- A continuum of language development for LEALs
- An outline of the stages of adjustment and acculturation
Language development
As pointed out by Cummins (1999), language development in
the classroom is more cognitively demanding than language development of the
outside world. Consequently, he broke down language skills in terms of Basic
Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language
Proficiency (CALP).
Basic interpersonal
communication skills (BICS) include those used to describe the social
language of everyday life and thus these are the aspects of language that are
said to be ‘naturally acquired’. These
skills include those related to retelling events, describing activities,
expressing personal opinions, and maintaining everyday conservations and
usually take about 1-3 years to acquire.
Cognitive academic
language proficiency (CALP) on the other hand takes longer to develop,
usually between 5-7 years, for a number of reasons. CALP is necessary for
learning in schools because academic learning is often situation specific, in
that the information is sometimes exclusively encountered within the classroom
setting for most students, cognitively demanding because of it’s often abstract
nature, and context reduced, in that the use of the language often lacks
environmental cues.
This distinction is of great importance to mainstream
teachers because a teacher who overhears a LEAL speaking with a group of his
friends (i.e. conversations that require BICS) might judge him/her as being
“fluent” and wonder why their academic work does not reflect English language
skills they display during their more casual conversations. This, in turn, can
lead to misconceptions about the LEALs intelligence or motivation level that
will not serve to better their learning in any way.
The notion of BICS vs. CALP has been presented through the
model below, which illustrates how BICS are just ‘the tip of the iceberg’ when
it comes to the cognitive demands of language development:
The BICS/CALP matrix has also been presented on a continuum
from ‘context-embedded’ to ‘context reduced’, ranging from a situation in which
the learners uses external clues and information (i.e. facial gestures, real
objects and pictures) to enable understanding, to the other extreme where the
learner must rely on linguistic clues, and knowledge about language and text to
understand meaning:
Stages of adjustment
and acculturation
Language will likely not be the only new
adjustment for a LEAL in an Ontario school though, and this should be an
important consideration for teachers. Most newcomers also pass through four stages
of adjustment. These stages occur at different rates, can overlap and are not
always clearly delineated. The four stages and brief descriptions are as
follows:
o
Stage 1: arrival and first impressions
o
Feelings of adventure, optimism and often
euphoria
o
Stage 2: culture shock
o
As students begin to identify intimidating,
distasteful or strange aspects of their new environmental they may experience
feelings of discomfort, dislocation and alienation. This may lead to them
wanting to only bond exclusively with members of their own ethnic group.
o
Stage 3: recovery and optimism
o
As they overcome obstacles and develop their
coping skills students in stage 3 will have a renewed sense of optimism and
autonomy. At this stage, they are also able to communicate adequately for most
day-to-day purposes and begin to feel like they are making progress at school.
o
Stage 4: acculturation
o
Students have resolved internal conflicts of
recreating their identity and may choose to integrate and move comfortably
between languages and cultures. In contrast, individuals who may choose to
assimilate for a number of reasons.
No comments:
Post a Comment