For decades, it has been widely believed that L1 should be banned in language learning classrooms (or used as little as needed). However, it has been found that the use of L1 in ESL classes is beneficial for students in a number of ways. It is important that students are able to recognize differences between their L1 and English—these differences can be made apparent and discussed using L1 in the classroom. Similarly, the connection between L1 and L2 cannot be abolished. Language learners will always reflect on differences and similarities as they continue to learn and speak. Avoidance of L1 is also likely to result in input modification (slower speaking, repetition, simplifying syntax), making the speaker sound less natural. Teachers can work to incorporate L1 by acknowledging it, using it appropriately, differentiating between student levels, agreeing on guidelines, and using encouragement and persuasion to speak in L2. 

 

Mart, C. T. (2013). The Facilitating Role of L1 in ESL Classes. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 3 (1)

Dussling’s study was conducted with five first graders in an English as a Second Language classroom. They were not reading yet, and their native languages included: Chinese, Arabic, French, Burmese, and Somali. Small group lessons included activities that centered around phonetic awareness, and were conducted in the same manner 4-5 days per week, 15-20 minutes per session. Dussling also administered standard EL screenings before and after the study, and conducted additional assessments throughout the 8 weeks to track growth in phoneme segmentation and reading skills. Both the pre and post tests, and the additional assessments conducted throughout the sessions, showed improvement for each student--the greatest gains were attributed to students with the lowest pretest scores.

Dussling’s results imply that phonics-based instruction is effective for non-Spanish speaking English Learners. Her research supports findings from the National Literacy Panel (2006), which advocates that, similar to native English speakers, English Learners benefit from additional phonics instruction. Additionally, Dussling’s study backs growing research that English Learners can benefit from phonics-based interventions regardless of their English speaking ability (August and Shanahan, 2010). 

 

The study was conducted of 95 college students in the southeastern United States that were learning Spanish. They were either in their first, second, or third year of learning the language. They did not have prior Spanish learning before the age of 10 and they had no previous knowledge of Spanish phonetics. As a measuring point, they brought in native Spanish speakers that were native from Spain, Mexico, Colombia, and Chile. They did not have previous phonetics instruction and were very advanced in English. They were given a test on the computer that tested voiced stops, approximants, articulatory phonetics, and more. 
 
 After the tests were returned and graded, there was not a significant difference between the two groups in terms of phonetics instruction nor was there a difference based on Spanish courses taken prior to college, sex, current age, or other characteristic. The one noted difference was the amount of time spent in Spanish speaking places abroad. Although, based on the hypothesis and previous research done before the study, there was nothing to suggest there are benefits for language learners to be given explicit phonetic instruction in this study. 

 

https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy.hamline.edu/doi/full/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2013.12029.x

Gordan, Darcy, and Ewert conducted this study with three groups of emergent bilinguals who were taught pronunciation during three weeks for twenty-five minutes a day, three days a week. The first experimental group was explicitly taught segmental features, whereas the second group received explicit instruction on suprasegmental features. Lastly, the third group was taught both segmental and suprasegmental features, but nonexplicitly. The researchers found that explicit phonetic instruction allowed students to be aware of certain features of the L2 that differ from their L1. In all three groups, instruction was meaning-based, however, unlike the teacher in the nonexplicit group, the teachers in the two explicit groups focused more on assisting students who were having specific issues, checking for understanding, and giving direct feedback. Overall, this helped students improve on their comprehensibility. 

In addition, the posttest results showed that the students in the explicit suprasegmental instruction group improved at a faster rate than those in the explicit segmental group. The authors further state that while explicit instruction on segmental features is important, explicit instruction on suprasegmental instruction can help language learners improve their pronunciation more quickly (Gordon, J., Darcy, I., & Ewert, D. (2013).

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John_Levis/publication/283176773_Pronunciation_and_assessment_Proceedings_of_the_4th_Pronunciation_in_Second_Language_Learning_and_Teaching_Conference_2012/links/562d9a0408aef25a24431b16.pdf#page=211

Johnston investigated the English verbal interactions of seven 3rd-6th grade beginning level ELs across three different instructional settings: the mainstream grade level classroom, the sheltered English classroom, and the ELL pullout group.  She wanted to find out how often these ELs interacted using the target language (English) in mainstream classrooms as compared to ELL-only settings.  The results of the study showed that the beginning level elementary learners were highly disengaged in the mainstream classrooms.  These students exhibited an average of seven times more English verbal interactions in ELL pullout groups and nearly three times more in ELL sheltered classrooms than in regular mainstream classrooms.  Johnston compares these findings to similar results of a qualitative study of high school ELs in Australia (Miller 2000).  

The study states that several factors in sheltered settings contribute to greater student interactions, including: a focus on language development included within the content instruction, appropriate instruction geared to each student’s background and level of acquisition, teachers trained in instructing ELs, and higher rates of student interaction with other ELs, even if they did not have the same language background or level of acquisition.  

Reading First, a report by The National Reading Panel (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000) asserted that "intensive systematic phonics" helped children become better readers than less intensive methods. However, according to one of the researchers (Garan 2001) looking into this study, the benefits were only present with pronouncing listed words out of context; however, these same children didn't do significantly better on tests in which they had to understand what they read.

This article lists other studies that came to basically the same conclusion: intensive instruction in phonics does not substantially increase reading comprehension.

Krashen does not oppose the teaching of basic phonics and even says that it can be helpful in the beginning stages of reading in order to make texts comprehensible.  However, he adds that the The Reading First final report confirms that reading proficiency is gained through reading interesting and meaningful books and stories and not by "doing worksheets."

Does Intensive Decoding Instruction Contribute to Reading Comprehension?
Author:  Krashen, Stephen

Source: Knowledge Quest; March/April 2009, Vol. 37 Issue 4, p72-74, 3p

 

Yes.

 

In his article Defining the cognitive mechanisms underlying reactions to foreign accented speech: An experimental approach, Pantos (2012), found the existence of biases against foreign English accents in the U.S. Judges were exposed to a US-accented speaker of English and a Korean-accented speaker of English. After examining the explicit attitude of listeners to accents, Pantos (2012) looked into the implicit social cognition of his participants. Pantos (2012) aimed at measuring whether there is a divergence between implicit and explicit attitudes in the same listener towards that same speaker. 
 
Participants favored, Pantos (2012) reports, the US-accented speaker over the Korean accented speaker in the study implicitly. However, due to different explanations, the judges did favor explicitly the Korean accented speaker (Pantos, 2012).

 

 

 

 

Pantos, A. (2012). Defining the cognitive mechanisms underlying reactions to foreign accented speech: An experimental approach. Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 10(2), 427-453. 10.1075/rcl.10.2.08pan

 Vol. 27, No. 1, Spring 1993

According to the article “Knowing English is Not Enough! Cultivating Academic Literacies Among High School Newcomers”, by Maria E Franquiz and Cinthia Salinas, the answer is that sheltered core content classes are not the primary component. Studies have shown that programs with newcomers in secondary schools suggest that efforts focusing on building academic content background yield positive social outcomes and strong academic results (p 344) are not dependent on sheltered core classes.

Franquiz’s and Salinas’s subject of study was a Social Studies teacher, Ms Alcala,  who deviated from Texas state curriculum in order to teach students who were newcomers to the United States in the Spring of 2010.  The students attended classes in a high school specifically for the sheltered learning of a large ELL population in an unnamed Texas city.  The Spring 2010 study focused observations on Ms Alcala’s World Geography class, and again observed in American History Studies class in the Spring of 2012 to analyze if Ms Alcala’s scaffolded curriculum was effective in teaching the students the academic literacy needed to successfully pass the Texas state high school proficiency exam to graduate.  Franquiz and Salinas found that Ms Alcala’s curriculum was successful in meeting state academic requirements as well as being successful in student retention.

The article states “the single most important variable that places students at risk for access to higher education is their lack of preparation in academic literacies” (p 340). As a result of this lack of preparation, retention and graduation rates are disproportionately lower for those with  the added disadvantage of second language acquisition. Ms Alcala strongly felt that her students needed strong content driven coursework, because many of her students had limited education in their first language or they did not have content knowledge relevant to pass the state test.  Ms Alcala focused her curriculum on a framework of historical inquiry and thinking.  This framework provides students with multiple opportunities to link complex ideas to their own lives and the lives of others..through the use of digitized primary source resources that were non-text heavy, such as letters, telegrams, maps, photographs and other first hand accounts (pg 345).  She also allowed the students to express themselves in either their L1 or L2.  As a Spanish speaker with a background in bilingual education, she was able to communicate with her students in both Spanish and English.  Her goal was to help the students reach academic literacy, and therefore did not limit the students to responding only in English.  While some might think this bilingual and hybrid model limits the students’ academic literacy in English, Franquiz and Salinas actually found that the students had acquired the content vocabulary, including difficult idioms, in English that were necessary to produce brief statements for the purpose of demonstrating they had mastered the state standard for the historical thinking process (pg 355).

Franzquiz’s and Salinas’s study concluded that content area curriculum specialist working with ELL educators who can collaborate  to work in a hybrid structure of L1 and L2 model work towards student success for academic literacy in regards to newcomers to the United States.  Ms Alcala’s methods were very successful, but the article does not prove that this system is limited to a sheltered system, but can be replicated in a mainstream classroom

https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.hamline.edu/stable/pdf/43281199.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A90d9c90f0b1927b8ce88a9699813ed24

Koo, Jin ; Becker, Betsy Jane ; Kim, Young - Suk

Language Testing, 2014, Vol.31(1), p.89-109