My article included a lot of different concepts for aquiring oral language. The ones that I foind to be most important was BICS and CALP. A lot of people think that language is just language and there is not specific kind of oral language. In oral language there is two kinds of communication, academic (CALP) and social (BICS). Teachers can help improve both kinds of communication by encouraging cooperative learning because it is easier for an ELL student to aquire language through conversation.
There are also different phases in L2 aquisition.
Phase 1 is observation and imitation where the student goes through a silent period where they observe and try to make sense of their surrounding. Also in phase 1 is when the student may imitate other students and use gestures to try and be understood. Sometimes this is misinterpreted by teachers and students as aggression.
Phase 2 is the single word and phrase use. The student will use phrases or words that constitute survival in the classroom setting such as "me too"- "my turn" - "stop it". The student may also hear a phrase over and over and understand when it is used and use it out of context such as "I like it" The student may say "I like it school" - "I like it toys"
Phase 3 is the initial understanding of grammatical rules. The student may leave out past tense and plurals to words. This does not indicate misunderstanding but instead comfort in the language. Rules of phonics may also be mixed up because of the way the L1 is. "Where is my pencil? I put him here" - "The line is big"
I think it is very important to understand these concepts of oral language. With this understanding, teachers will be very successful in helping their ELL students.
http://earthrenewal.org/secondlang.htm
AMAZING WEBSITE!
http://www.bankstreet.edu/literacyguide/main.html
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Hey, cool article. I agree about BICS and CALP. Every ELL goes through a silent period to acquire the language. I feel that some teachers do not know about this and don't think their students are learning because they are "quiet." Taking in the social language, and providing the students to use thier oral language and listen is imperative in the language acquisition process. As a teacher we can modify our speech, perhaps incorporate some standard words they know in their first language, as well as use body language and visuals to help them make meaning from the words we speak to their prior knowledge of the word. Good work!
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