FOR COLORADO RESIDENTS PLEASE NOTE:
Candidates can add the LDE endorsement to their license through credit or
assessment up until Dec. 31, 2012. Beginning January 1, 2013, LDE through credit
or assessment is no longer available.
***TIPS ON ANSWERING TEST ITEMS***
1) Always pick the answer that builds on student/parent strengths
2) Match the proficiency level with your answer
3) Always pick the interactionist answer over the behaviorist
YOU WILL NEED TO KNOW: (History of legal issues)
click on this link..**Timeline of Important Legal Issues Connected to English Learners (2010)**
- English Language Development powerpoint - (Good to Review)
- COLORADO PLACE 17 STUDY GUIDE, FROM STATE
Second language acquisition stages
Second Language Acquisition Theories (SLA)
- Behaviorist Theory dominated both psychology and linguistics in the 1950’s. This theory suggests that external stimuli (extrinsic) can elicit an internal response which in turn can elicit an internal stimuli (intrinsic) that lead to external responses.
- The learning process has been described by S-R-R theorists as a process forming stimulus-response-reward chains. These chains come about because of the nature of the environment and the nature of the learner.
- The environment provides the stimuli and the learner provides the responses. Comprehension or production of certain aspects of language and the environment provide the reward.
- The environment plays a major role in the exercise of the learners’ abilities since it provides the stimuli that can shape responses selectively rewarding some responses and not others.
- Nativist Theory (THE THEORY VIEWS LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AS INNATELY DETERMINED) click on…
***MINDMAP OF NATIVIST THEORY***
Communicative Competence ~Canale and Swain (1983)
1) grammatical OR (linguistic) competence
2) sociolinguistic competence
3) discourse competence
4) strategic competence
Grammatical competence means understanding the skills and knowledge necessary to speak and write accurately. Grammatical competence includes: vocabulary, word formation, meaning, sentence formation, pronunciation, spelling
Sociolinguistic competence involves knowing how to produce and understand the language in different sociolinguistic contexts, taking into consideration such factors as: the status of the participants, the purpose of the interaction, the norms or conventions of the interaction.
Discourse competence involves the ability to combine and connect utterances (spoken) and sentences (written) into a meaningful whole. Discourse ranges from a simple spoken conversation to long written texts.
Strategic competence involves the manipulation of language in order to meet communicative goals. It involves both verbal and non-verbal behaviors. Speakers employ this competence for two main reasons: 1) to compensate for breakdowns in communication such as when the speaker forgets or does not know a term and is forced to paraphrase or gesture to get the idea across; 2) to enhance the effectiveness of communication such as when a speaker raises or lowers the voice for effect.
McNeill (1966) described the LAD as consisting of four innate linguistic properties:
- the ability to distinguish speech sounds from other sounds in the environment;
- the ability to organize linguistic events into various classes that can be refined later;
- knowledge that only a certain kind of linguistic system is possible and that other kinds are not; and
- the ability to engage in constant evaluation of the developing linguistic system in order to construct the simplest possible system out of the linguistic data that are encountered.
- Nativists have contributed to the discoveries of how the system of child language works. Theorists such as Chomsky, McNeill, and others helped us understand that a child’s language, at any given point, is a legitimate system in its own right.
Cummin’s Second Language Framework
Cummin’s makes a distinction between social language and academic language.
- Social language refers to the everyday conversational language which is supported by the use of illustrations, realism, demonstrations, etc. (Context Embedded). Studies show that language learners acquire social language in approximately two years.
- Social language deals with the here-and-now language, therefore second language learners tend to acquire it faster.
- Academic language is the language of school tasks which is more abstract and decontextualized (Context Reduced).
*Some second language learners who develop fluent spoken English have difficulties in reading and writing because they may be at different levels of proficiency while they are moving from social language (BICS) to academic language (CALP). It takes between five to seven years for second language learners to acquire academic language.
Krashen’s Monitor Model
SUMMARY OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
- Linguistic processes consist of the subconscious aspects of language development, an innate ability all humans possess for acquisition of oral language, as well as the metalinguistic, conscious, formal teaching of language in the school and acquisition of the written system of language.
- This includes the acquisition of the oral and written systems of the student’s first and second languages across all language domains, such as phonology, vocabulary, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics and discourse.
- To assure cognitive and academic success in a second language, a student’s first language system, oral and written, must be developed to a high cognitive level at least through the elementary school years.
The learner needs:
- expectations of success;
- the confidence to take risks and make mistakes;
- a willingness to share and engage;
- the confidence to ask for help; and
- an acceptance of the need to readjust.
The teacher needs:
- respect for and interest in the learner’s language, culture, thought and intentions;
- the ability to recognize growth points, strengths and potential;
- the appreciation that mistakes are necessary to learning;
- the confidence to maintain breadth, richness and variety, and to match these to the learner’s interests and direction;
- to stimulate and challenge; and
- a sensitive awareness of when to intervene and when to leave alone.
