Hi Paul and others,

In my posting regarding pre-literate populations, I
was referring to the over 12,000 Somali Bantu refugees
who have arrived in the US over the past 2 years.  I
also was thinking of the increasing African refugee
population in general.  

In the past, the Hmong and Haitian Creole have
pre-literate populations but since arriving
linguistics have developed written forms of their
languages (though the Haitian Creole form is still
debated as I think someone on the list mentioned).

Additionally, there is an increasing non-literate
population such as Spanish-speakers from Central and
South America who have no or very minimal formal
education in Spanish.

I believe the distinction between pre and non literate
is of importance in regards to instruction...to
practitioners in the field.  Instructional techniques
in my opinion should be different for these two
populations.  

Just for reference - preliterate = no written form of
L1 while non-literate = written form of L1 but student
never learned this written form.  I use these terms as
defined by K. Lynn Savage (1993) in Approaches to
Adult ESL Literacy Instruction Edited by JoAnn
Crandall and Joy Kreeft Peyton

Thanks for the great discussion!
Colleen Shaughnessy


--- PAUL ROGERS <pwaynerogers at yahoo.com> wrote:


> In a previous post, someone mentioned the following:

> 

> Though there is an ever-growing population of ESL

> learners particularly adolescents and adults who are

> preliterate (meaning that their L1 does not have a

> written form).  Which means that this population

> does

> not have the opportunity of being literate in their

> L1.  

> 

> I am interested in knowing which people do not have

> a

> language with a written form.

> And what percentage of ESL students fall into this

> catgegory?

> 

> In my experience, most Spanish speakers are very

> literate. Mexico, for example, has a fairly decent

> public education system.

> Paul Rogers

> 

> 

> 

> 	

> 		

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