Development and demonstration of metalinguistic awareness in adult ESL learners with emergent literacy

Abstract

Many U.S. adult schools currently aim to create academic and career pathways by implementing higher order thinking and metalinguistic application in their ESL curriculum. However, this ‘ability to reflect on and manipulate the structural features of language’ poses a significant hurdle to adult ESL learners newly learning to read and write, as typical metalinguistic measurements – including written journals and grammaticality judgement tests – require significant levels of literacy. Furthermore, L2 adult learners developing first-time literacy typically have difficulty performing oral-based metalinguistic tasks, such as segmenting words and sentences, concluding (L1) literacy influences (L2) metalinguistic awareness .This study argues that metalinguistic awareness in L2 learners with emergent literacy can be demonstrated via alternative measures. Using a discourse analytic approach, the researcher leverages transcripts to underscore six learners’ engagement with metalinguistic reflection, such as attunement to morphosyntactic and semantic relationships, despite emergent levels of both English oracy and literacy. Utilizing a sociocognitive framework of second language acquisition, the study calls attention to the role of social interaction in developing metalinguistic insights, and the ways knowledge is collectively constructed among the participants.

Keywords:

• Metalinguistic reflection
• metalinguistic awareness
• adult ESL
• second language acquisition
• emergent literacy
• LESLLA

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the students who participated in this project, as well as Vaidehi Ramanathan, Julia Menard-Warwick, and Claudia Sánchez-Gutiérrez, all faculty at the University of California in Davis, for their guidance and feedback on this research study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisa Gonzalves

Lisa Gonzalves holds a PhD in linguistics from the University of California at Davis, and currently works as an adult education administrator in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her research lies at the intersection of linguistics, second language acquisition, literacy studies, and critical policy studies, covering areas of L2 metalinguistic awareness, language assessment, learner perspectives, first-time literacy development, and pedagogical practices. She currently serves on the board for Literacy Education and Second Language Acquisition in Adults (LESLLA).