What is CAH and what are the differences between it and CLI? How can some of the concepts talked about in the Chapter (Brown Ch. 9) be used in the classroom, e.g., error analysis, CLI, Stages of learner language development, fossilization.
Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH) states that the first (L1) is an obstacle in the acquisition of second language (L2) and by analyzing the two languages one may predict the difficulties a learner will have. On the contrary, Cross-linguistic Influence (CLI) implies the importance that the first language (L1) brings into an acquisition of a second language (L2) yet facilitates and interferes on both languages. The main difference is that CAH sees L1 as an obstacle while CLI emphasizes on the implementation of the L1.
Error analysis – As a Kinder teacher, my students write a journal daily. They write about whatever they want: a book they read, what they did the night before, supper, etc. They select their topic. My instruction is 90% Spanish and 10% English; therefore, my students’ English is not socially or academically suitable yet. They write implementing their Spanish phonics; which I accept. For instance, my best student wrote: “I guent two d Sea World wit mai mader.” What I love about his writing is that he used not only Spanish phonics, he also wrote Sea World, I and two correctly. I then replied to his journal with corrections. I wrote: “I am glad that you went to Sea World with your mother.” This is an excellent way to applying errors and correcting students without intimidation. I do not preoccupy with L2 errors at this grade level. On the other hand, I encourage them to write, even if they utilize their first language phonics. I am just glad that they are not going through a “silent period,” or refuse to learn English. I do agree that as they go to upper grades, the errors should be corrected in a more technical way and must not go unnoticed.
PoLo
3 comments:
I am happy to see that I am going in the right pace. For the first two years I would do journal writing but when I would write in it I would praise them for their writing and then I would tell them "Well, now lets see how it would be written in a storybook," and I would write it underneath their writing. I did this a lot in kinder but then I moved up with my kids and in first grade I did exactly what you did. It was amazing at the results and responses they gave. They would get excited to get responses back from the teacher and see how it was written for next time they would write it correctly. I like you just responded to what they wrote positively and I tried to use the text they used to show them the correct grammar. I would also question them a lot so they could add more to it. One more thing I did do was bring in tons of kid-friendly illustrative dicctionaries so they could look up words. At the end of the year they were all helping each other and making creative stories.
Polo,
As kinder teachers, we must encourge writing. I want my students to feel successful in their writing. One of the many strategies I use in my classroom is interactive writing. Also, I agree with you, at this point, we do not have to worry about L2 errors in kinder.
Polo,
Thanks for your comment on my blog. However, you may be interested in the results to the mistakes question that the class gave on the questionnaire I distributed. We will be looking at that on Thursday.
Carol
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