The Connection Between Oral Language and Literacy

I came across an article that talks about the connection (and interdependence) between oral language skills and literacy. An excerpt from the article explains this connection in a nutshell: "Strong oral language skills pave the way for the development of literacy in a second language...and literacy skills enhance oral language development." (The article can be accessed in full here.)

Something that stood out to me in the article was a section that discusses the importance of both top-down and bottom-up processes in reading. Relevant and interesting contexts are used to generate meaning (top-down processes), while also explicitly teaching sound patterns, syllables, and word families (bottom-up). A few of my previous posts discuss this concept, including the posts entitled "Teaching Reading to Beginning Level English Language Learners," "How do we 'Keep Language in the Teaching of Second Language Reading'?", "ESOL Instruction from the Bottom-Up," and "Why Phonics for ELLs/ESOL Students?"

An additional resource on the topic of oral language and literacy is a discussion on the LINCS adult education English language acquisition list. A summary of the discussion can be found here.

Using TED Videos in the Classroom

I am often inspired by the words of visionary individuals who have innovative thought. A great resource to tap into some of this visionary thought is TED.com, which showcases "ideas worth spreading." The goal of TED is to "foster the spread of great ideas" on a variety of topics, including education. Two TED talks relating to education that I enjoy are as follows:

I recently watched a TED talk by Ken Robinson on his thoughts about how schools kill creativity. He asserts that creativity is as important as literacy, and it is our role as educators to ensure that we are not "educating people out of their creativity."

Another TED talk that I enjoy is Dave Eggers' "Once Upon a School", which showcases how a group of creative individuals instigated an opportunity to provide free tutoring for youth. Eggers also shares how this idea spread to colleagues across the nation, and he concludes by sharing his wish for listeners to use their innovation to get involved in public schools in their communities.

TED talks have teaching application in the classroom. (See Teaching with TED and click on a topic or talk on the right sidebar. For additional resources on Sir Ken Robinson's talk, click here. For more information on Dave Eggers' "Once Upon a School," click here.) In addition, administrators have used applicable TED videos for in-service training meetings with teachers and staff to inspire, educate, and instill vision.

To check out more TED videos on your own, go to ted.com and enter a topic in the search box, or peruse the categories on the left side of the home page. (To see Richard Byrnes' recommendation of fifteen TED talks for teachers to watch, visit his blog post here.)

ESL Listening and Speaking Activities: Classwork and Homework

I was going through some old files and came across a handout I prepared for a training I conducted in Hualien, Taiwan on Listening and Speaking activities. On the handout, I included different activities and exercises that can be used both in class and for homework. I've included the table below:

Listening and Speaking Skills and Activities

Skill	Activity Types
	Classwork	Homework
Listening	Listen for: the main idea details vocabulary in cloze activity Classmates’ presentations: take notes selective listening Games: Activities on the chalkboard	Listen to English: TV programs, the news, movies radio, English songs internet (i.e. radio stations, NPR) Communicate in English: Talk to native speakers, other English-speakers, classmates
Speaking	Group work/Pair work: Generate interview questions; interview classmates Flashcards (vocabulary words, pictures of vocabulary words) Categorize Identify Pronunciation practice Games Student presentations in class	Talk to native speakers: Interview Survey Narrate/share experience
Vocabulary	Pictures: Picture prompts Internet Flashcards: Categorize by topic, parts of speech, etc. Worksheets: Identify words you know and don’t know	Worksheets: Cloze Categorize Matching Identify words you know and don’t know
Pronunciation	Pronunciation points taken from context of listening activities: Explicitly identify in listening samples Explicitly integrate into speaking practice Flashcards	Integrated into: Speaking activities Listening activities
Grammar	Grammar points taken from context of phrases learned: Explicitly identify in listening samples Explicitly integrate into speaking practice Phrasal verbs and idioms	Integrated into: Vocabulary worksheets Speaking activities Listening activities Phrasal verbs and idioms

In the presentation, I also presented a "process" or routine that could be followed in a listening/speaking class. The process in skeletal form is listed below:
1. Introduce the topic (such as "introducing yourself")
2. State the objectives
3. Provide listening practice (via sound/video recordings or in-class lecture/presentation)
4. Vocabulary/Phrases practice
5. Grammar review
6. Targeted pronunciation practice
7. Speaking practice (applying the skills just learned in a real-life context)
8. Listening review
9. Assign and discuss homework: vocabulary, speaking, and listening practice

Of course, this process can be adapted to meet the individual needs of students and teachers, but the process demonstrates the need to integrate the teaching of vocabulary and phrases, grammar, and pronunciation in an ESL listening/speaking curriculum.

Improving ESOL Students' Pronunciation

There are quite a few ideas out there regarding how to improve ESOL students' pronunciation. I came across a few interesting resources in a discussion list I am a part of. One resource includes an article posted on the CAELA Network which discusses interesting points to consider when teaching English pronunciation. The article includes a couple of interesting tables, one of which provides a pronunciation checklist to identify ESOL students' areas of weakness which can then be used to help students set goals for improvement. (See Table 1 below.)

Another interesting resource is a document that lists core items of English pronunciation to teach as suggested by Tran Thi Lan, PhD, at Hanoi University of Foreign Studies. The information is specific to native Vietnamese speakers, but I would consider many of these aspects to be relevant and adaptable to teaching speakers of other languages, as well. The document can be found in full here.

The core items listed by Lan are as follows, with particular emphasis given to the first seven items:

1. The English alphabet. A focus should be put on the following letters which [Vietnamese] students confuse the sounds of: R, I, E, G , J, H, K, Q, W, X, Y

2. Familiarization with the English phonemic chart. Essential as it helps students to be able to know the pronunciation of words from dictionaries. Teachers should encourage students to use monolingual dictionaries made by reputable publishers.

3. Voiced and unvoiced sounds. Students should be taught this to help with the pronunciation of ‘s’ and ‘ed’ endings.

4. Long and short vowels. Students need to be able to confidently differentiate and produce these as they are both challenging and have an effect on meaning.

5. Word final consonants. Vietnamese students often neglect these and constant exercises on final endings should be done attentively during any course.

6. Consonant clusters. These are not a feature of Vietnamese and therefore are challenging. ‘sts’, ‘ts’, ‘str’, and ‘tr’ appear to be the most challenging for many students.

7. Suprasegmental level: Word stress, sentence stress, and intonation are essential items to address. Tonic intonation should be given special care as changes alters meaning. Sound linking is important, but not essential. When learners say the words correctly, they will link sounds naturally themselves.

8. English sounds not found in Vietnamese. For example, the interdentals /d/, /q/, can be mixed up with /f/ or Vietnamese /th/, though this may not influence comprehensibility.

9. /l/ and /n/ can be mixed up in the northern dialect (Hai Phong, Hai Duong, Hung Yen, Quang Ninh etc.).

10. Initial /j/ like in yes, young, yellow may be heard as in zes, zoung, zeallow. This sound can be a bigger problem for learners from the south or central provinces of the country.

11. /r/ The Hanoi accent does not distinguish between /r/, /z/, or /gi/. Some people in the central part of Vietnam, such as Nghe An, Quang Binh, Hue, or Danang, can say /zed/ instead of /red/.

12. The difference between aspirated and non-aspirated ‘t’. Initial ‘t’ in English is aspirated as in ten and tea. After ‘s’ as in stop and steel, ‘t’ is not aspirated and is more similar to its Vietnamese counterpart. This is advisable to teach, but not in a short course.

Table 1: Pronunciation Checklist

Pronunciation	Always	Sometimes	Never
Mark “x” where applicable, according to frequency of error
Consonants
th (e.g., thin—not[t])
th (e.g., then—not[d])
s & z (e.g., sue vs. zoo)
r (e.g., rice vs. lice)
l (e.g., parrot vs. palate)
Final consonants
Voiceless, voiced (e.g.,nip . nib; seat vs. seed; lock vs. log; larch vs. large)
final l (e.g., final, little, sell)
final s (e.g., pupils, writes, schools)
-ed suffix to mark past tense
Vowel variation
hill vs. heel
cut vs. cart
cot vs. caught
pull vs. pool
pen vs. pan
Intonation
Use of rising intonation: yes/no questions (e.g., Are you coming?)
Use of falling intonation: statements (e.g., Yes, I am coming); wh questions (e.g., What are you doing?)
Voice
Mark “x” where applicable, according to frequency of error
Audibility level
Too loud
Too soft
Fading out at end of statements
Pitch and range
Monotonous
Other comments

Note: This checklist was designed by Nora Samosir & Low Ee Ling (2000) as a means to assess teachers’ oral English proficiency.

Educating Students in Underserved Communities

Occasionally with my job, I get to attend conferences either to present or exhibit. Yesterday, I attended the KIPP conference in Las Vegas as a vendor, which afforded me the opportunity to talk to some of the teachers and administrators of KIPP. KIPP is an organization that serves kids in underserved communities by educating them. The objective is to help these kids reach their full potential by getting these students to and through college. The individuals who I talked to from KIPP about the organization were very confident about the difference the schools make for these kids.

I always enjoy learning how organizations such as these begin. Without fail, it seems to start with a passion to make a difference. To see a video about how KIPP started, click here.

The Five Reasons Why English Language Learners Benefit from Systematic Phonics Instruction

In my last post, I mentioned that Dr. Neil J. Anderson, world-renowned second language reading expert, spoke at the Reading Horizons Distributor Seminar in Salt Lake City, Utah, on July 15, 2010. Since I work for Reading Horizons, and since I know Dr. Anderson personally, he asked me before the seminar my opinion on what topic he should address. As we discussed possible topics, I was reminded of the perpetual need to establish and promote the important role that systematic phonics instruction plays in an English Language Learner's education. Thus, his presentation was entitled, "The Five Reasons Why English Language Learners Benefit from Systematic Phonics Instruction." The five reasons he discussed, each supported by research, include:

1. There are English decoding rules so why not explicitly teach them?

2. Reading fluency increases as learners have strong decoding skills.

3. Oral reading improves when learners can correctly decode the words.

4. Spelling improves when learners have strong decoding skills.

5. Motivation and confidence increase when learners read well.

An additional point Dr. Anderson made includes the fact that "teacher training is absolutely essential to successful implementation of systematic phonics instruction."

I noticed some similarities between Dr. Anderson's points and some points I've made in previous blog posts, including the posts entitled "The Effects of Teaching Phonics to ELLs/ESOL Students" and "Why Phonics for ELLs/ESOL Students?". It is good to have ideas reinforced by triangulating these ideas with other sources.

I can't emphasize more the important role that phonics plays in an English Language Learner's education. Reading affects all areas of a student's education. With instruction in explicit, systematic phonics instruction, I have witnessed increased decoding, fluency, comprehension, spelling, and pronunciation skills, along with increased vocabulary, confidence, and motivation, in my own students who learn English as an additional language.

Optimal Silent and Oral Reading Rates

Neil J. Anderson, professor of Linguistics and English Language at Brigham Young University, recently presented at the Reading Horizons distributor seminar in Salt Lake City, Utah. He shared some interesting information about how English Language Learners (ELLs) benefit from systematic phonics instruction. Two of the reasons he cited include the following: 1) reading fluency increases as students learn to decode words; and 2) oral reading improves when students can decode words correctly.

Reading fluency, as defined by Neil Anderson, is "reading at an appropriate rate with adequate comprehension" (Anderson, 2008, p. 3). This definition of reading fluency is important as teachers consider what an "appropriate reading rate" is for their students. Remember that reading at a quick pace (an "appropriate rate") without comprehending what is being read is not fluent reading. Additionally, reading super slowly and understanding everything being read ("adequate comprehension") likewise is not fluent reading. The balance between the two--reading rate and comprehension--is important to fluency.

So what constitutes an "appropriate rate"? During the presentation, Anderson referenced national averages for optimal silent and oral reading rates by grade level (Hasbrouck & Tindal, 2006). I wanted to share this information below:

Silent Reading Rates

1^st grade: 80 wpm

2^nd grade: 115 wpm

3^rd grade: 138 wpm

4^th grade: 158 wpm

5^th grade: 173 wpm

6^th grade: 185 wpm

7^th grade: 195 wpm

8^th grade: 204 wpm

9^th grade: 214 wpm

10th grade: 224 wpm

11th grade: 237 wpm

12th grade: 250 wpm

College or University: 280 wpm

Oral Reading Rates

1^st grade: 53 wpm

2^nd grade: 89 wpm

3^rd grade: 107 wpm

4^th grade: 123 wpm

5^th grade: 139 wpm

6^th grade: 150 wpm

7^th grade: 150 wpm

8^th grade: 151 wpm

Notice that oral reading rates beyond the 8th grade level are not listed. This is due to the fact that when we read aloud, we generally do not read faster than what we can read at an 8th grade reading level.

These silent and oral reading rates can be used as a guideline when discerning appropriate reading rates for students. Adjustments to these reading rates could be made to accommodate English Language Learners and students with reading difficulties.

References:

Anderson, N. J. (2008). Practical English language teaching: Reading. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Hasbrouck, J., & Tindal, G. A. (2006). Oral reading fluency norms: A valuable assessment tool for teaching teachers. The Reading Teacher, 59, 636-644.