[NIFL-ESL:6784] Re: ESL and literacy programs

From: Debra Morris Smith (dlmsmith@qwest.net)
Date: Fri Nov 30 2001 - 17:37:06 EST 

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From: "Debra Morris Smith" <dlmsmith@qwest.net>
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Subject: [NIFL-ESL:6784] Re: ESL and literacy programs
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At my community college, native English speakers work toward literacy -- and eventually the GED -- through the Adult Basic Education thread of our department, while ESL students have their own literacy level classes. The ABE people generally don't deal with ESL students until they reach about Level 4 and are pretty solid readers and writers.

I teach Literacy ESL and Basic Beginning (using the Success curriculum), although for political reasons we are now calling these classes Basic Beginning I and Basic Beginning II. My limited experience is that most ESL students who read and write another language don't need to start English at literacy level. In general, students with little spoken English but literacy in another language that uses more or less the same alphabet as English belong in Basic Beginning II. Students with little spoken English and little or no formal schooling or literacy in another language definitely start in Literacy. Often their discomfort with reading and writing brings them to or keeps them in Literacy (their choice, not mine) when their oral skills suggest they should be in a higher level; I tend to have a wide range of oral abilities in my Literacy class. I have seen students who are literate in a language that has a different alphabet, like Arabic, or a nonalphabetic character set, like Chinese, enter at either level and progress well. If they start at literacy level, they catch on to English reading and writing more quickly than the unschooled or nonliterate students and move into the regular curriculum track fairly soon.

I perceive it as a fairly serious problem that nonliterate true beginners have to coexist in class with fairly fluent speakers who are not literate. In a better-funded world, there would be literacy levels running parallel with the Success levels we use; "ESL literacy" would mean not bottom rung of the ESL ladder but a completely different ladder.

Debbie Smith


Theresa Anton wrote:
I am currently enrolled in a class about Literacy as of my library science program. I have a few questions regrading ESL learners and literacy programs. I am hoping that someone can relate some information, experiences and/or observations so I can better understand this topic.
 
In a literacy program, how many learners have a primary language other than english? Of these learners how many can read and write in their own language? Do learners use literacy programs as a way to learn english? Does demographics affect this?
 
Thank you very much for your help,
Theresa Anton-Walsh
tantonsjsu@hotmail.com
SLIS student

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