Emerging literacy in adult second-language learners: A synthesis of research findings in the Netherlands

Abstract

This article synthesises the findings of research on the acquisition of literacy by unschooled adult immigrants in the Netherlands. It addresses studies on three main topics: the metalinguistic skills of these adults, their development of word recognition and predictors of success in reading. The first study compared the conceptions of spoken and written language of 25 unschooled adults with those of young pre-reading children and low-educated adult readers. The study revealed that the metalinguistic skills of unschooled adults differed more from those of low-educated adult readers than from pre-reading children. The second was a case study which focused on the reading development of adult L2 beginners and revealed that their development of word-recognition skills confirms stage models of beginning reading in which acquiring the alphabetical principle is a key step. In the third study, the literacy skills of roughly 300 adult L2 literacy students were assessed and related to their background characteristics and to instructional practices. The study revealed considerable variation in success and time needed to develop reading. Success was related to student characteristics (age, prior education, attendance and contact with speakers of Dutch) and to instructional practices (time spent on small-group or individual work, use of multimedia and portfolio, and use of students’ first language as a resource).

Keywords:

• Adult L2 literacy
• Development of word-recognition skills
• Metalinguistic awareness
• Predictors of success

Notes

¹ The adult non-literates had been provided with basic oral Dutch vocabulary and functional phrases, and with the first letters and written words. The children had been in kindergarten for nearly two years, during which time pre-reading games and listening to picture-book stories are common practices.

² The print-related tasks and discussions revealed that adult and young non-readers did not know exactly how writing represents language (Kurvers, 2002; see also, Kurvers, van Hout, & Vallen, 2006). They did not know, for instance, that every word of a sentence that was read aloud was actually represented in writing.

³ The syllogism is often used to investigate logical or deductive reasoning, but here it is treated as a metalinguistic task because solving a syllogism requires awareness of inter-sentential relationships; the conclusions are derived from its premises only, in isolation from real-life situations (Ong, 1982, p. 53; Olson, 1994).

⁴ For Berber the guidelines for writing in Roman script were used.

⁵ L1 literates in the Roman alphabet were placed in regular second-language classes.

⁶ The learners included in the study were those who attended most classes and agreed to participate.

⁷ Three students on the non-intensive course who had been followed longitudinally could not be included here because they only read a few words; their strategies would have been fallen in the first bar of visual recognition/guessing.

⁸ See Stockman (2006) on use of portfolios for learners to demonstrate acquisition of real-life literacy functions for assessing their progress. The portfolio offers both students and teachers insight into the learning process and students’ progress and offers the student possibilities to practise in authentic extra-classroom situations whose products contribute to the portfolio.