BOOK REVIEW INFO

"When linguistic features of one language influence those of another language"

Translanguaging

Reading Ability

Personal

Summary

Chapter 6 review

the role of the first language

There is a lot of controversy about multilingual learners reading new content in their L1/home language. We all know that we learn better when we can associate new concepts with words and phrases that we are familiar with. The same is true for English learners. Ofelia Garcia, in The Translanguaging Classroom, talks about the limitations of the traditional monolingual models. She states that when bilingual students read, write, or create something new, they may filter certain features, but the process will always be bilingual. In my experience, bilingual students demonstrate a deeper understanding of the subjects once they can read and write.

Translanguaging

Learning English was easier since I could apply the skills I already had. I knew perfectly that letters existed and that letters create patterns that represent the sounds of the language. I struggled with it when I encountered new words. It wasn't easy to distinguish each sound to figure out the word if I couldn't read it. Another thing that helped me was that some of the sounds I heard were similar to the sounds in Spanish.

Experience

In Chapter 6, Ellis mentions that knowledge of one language may facilitate learning of another as, for example, when the two languages share cognates (for example, ‘cosmopolitan’ in English and ‘cosmopolita’ in Spanish). This was true for me because English and Spanish are linguistically proximate. However, I can see how this could be problematic if the languages were linguistically distant.

Summary

As a teacher, I had the opportunity to see that the L1 reading ability of my English learners was a strong predictor of success in learning English. This was even true with those students who had an Asian language. It was very obvious that when a student had not learned to read in their native language, I was able to see how they would struggle with even the simplest things, like matching the sounds to the symbols in each word.

Reading Ability