articulation and the articulators used for each sound.  Find out which of these sounds are phonemes in the language you are teaching and compare them to the phonemes of the languages from which your students come.

In the next couple of days I will be posting specifically about French phonemic vowels their comparison to the phonemic vowels of other world languages.

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Tips for Teachers: Flood Your Students with Input

Input Flooding is a great exercise for language classrooms no matter the topic, whether it be grammar, culture, vocabulary, dialogues, pronunciation, etc.  Input flooding involves the teacher/native speaker giving hundreds of examples of the use of a certain word or phrase.

Example:
- The teacher/ native speaker introduces a word such as "in."  Instead of giving a rule for when that word is used, the teacher gives lots and lots of examples of phrases using "in" such as: I am in the room; we are in the room; the birds are in the air; the birds fly in the air; there is something in the water; when we swim, we get in the water; when I put my shoes on, I put my foot in the shoe; when I bake a cake, I put it in the oven; you are writing in your notebook, etc.  

Tips for Teachers: Correct Correctly

Correction is a must in a language classroom.  However, the difference between helpful correction and harmful correction is significant.  Proper correction will lead to your student's enjoyment and progression.  Whereas harmful correction can lead to their withdrawal and stagnation.

Examples of helpful correction:
1. Speech mistakes: when students make speech utterance mistakes, the most helpful and natural correction type is recasting (the teacher recasts the sentence in natural speech and intonation).  Recasting is what adults do with children regularly as they are learning the correct phrasing of words for different situations.  It gives children the opportunity hear the correct way of saying something several times as they gain confidence in producing it on their own.  Repetition and clarification requests are other options if done carefully but both are at greater risk of causing withdrawal on the part of the student so use them carefully.  Repetition is when the the teacher repeats the mistake and then recasts the sentence, this brings a bit more attention to the mistake.  Clarification requests are very natural in everyday conversation, and so can be used naturally in the classroom as well, as long as they do not draw awkward attention to a student's mistakes.  Examples of clarification requests are questions from the teacher such as, "I'm sorry, I didn't hear that, could you repeat it?"  "Could you repeat that please?"  "What did you say"  etc.  These give students opportunities to hear what they should say in conversation in order to ask for clarification, as well.
2. Comprehension mistakes: When student's actions show that they do not understand a direction or instruction, the teacher should come alongside the student in order to direct them through example, and by using words within their ZPDs, then give them another chance to respond correctly.

Examples of harmful correction: 
1. Speech Mistakes: Explicit correction, metalinguistic clues, and elicitation are all at great risk of being harmful in a language learning situation.  With explicit correction the teacher states that the student's utterance was incorrect and then provides the correct form.  This draws unnecessary attention to the error (especially for beginners).  When using both metalinguistic clues (yes/no questions) and elicitation (open questions), the teacher refrains from providing the correct utterance, but rather states that the student's utterance was incorrect and then asks questions to elicit the correct utterance from the student such as: "Is that how we say it in French?" or "How do we say that in French?"  Most likely students are making the utterance mistake because they don't know the correct way of saying something, or they have not heard the natural speech for that situation enough times.  The time for metalinguistic discussion is after the natural utterance has been produced by the teacher, otherwise you risk leading students through a grammatical guessing game which equals language learning danger.
2. Comprehension mistakes: translating for a student when he/she doesn't understand what you have said.  Translation is absolutely unneccessary for language learning!  See post on avoiding translation.

Tips for Teachers: Introduce Vocabulary Clearly

Vocabulary, even if it will possibly be a review for some students, should be introduced clearly, after which students' comprehension should be tested through TPR activities, and finally their ability to produce the vocabulary can be challenged.

What is meant by clearly?  What I mean by clearly, is that the teacher/ native speaker says each vocabulary word with annunciation, demonstrates what is meant by the word (through pictures, movement, explanation using words which are familiar to the students, etc), and repeats these steps preferably several times before the students are required to produce the words themselves.

The introduction of new vocabulary in a language class should never be a guessing game for students.  When vocabulary introduction is made into a guessing game, students are forced to rely on their other languages or on dictionaries in order "discover" the vocabulary.  This interferes with natural language acquisition and further encourages a mental dictionary approach to comprehending and speaking.

Tips for Teachers: Include Yourself in Role Plays

Many language teachers are familiar with the concept of role plays.  Yet, my observation has been that most often language teachers have two students act out a role play in front of the class in order to give them speaking practice.  However, outside of class students are interacting with native speakers.  The entire class would benefit more from observing the teacher (native speaker) interact with a student rather than hearing two students interact.

Tips for Teachers: Interact Directly with Your Students in Class

Many teachers feel that they do not have time to interact directly with each of their students during class because they "have so much material to cover," or they want to be fair in their personal interactions with students.

It will certainly benefit the language development of the student with whom you interact directly.  Yet, all students will benefit by observing a teacher's (native speaker) direct interaction with a student.  So, do not be afraid to ask students direct questions, or give direct instructions to a certain student, or to act out a role play with a student in front of class (more on this in next week's tip), etc.