This second example reminds me of a wonderful ESOL teacher in the 
Washington, DC area of 40 years' experience who always says that ESOL 
learners always have a reason for what they do-- it is NOT random.  But 
their reasons are not always the right reason.  Our job is to help them 
replace their reason with the right reason.   Bravo Nicole!  Asking the 
learner WHY he said or wrote what he did was a great direct route to 
that issue.

And the first example is a great illustration of what I see as the need 
to bring auditory attention to the learner of what it is they need to 
hear and then say-- as noted in a longer posting just earlier this 
morning.

Robin Lovrien Schwarz

-----Original Message-----
From: cnaamh at rcn.com
To: specialtopics at nifl.gov
Sent: Sun, 15 Apr 2007 2:11 PM
Subject: [SpecialTopics 291] Re: fossilization

  Hi all,

  Recently, once again, two examples of interlanguage development and 
fossilization jumped at me.

  The first one from a high level student who has been here 15 years: 
the person consistently used "privaty" for privacy. You can see that 
having seen the word private on doors at work, at the gym, at school, 
etc. she made up the new word "privaty" applying whatever assumptions 
she was working with at the time. I might have corrected her by 
repeating the correct form many times but I understood what she wanted 
to communicate. My way of correcting her did not work. It was not 
enough. Because there was no breakdown in communication, there was no 
need to alter the utterance. This week, I stopped and pointed out the 
mistake directly. I also mentioned that other people might be confused 
and possibly would not understand. We talked about the two words. It 
was a five minutes direct instruction language awareness lesson. She 
self-corrected after that for a short time. She no longer uses the 
wrong word.

  The second one is from a man who has been here more than 6 years but 
just entered a high intermediate class. He had a smattering of English 
when he first arrived and got a job immediately. He continued to 
develop his oral English skills over the years but had no time to 
attend classes until now. When I interviewed him, he said he worked in 
a factory that had 3 shifts [shiftes].  In two months [monses], he 
would change his shift [shifte]. That would allow him to come to class. 
I asked him how he would write shift and month. He replied: shifte and 
monte. You can see how he had applied a plural rule he got somewhere to 
use these words in the plural. Another quick mini-lesson: no final "e" 
in either of these words. After a final voiceless consonnant sound, the 
plural marker "s" is also voiceless. He also learned to self-correct 
with prompting from the teacher at first and no longer makes the 
mistake. I do not think that he has internalized the rule but he has 
corrected 2 words that appeared "fossilized".

 Nicole B. Graves


  ----- Original Message -----
 From: Moira.Taylor at domino1.cuny.edu
 To: specialtopics at nifl.gov
 Cc: specialtopics at nifl.gov ; specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov
 Sent: Friday, April 13, 2007 10:22 AM
 Subject: [SpecialTopics 286] Re: fossilization



Hi all -

I've been reading all week, and now how some time to respond. I hope 
the following is useful.

First of all, I totally agree awareness is a critical element for 
working on fossilization issues.

And then, just to put another work into the mix, I was just reading a 
chapter (Chapter 9) in Ilona Leki's book "Understanding ESL Writers." 
She writes about an interlanguage (an unstable language developed 
during the language learning process). The student is on his/her way to 
developing the correct L2 form by receiving input, but this student 
stresses and ignores rules based on input. For example, s/he may have 
learned about 3 person "S" and then overgeneralize the rule to modal 
forms (She cans...) Eventually, s/he will stop as s/he practices more.

I'm simplifying, but what Leki says at the end of all this is: 
"Normally, as language learners continue recieving input from the 
target language, their interlanguage reshapes itself in increasing 
conformity to the L2. For reasons not completly understoond, however, 
certain interlanguage forms become fixed, or folssilized, and no amount 
of input seems to be able to induce a re-analysis of the fossilized 
form to put it more in line with the L2...Fossilized interlanguage 
forms are particularly difficult to alter, possibly because the learner 
is for whaterver reason unmotivated to identify completely with the 
target discours community."

She has more to say about what to do (this particular chapter is about 
correcting sentence level errors - what, how, why). Worth a read I 
think.

Moira Taylor

Moira Taylor
CUNY Adult Literacy Program
101 West 31st St., Room 704
New York, NY 10001
Tel: 212 652 2883
Fax: 646 344 7329
www.literacy.cuny.edu


     "Nicole Graves" <cnaamh at rcn.com>
Sent by: specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov 04/12/2007 04:05 PM
Please respond to specialtopics


 To: <specialtopics at nifl.gov>
 cc:
 Subject: [SpecialTopics 284] Re: fossilization



Lynne,

Language awareness works for fossilization too. If you stop the student 
and
focus on one point and explain the differences or similarities, on the 
spot,
chances are the problem will go away. When the student is ready to 
become
aware and you make the student aware, it always works. One at a time.

Nicole B. Graves
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lynne Weintraub" <lynneweintraub at hotmail.com>
To: <specialtopics at nifl.gov>
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 7:36 AM
Subject: [SpecialTopics 283] Re: fossilization



> Heide--the GED grammar question reminds me of a related question I've 

had

> on

> my mind for a long time. Over the years, I have run into a number of

> students who seem to be "fossilized" in their language development. 

They

> get

> to a certain point, and then they just don't seem to make any progress

> anymore in terms of pronunciation, structure, or even expanding their

> vocabulary. Has any research been done on this problem? Do you have 

any

> ideas on how to break through? I'd like to offer some hope (and

> strategies)

> to their tutors, but so far I haven't found any that are genuinely

> successful.

> Lynne Weintraub

>

>

>>From: "Wrigley, Heide" <heide at literacywork.com>

>>Reply-To: specialtopics at nifl.gov

>>To: <specialtopics at nifl.gov>

>>Subject: [SpecialTopics 282] Re: (no subject) teaching grammar in the

>>GEDclass

>>Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 23:41:16 -0400

>>

>>Hi, Cheryl

>>

>>I'm sorry it took me awhile to get to the grammar question. I just got

>>back from D.C. and am off to Austin in the morning, but here it goes.

>>

>>First of all, it is indeed very difficult to help students write with

>>expression and help them develop their language skills so that they 

are

>>able to write sentences that are grammatical. It is quite a challenge,

>>especially once students are able to communicate quite well orally and

>>aren't particularly keen on working on their grammar skills.

>>

>>Complicating the enterprise is the fact that at this level the

>>difficulties that students have may differ from learner to learner so

>>anything you teach to the entire class will probably bore some 

students

>>(since it's not their problem) and frustrate others (cause they are 

not

>>ready - given where they are in their language development - to absorb

>>whatever rules you are presenting). So any time there is a 

presentation

>>to the entire class on grammar at this level you may only have a few

>>students who are with you. (Cheryl, correct me if I'm wrong in your

>>case, since I am speaking in general terms and obviously don't know 

your

>>students).

>>

>>One thing that doesn't work very well, is to have students write their

>>paragraphs on the board and have everyone else point out the grammar

>>mistakes. Students generally are not particularly engaged in what 

other

>>students have written, particularly if asked to focus on form. And

>>again, some students may be able to detect errors and correct them 

(and

>>what are they learning?) while others are nowhere near ready and the

>>explanations make no sense to them - again, if some of you have had

>>great success with this strategy, let us know.

>>

>>Ok, here then are some strategies that you might try:

>>

>>1. There is a hypothesis in second language acquisition that

>>emphasize the notion of "noticing" and holds that students won't be 

able

>>to acquire accurate linguistic forms and structures, unless they first

>>notice them, that is unless they pay attention to their own language 

and

>>the language of others and say to themselves "oh, that's how it's said

>>(or not said); this is how you write it; this is what people do" And

>>once student pay attention to these forms, it becomes easier for them 

to

>>use correct forms or edit their own writing. So one suggestion I would

>>make to build in your students a curiosity about language, an 

eagerness

>>(well, may-be not eagerness, but an interest) in seeing how language

>>works. This notion is also known as "language awareness" and it goes a

>>long way in helping students pay attention to how the language they 

use

>>in expressing their ideas is similar or different from the way other

>>people say or write things.

>> a. One way to help students build language awareness and

>>look at their own language output is to ask students to circle the 

kinds

>>of phrases or words that appear in their writing that they are not 

sure

>>about. Sometimes students a way to self-correct, but you can also work

>>with them to find better ways of expressing their ideas (sometimes 

that

>>means fixing up the grammar and other times that means rephrasing a

>>sentence and using a different structure altogether, one that the

>>student is more familiar and comfortable with). After you help 

students

>>use fix-up strategies, you can then ask them to pay attention in their

>>reading to see if they can identify the structure in question in other

>>people's writing.

>> b. Another way is to have students read their writings into

>>a tape recorder and then listen to it again to see if it sounds right.

>>I first saw this technique used when I was up in Vancouver at the

>>Invergarry Learning Centre where Janet Isserlis taught for awhile. It

>>was amazing to see how students would read their essays and then

>>self-correct as they noticed that the language they used was awkward 

or

>>ungrammatical. The tape recorder acted as a tool for editing and

>>revision that was fun for students to use (many students I've known 

just

>>hate rewriting - in their mind it was hard enough to put pen to paper

>>and get their thoughts in writing, they don't want to prolong the

>>agony). So the tape recorder adds a new dimension (students can just

>>take turns using the machine as they finish their writings).

>>

>>Of course, building language awareness and helping students 

self-monitor

>>their writing is only one strategy to help students gain greater

>>accuracy in their writing. And self-monitoring is not a great deal of

>>help if students don't have much experience with the standard ways of

>>writing. So you may want to see if there are some common areas of

>>difficulties that your students share (subject-verb agreement; passive

>>constructions; irregular past verbs) and then teach mini-lessons that

>>zero in on those areas. While some students respond well to rules

>>because they are good at deductive thinking, others do much better 

when

>>you present patterns of language and then draw their attention to the

>>commonalities within these patterns - so that you help your students

>>abstract the grammar rules from the sentences they see - helping them 

to

>>get to the aha! moment. This approach is also known as "discovery

>>grammar".

>>

>>If particular grammar forms are new to students and they need to know

>>them because there are no simpler work-arounds, they will need some

>>guided practice in using these forms in different ways so that they

>>become internalized. I would then include these structures in a 

grammar

>>editing check-list that students can use when they look over their own

>>writing - once again, building language awareness in the process.

>>

>>Another insight that might help you: Just correcting students each 

time

>>you see a mistake in their writing and giving them a quick explanation

>>generally doesn't work unless the student made a careless mistake. 

This

>>sort of "drive-by" grammar lesson usually doesn't stick. It is much

>>better, generally, to set some time aside, either with an individual

>>student or with the group and ask the student(s) to focus on a

>>linguistic form when they are not in the middle of writing or reading

>>their writing to others.

>>

>>Finally - and you will notice a theme here - a lesson that I learned 

as

>>an adult second language learner: Quite a few of the mistakes that I

>>made in writing English disappeared when I spent more time thinking

>>about and discussing what it is I wanted to say and write.

>>

>>Quite often, at the intermediate levels, the language that learners 

use

>>is muddled and the sentences awkward or ungrammatical, because the

>>thinking is still fuzzy. Once a writer is clear on what it is exactly

>>(s)he wants to say, it is easier to construct sentences that are clear

>>and concise.

>>

>>I used this model of talking things through to discover what it is you

>>want to write with my students when I taught Developmental Writing and

>>for many students it did make a quite a difference.

>>

>>Others did need some structured lessons on the grammar they had missed

>>along the way.

>>

>>So no silver bullet here (ha! another cultural reference to mess with

>>the uninitiated).

>>

>>Good night all!

>>

>>Heide

>>

>>________________________________

>>

>>From: specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov

>>[mailto:specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of cheryl gentry

>>Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2007 9:01 PM

>>To: specialtopics at nifl.gov

>>Subject: [SpecialTopics 261] (no subject)

>>

>>I teach GED at CRC...a prison in Norco, Calif. I have many students 

who

>>grew up speaking Spanish in the home and have difficulty with English

>>grammar. Are there any special tricks?

>

>

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>

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