Second Language Acquisition
and Teacher Preparation
for Teachers of
English Language Learners
Mikel Cole, MEd
Department of Teaching and Learning
Language, Literacy, and Culture
• ELLs are the fastest-growing population in US
schools (McKeon, 2005)
• Not only is the ELL population increasing, it is
dispersing.
• Currently, about 60% of US classrooms
contain ELLs (American Federation of
Teachers, 2008)
• Consequently, every
prospective teacher
needs to know about
teaching ELLs
What Teachers Need to Know about Language
TODAY’S PRESENTATION
I. Theoretical Overview
II. Wong-Fillmore and Snow
III. Additional Thoughts
Language Acquisition and Language Learning
• Chomsky and
Language Acquisition
– Innatist view
– Language development
follows genetic cues
– Input cannot explain
complexity of young
children’s language production
Language Acquisition and Language Learning
• Stephen Krashen
– Agrees with Chomsky
acquisition fundamental
in L1 and L2
– ‘Comprehensible input’ key
to acquisition
– ‘Learning’ distinct from
‘acquisition’
– Affective filter
Interaction of L1 and L2
• Jim Cummins and SLA
– Common Underlying
Proficiency Hypothesis
– Basic interpersonal
communication skills (BICS),
typically 3-5 years
– Cognitive Academic Language
Proficiency(CALP),
typically 7-10 years
Sociocultural Theory and SLA
• ‘Mediation’ (Vygotsky, 1978;
Lantolf and Thorne, 2007)
• Voice, identity and agency
(Bakhtin, 1973;
Pierce, 1995)
Critical and Emanicipatory SLA
• ‘Conscientization’
(Freire, 1987)
• ‘Critical Language Awareness ’
(Fairclough, 1999)
• Language of power
(Delpit, 1995)
Part Two:
Wong-Fillmore and Snow (2000)
" What every teacher needs to know about
language"
Wong-Fillmore and Snow (2000)
• Essential oral language knowledge
1) What are the basic units of language?
2) What’s regular and what isn’t,
and how do forms relate to each other?
3) How is the lexicon acquired and stored?
4) Are vernacular dialects different from “bad English”, and if so,
how?
5) What is academic English?
6) Why has English acquisition by non-English speaking children
not been more successful?
Wong-Fillmore and Snow (2000)
• Essential written language knowledge
1) Why is English spelling so difficult?
2) Why do students have trouble structuring
narrative and expository text?
3) How should one judge the quality and
correctness of a piece of writing?
4) What makes a sentence or a text easy or
difficult to understand?
Wong-Fillmore and Snow (2000)
• Ideal training for all teachers would include:
1) Language and Linguistics
2) Language and Cultural Diversity
3) Sociolinguistics for Educators in a Linguistically Diverse
Society
4) Language Development
5) Second Language Learning and Teaching
6) The Language of Academic Discourse
7) Text Analysis and Language Understanding in Educational
Settings
Part Three: Closing Thoughts
• Some additional things teachers should
consider:
1) Students are human beings
– Hopes, dreams, agency
2) What you believe is as important as what you know
– Beliefs and attitudes more resistant to change
than knowledge