11
Sep
2009
English Tutoring
ESL & Tutoring
ESL, or the study of English as a Second Language, is a booming industry around the world due to the prevalence of English in international business, law and culture. Whether this will remain the case as it has since the rise of the British Empire followed by the ‘American Century’, with the rise of China and India as emergent superpowers is uncertain. However, for the present the study of English by those for whom it is not their native language, is not only a growing industry but is also increasingly gaining the attention of academics.
The analysis of ESL study and teaching covers everything from cooperative learning, plagiarism as a cultural phenomenon, the effectiveness of written feedback by ESL tutors, and the effectiveness of phonological learning. Below a study is briefly outlined on the non-verbal components of ESL tutoring.
Tutoring as an “Embodied Activity”
Hassan Belhiah had an article published in the Journal of Pragmatics in 2009 (Vol 41, Iss 4), entitled ‘Tutoring as an embodied activity: How speech, gaze and body orientation are coordinated to conduct ESL tutorial business’. Her study analyses tutorial openings and closings based on data from real-time dialogues involving native American English-speaking tutors and non-native speaker students. The focus of her research was to study the extent to which conversation participants’ vocal and non-vocal actions contributed to the co-construction of ESL discourse as a collaborative activity. Her study was based on the findings of other academics as well, showing the gaze patterns can be used to indicate commitment and engagement, to elicit or show recipiency, and to ensure a smooth flow of conversation. It can also be used to show disengagement, through a variety of mechanisms.
Her findings showed that in the coordination of talk (eg turn-taking), gaze and body orientation there was little difference between participants, though it might be expected since they were from different cultural backgrounds. This is significant because, she claims, that for two people to communicate effectively it is not sufficient, “and perhaps not even necessary” (p841), that they share the same grammar.
7
Aug
2009
Learning a second language
Learning a Second Language
There are many benefits to learning a second language. Being bilingual, or in other words being able to use two languages with nearly equal fluency, has the advantage of increased job opportunities, cultural awareness, ease of communicating while travelling, and gaining perspective on the mother tongue. Studies actually show that the earlier children learn a second language the better their cognitive abilities. It makes it easier to learn another language later on as they have already grasped the concept that things can be labelled in more than one way (i.e. in different languages).
Bilingual or multilingual speakers actually outnumber monolingual speakers throughout the world, whether through having parents from different language backgrounds, communities without a dominant language, compulsory foreign language education at school, or the increasing need to be able to communicate across cultures in our globalised world. Many jobs actually require a second language.
Bilingualism
There are several types of bilinguals depending on the balance between the competence of both languages. Compound bilinguals are usually fluent in both languages and equate words and phrases in both languages to the same concept (i.e. having two words for the same concept). For coordinate bilinguals, each word in each language has its own concept or association. Both coordinate and compound bilinguals are highly proficient in both languages, though one may still be dominant over the other.
Even if a child learns both languages since infancy through having bilingual parents, it is likely that overall their language ability may be less adequate not having developed neither one nor the other sufficiently. In other cases, one language may be used in certain contexts (e.g. school, work, or shopping), while the other language may only be used other particular contexts (e.g. home or travel). It is very rare for a person to be equally capable in two languages and be highly proficient in both, and exceptionally rare for a person to be so with more than two languages.