Post 120: Acculturation and Language Learning

Post 120: Acculturation and Language Learning

Acculturation. Language Learning. Stage 1. The new culture is almost inaccessible. Frustration is constant. The new language is very difficult to master. Transgenerational conflict is evident when children learn faster than parents. Stage 2. The new culture is functionally understood. The new language is beginning to make communicative sense. Stage 3. Adaptation and blending is underway with subtle changes taking place. With literacy in one's own language, literacy develops in second language. Stage 4. Aspects of one's life are becoming bicultural. Native proficiency is almost achieved. Stage 5. The second culture feels “comfortable” although traditional values continue to be important. The second language is both equally dominant and proficient.
Table taken from Marlarz, Lynn, Bilingual Educational: Effective Programming for Language Minority Students. . According to Krashen's Interaction Theory, all children learn their L1 by interacting with parents, and other relatives as they are growing up. Children learn L1 usage through interaction with aunts, uncles, cousins, childhood friends, and grandparents. Children also learn the culture of that L1. As children become immersed in the culture of that L1, children pick up the beliefs, customs, way of life, and way of speaking from that L1 culture. When adults enter an ESL classroom, they have been immersed even longer in that L1 culture, so ESL adult students then are fully fluent in the ways of their L1 culture since language and culture are inseparable according to Ovando.  Acculturation is the process by which a ELL acquires a new language and as he acquires that L2 language, he also gradually acquires the L2 culture. The more the ESL student learns the L2, the more he absorbs the L2 culture.  Therefore, beginning ESL students find the L2 culture inaccessible and frustrating because they cannot understand the L2 and have not yet interacted freely with the L2 language or culture. The Interaction theory of Krashen states the more the learner interacts in that language and with the people of a given language, the more he learns the culture, mores of that culture and language.
Stage 1 in this chart is when the ESL student first arrives in the L2 country with no English, and no way to interact with other L2 speakers. It is my job to teach ELL English either through bilingual methods, communicative approach or English only to acculturate the learner into the L2 culture. By the time, the ELL reaches an advanced level of English learning, he/she also becomes proficient in the L2 culture. In Stage 2, the ESL student has functional knowledge of the L2 society because they have been living and working in the L2 culture for a few years. They know just enough functional survival English to get by. I then would teach them Survival English from the book, Side by Side. I would teach them survival English such as, 'What is your address?', "Where do you come from?', What is your Social Security Number?' What is your Driver License number?. Sometimes these adult students would bring along their children to learn English with them. Interestingly, the children would learn the English much faster than the adults.  I would see the children translate English into Spanish, Chinese or whatever the L1 for the parent. I remember seeing a 2nd grade kid teach his parent the American alphabet. Then the 2nd grader would walk up to me and say, "I learned the English alphabet last year in first grade, so now I am teaching the alphabet to my mother' she would say proudly. Intergenerational conflicts occur when Americanized children disagree with their parents on family rules and mores. (I will talk about intergenerational conflicts between parents and children due to language and cultural differences in another blog post.). Acculturation occurs once the ELL reaches near native like proficiency in English. It is at this stage that the ELL truly becomes bilingual and bicultural.  This is what happened with me growing up. My English became my dominant language as I became more acculturated to English and I truly consider myself as American even if I look Chinese.