32.2054, Review: Applied Linguistics: Kreeft Peyton, Young-Scholten (2020)

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Subject: 32.2054, Review: Applied Linguistics: Kreeft Peyton, Young-Scholten (2020)

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Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2021 12:31:29
From: Diego Agostini Ferrer [agostiniferdiego at gmail.com]
Subject: Teaching Adult Immigrants with Limited Formal Education

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36703477


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/31/31-2234.html

EDITOR: Joy  Kreeft Peyton
EDITOR: Martha  Young-Scholten
TITLE: Teaching Adult Immigrants with Limited Formal Education
SUBTITLE: Theory, Research and Practice
PUBLISHER: Multilingual Matters
YEAR: 2020

REVIEWER: Diego Agostini Ferrer, University of Puerto Rico

SUMMARY

The challenges faced by adult migrants lacking formal schooling have been a
longstanding issue in efforts towards helping them adapt to their new
countries, yet remain understudied and relatively absent from public
discourse. This book, “Teaching Adult Immigrants with Limited Formal
Education: Theory, Research and Practice”, takes aim at this problem,
collecting chapters intended to assist teachers and tutors working with adult
migrants with limited schooling. The authors and editors provide
research-informed discussions of different aspects relevant to literacy
acquisition in general and literacy development in this population
specifically.

Chapter 1 introduces the volume. The editors briefly explain the state of
research and practice in teaching literacy to adult migrants with limited
formal education, as well as the terminology used and the project, “European
Speakers of Other Languages: Teaching Adult Migrants and Training Their
Teachers”, that gave rise to the chapters. The editors summarize the current
social context of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research as well the
relationship between literacy and language acquisition before providing brief
summaries of the following chapters. A useful appendix detailing the
development of the online modules from the aforementioned project closes the
introduction.

The second chapter is authored by Minna Sunni and Taina Tammelin-Laine, who
focus on the social context influencing language and literacy development.
They introduce different cultural perspectives on literacy and research,
investigating connections between dominant ideologies and and literacy skills.
Drawing primarily from research in Finland and other Nordic countries, the
chapter homes in on the role of interaction in SLA, as well as reviewing the
research and different understandings of social factors driving adult language
development. The discussion then moves on to literacy proper, examining
literacy development in adults in light of adults’ roles as parents and
workers in their host societies. Particular attention is also paid to
multiliteracies in the multimodal context of 21st century societies and the
nurturing of critical literacies in adult migrants. After a discussion of the
available international surveys of adult literacy, their results, criteria,
and limitations, Chapter 2 closes with a brief summary of adult migrant
education in Finland.

Marcin Sosiński authors Chapter 3, focusing on the psycholinguistic
perspective on reading. After an introductory overview of the research and its
current limitations, we are presented with an analysis of the array of mental
skills underpinning the act of reading, as well as several models attempting
to describe the processes involved when deploying these skills. The author
then moves on to examine writing systems, scripts, and their effect on
reading. This is followed by a discussion of phonemic and phonological
awareness, how reading depends on both, their development, and how this
development is affected by the writing system readers become literate in.
Sosiński then introduces research that explores these relationships with a
focus on early reading, first examining children, then examining non-literate
adults. As elsewhere in the book, the relative dearth of research on the
latter group is emphasized. Chapter 3 closes by presenting possible
applications of the preceding ideas and approaches that can nurture reading
comprehension in readers at advanced levels. In both cases, the applications
are usefully examined in terms of concrete examples of how they might look in
the classroom and are accompanied by a description of several methods
available to teachers.

Andreas Rohde, Kerstin Chlubek, Pia Holtappels, Kim-Sarah Schick, and Johanna
Schnuch dedicate Chapter 4 to examining vocabulary. They begin by detailing
what it means to know a word and to have vocabulary, discussing how the
different conceptual aspects inform our understanding of a given word, as well
as the possible relationships between words. Moreover, they survey what
constitutes vocabulary knowledge and how the mind records and structures it.
Thereafter, research into the process of learning words is presented and
discussed. First, they focus on what children do as they acquire new words and
what constrains them. Then they move on to discuss research examining the
principles and mental processes underlying vocabulary development, noting
different theoretical perspectives active in the field. A rich discussion of
learning strategies used by learners to develop vocabulary follows, segueing
into a closing survey of the implications for vocabulary instruction that can
be adduced from the research and concepts discussed earlier in the chapter.

Chapter 5, written by Martha Young-Scholten and Rola Naeb, reviews and
discusses research on the acquisition and assessment of morphosyntax from a
generative perspective. Two questions guide the chapter: “Why don’t learners
always learn what they are taught?” and “How do learners learn what is not
explicitly taught?”. With these two questions in mind, as well as the
perspective of both learner and linguist/teacher, Young-Scholten and Naeb
discuss work in child language acquisition, SLA research, stages of
morphosyntax acquisition, as well as stage-independent factors influencing
morphosyntax acquisition and methods of assessment. The chapter presents a
variety of competing hypotheses and discusses both their merits and
implications for the pedagogical efforts that guide the book as a whole.

The sixth chapter is authored by Belma Haznedar and focuses on bilingualism
per se, with particular attention paid to the bilingualism inherent to most
experiences of migration. The chapter begins by emphasizing the importance,
particularly for teachers, of understanding migrants’ bilingual experience and
specifying just what exactly is meant by the term “bilingualism”. Haznedar
also draws attention to heritage languages and their learners, who are often
the children of migrant communities. The author moves on to another issue
affecting migrant communities: the nature of language change, linguistic
diversity, and code-switching, how these are understood by research and the
general public, and the importance of both to the teacher or tutor working
with adult migrant communities and their children. After a focused discussion
of research into bilingual children, the chapter examines both the cognitive
and neurological aspects of bilingualism, providing brief overviews of the
history of research and discussing more contemporary findings. Against this
backdrop, Haznedar provides an examination of typical and atypical development
in bilingual children and how these can be distinguished, which is followed by
a detailed review of bilingualism in several educational contexts.

Chapter 7 is authored by Nancy Faux and Susan Watson. It focuses entirely on
the practical side of teaching and tutoring adult learners with limited
literacy and formal education. After briefly conceptualizing literacy by
drawing on research and referencing prior chapters, Watson and Faux dive into
an extensive discussion of numerous aspects relevant to teachers and tutors
working with this population. They examine what it means to be a literacy
learner and their specific choices of terminology, before writing in detail
about class preparation, starting with but going beyond materials and design.
The chapter covers key goals such as developing print and phonemic awareness,
as well as the challenges of teaching multilevel classrooms and designing
meaningful learner assessments. 

EVALUATION

This book is a welcome addition to any bookshelf dedicated to language
teaching, even if you do not work with adult migrants with limited schooling.
It is surprisingly compact, and its appended glossary of key research terms
marks it as a deliberately helpful and quick reference both for linguists
unfamiliar with the subject and non-linguists looking for a linguistically
informed resource to support their classroom efforts. It may seem strange to
assert that it is useful even if you do not work with adults, but it is simply
an odd consequence of the state of research into literacy development of
adults with limited schooling; because this population is understudied, the
authors often reference research into different populations and highlight
aspects that are relevant to working with adults. 

That, however, is an unintended consequence. In terms of its stated purpose
and target audience, this volume is excellent. It provides a fairly cohesive
overview of several distinct linguistic aspects involved in literacy
instruction and adult second language acquisition. A focus on practical
classroom applications threads the chapters together, even the most
theoretical ones, and the final chapter is dedicated exclusively to several
classroom situations and strategies, all of which are covered in compact, but
useful detail. Basic linguistic concepts and state of the art research from
different linguistic disciplines are presented clearly, while key concepts are
capitalized to indicate their inclusion in the volume’s glossary. Moreover,
the theoretical and research material presented is always accompanied by a
discussion of its implications for the classroom. In addition, several
chapters contain either direct references or links to useful websites, tools,
and research that teachers can readily access and apply. I briefly volunteered
as a German teacher for refugees a few years ago, refugees with little
schooling facing a triple barrier: the German language barrier, the classroom
culture barrier and, to top it off, we also lacked a common language with
them. I was completely out of my depth and can safely say that a resource like
this book would have gone a long way in helping me teach effectively.

At times, though, the book’s length felt like a small weakness instead of a
strength. In Chapter 2, for example, the conclusion reads “[…] we have
discussed the roles of various social contexts for language and literacy
development and the value of literacy in different societies and historical
periods” but while the first part of the statement is certainly true, the
discussion of the value of literacy in different societies and historical
periods does not range as widely as I had expected. The authors talk briefly
about the role of the Reformation in the rise of literacy within Protestant
Europe, contrast this development with later, similar effects stemming from
the second Vatican Council, and make general remarks about post-industrialized
countries, democracies, and non-democratic political regimes before moving on
to a different topic. The only specifics are European, the relevant passage
fairly brief, and the political categories mentioned fairly vague. A longer
book might have had room for more detail about different continents and
countries, as well as a more in-depth treatment. Nevertheless, I must concede
that this point is more of a personal disappointment than a true flaw in terms
of the volume’s purpose. It aims to be a source for teachers and researchers
working with adult migrants with limited formal education and a guide for
finding research efforts. This volume clearly hits the mark. I would gladly
recommend it to all those actively seeking to deepen our understanding of this
understudied population, the challenges they face, and the strengths they can
bring to the table.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

I hold an MA in General Linguistics. For my MA research, I focused on
discourse analysis and the multilingualism of refugees in Europe, informed by
my interest in language education, language policy, applied linguistics,
refugee studies, sociolinguistics and multilingualism. I seek a career engaged
with these areas, focusing on research, language education, and/or
translation.





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