Bilingual Learning
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6. In a bilingual class for young second language learners, the teacher utilizes both direct instruction and exposure without instruction strategies to help students build on their conventional as well as their emerging language skills (Araujo, 2002, p. 236). In direct instruction, the teacher is focused on cultivating the students' ability to match the sounds to the letters, decoding words and improving their vocabulary. Typically, she uses phonics to teach students about specific sounds by naming objects that have the same letters/sounds. Using picture cards, the teacher first asks the students to name the object in their first language. Then, she provides the English equivalent to the word in the first language and emphasizes the beginning sound in English. Students are then asked to come up with words that begin with the same sounds that are listed on the blackboard. The teacher and the students practice reading the words on the blackboard. When the students encounter difficulties, the teacher will guide them by breaking down the word into individual sounds and blending them together. Phonics worksheets that require students to connect words that start or end with the same sounds are also used to supplement the learning (Araujo, 2002, p. 240). Even though educators had formerly believed that the mastery of basic language skills is required before secondary language learners can move on to complex learning such as language comprehension and writing, research st
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ntarily. Then they resumed their conversation in English. Apparently, the woman who was having difficulties requested assistance from the other party and asked her to translate the phrase from Chinese to English.
Once the words were identified, they resumed speaking in English. Having discovered the effectiveness of this approach, the two women subsequently switched to Chinese to figure out unfamiliar words when they later encountered difficulties and then resumed speaking in English.
In many ways, these two speakers' use of communication strategies coheres with the type of communication strategies used by most language learners to compensate for their communication difficulties. As described by Celce-Murcia, Dorneyei and Thurrell (1995), these two women utilized achievement, stalling, self-monitoring and interactional strategies. At the beginning of the conversation, the women used a great deal of stalling strategies such as repetition. Subsequently, they used achievement strategies when they used other methods and phrases to communicate with one another such as paraphrasing and body language. One of the women who experienced significant difficulties used self-monitoring strategies to correct herself when she w
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Han Ernst-Slavit, English Korean, English German, Fitzgerald Noblit, Dorneyei Thurrell, Hudson Liu, English Students, , Chinese English, Korean English, english language, language skills, language learners, direct instruction, unfamiliar words, learned english, language acquisition, araujo 2002, speaking english, help students, personal communication 8, woman learned english, learned english puberty, communication 8 2003, learned english formal,
Approximate Word count = 3171
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)
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