Bilingual Learners Case Study

 To effectively support the bilingual learners in my classroom, I would make the content comprehensible for all students.  To teach language and content effectively I would consider all areas of lessons / activities.  When preparing lessons / activities I would ensure that my objects are clearly stated and displayed and adjust content to make it authentic and meaningful.  It is also important to build on the students' prior knowledge.  I would also ensure that I pronounce words and sentences properly to accommodate the varying abilities of the students'.  To help support all students' I would use a variety of strategies, hands-on activities, scaffolding, and provide multiple opportunities for the students' to discuss and interact with one another.  

Students learn a second-language through five stages: preproduction, early production, speech emergence, intermediate fluency, and advanced fluency.  The approximate time frame for the preproduction stage is zero to six months.  During this stage, bilingual learners have minimal comprehension, uses no speech, and uses body language to communicate.  The time frame for the early production stage six months to a year.  During this stage, bilingual learners have limited comprehension, produces one or two-word utterances, and use familiar words and phrases to communicate.  The approximate time frame for the speech emergence stage is about one to three years.  During this stage, bilingual learners have good comprehension, can produce simple sentences, and misunderstands jokes.  The approximate time frame for the intermediate fluency stage is about three to five years.  During this stage, bilingual learners have excellent comprehension and makes few grammatical errors.  The approximate time frame for the advanced fluency stage is five to seven years.  During this stage, bilingual learners have a near-native level of speech (Hill & Flynn, 2006).  

Some instructional approaches I would use to a second-language bilingual learner are using appropriate questioning and prompts, multimedia, and the Word-MES strategy.  Using appropriate questioning and prompts will help ensure that bilingual learners are engaged and motivated to learn.  Using multimedia can be very assisting and useful to bilingual learners.  The Word-MES strategy was developed by Jane Hill.  This strategy is used to enhance language development. 

References 

Hill, J. D. & Hill, K. M. (2006). Classroom instruction that works with English language learners.  Retrieved on October 13, 2013, from: http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/106009/chapters/The-Stages-of-Second-Language-Acquisition.aspx

Language Acquistion

Knowing the phonetic alphabet is important when helping students with this difficulty and how it is used to represent sounds.  It is important because with out understanding the phonetic alphabet children will have an extremely difficult time with writing and reading.  The phonetic alphabet represents the individual sounds in our language (Rowe & Levine, 2012). 


Two language acquisition theories that could apply to this scenario are the Secondary Cognitive Plane and phonology. 

The Second Cognitive Plane states that first and second language are stored in different parts of the brain.  A child may retrieve information with his / her primary language to gain a deeper understanding of his / her second language comprehension.  This could cause a problem because it would provide inaccurate information (Rowes & Levine, 2012). 

Phonology acquisition is acquired by babies learning the sounds of their primary language.  Individual languages have specific sounds that are learned at a young age.  The older children become, the more difficult it can become to effectively learn phonics.

 The types of questions I would ask to elicit ideas to help with my bilingual learners are...

1. How do you motivate and encourage bilingual learners in your classroom?
2. What strategies work best for you when teaching the phonetic alphabet to bilingual learners?
3. What do you feel is most challenging when teaching bilingual learners?

References

Rowe, B. M. & Levine, D. P. (2012). A concise introduction to linguistics, (3rd Edition). Boston, MA: Pearson