Second language acquisition by low-literate learners: An under-studied population.

Autor/in	Tarone, Elaine
Titel	Second language acquisition by low-literate learners: An under-studied population.
Quelle	In: Language teaching, 43 (2010) 1, S. 75-83Verfügbarkeit
Beigaben	Literaturangaben
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0261-4448
Schlagwörter	Empirische Forschung; Lernschwäche; Fremdsprachenunterricht; Lernersprache; Zweitsprachenerwerbsforschung; Englischunterricht; Forschungsdesiderat; Erwachsenenbildung; Erwachsener
Abstract	Many adolescent and adult L2 learners in language classrooms, both in the US and other countries, have little or no alphabetic print literacy. Language teachers may turn to SLA (second language acquisition) research for assistance, yet almost all research on oral SLA has focused on educated, highly-literate learners (Bigelow & Tarone 2004; Tarone, Bigelow & Hansen 2009). The assumption seems to have been that the findings of this research hold for all learners, including learners with little to no literacy. However, research in cognitive and experimental psychology shows that the acquisition of grapheme-phoneme correspondence - the ability to associate a phoneme and a visual symbol - changes the way oral language is processed. The paper shows the relevance of these findings for SLA. It summarizes a three-part study on oral L2 processing, a partial replication of previous SLA research, carried out in a population of low-literate adolescent Somali learners of L2 English. The findings confirm that alphabetic print literacy level had a significant impact on oral L2 processing. The paper concludes with a call to replicate current SLA studies and findings with populations of learners who have little or no alphabetic literacy. (Verlag, adapt.).
Erfasst von	Informationszentrum für Fremdsprachenforschung, Marburg
Update	2022/3