Phonological awareness in English second-language learners: language-specific differences between Southern Sotho and English affecting the acquisition of early reading skills in English

[摘要] English: Article 1: In order to examine the development of phonological awareness skills in a firstand in a second language, it is important first to focus on the significance of earlyreading skills (such as phonological awareness skills) and how these supportbeginner reading. Early reading skills in alphabetic languages include theknowledge that printed words carry messages, that words have an internal soundstructure (phonological awareness) and that symbols more or less representsounds in words. The development of phonological awareness skills as well asdirect instruction in letter-sound correspondences therefore help to acquirecrucial early reading skills such as sight-word reading. Converging researchfindings indicate that phonological awareness is regarded as the single mostimportant factor predicting reading ability as well as reading disability during theearly literacy phase.Phonological awareness is part of larger construct known as phonologicalprocessing. Research results indicate that phonological processing representstwo dimensions, namely coding and awareness. Phonological coding processesinclude phonetic and phonological re-coding in short- and long-term memory.Awareness refers to an oral phonological processing ability and indicates anawareness of all sizes of sound units in a language. Phonological awarenessskills refer to the ability to perform a variety of graded tasks, such as segmenting,blending, identifying and manipulating sound units in words. Implicit awarenessof sounds in a language develops spontaneously as part of normal languagedevelopment. As a child acquires more words (vocabulary) explicit awareness ofsound units develop at the level of the word, syllable and the onset-rime. Themost sophisticated level of phonological awareness will be awareness of individual phonemes in words and the ability to manipulate them in words.Explicit phoneme awareness will only be present once reading instruction starts.The developmental sequence of phonological awareness skills in languagesrepresenting transparent orthographies (e.g. Southern Sotho) follow thelanguage-universal pattern, i.e. development at word, syllable, onset-rime andphoneme levels, but may be easier due to the direct sound-symbol relationshipthat exists between phonemes and their corresponding symbols. The greatestchallenge for African learners, however, will be the written representation ofwords due to the disjunctive (Nguni languages) or conjunctive way (Sotholanguages) in which words are represented in these languages. The way thatwords are represented in African languages cause problems to identify wordboundaries in African languages. Southern Sotho beginner readers thereforeneed to develop early reading skills that will support not only reading but alsospelling and writing skills in their L1. Well-developed linguistic skills in the 11transfer as metalinguistic skills to support the acquisition of similar skills in a L2.The development of phonological awareness skills in English as L1 may be moredifficult due to the many irregular sound-symbol correspondences that exist inwords in English. Segmentation and manipulation skills are the best predictors ofearly reading ability in English. The development of phonological awarenessskills in English as a second language will show similarities but also significantdifferences to the development of phonological awareness skills in SouthernSotho as L1. Language-specific differences (phonological, morphological andorthographic) that exist between languages significantly influence thedevelopment of reading skills in a L2, in particular, if the two languages displayno similarities. ESL learners may subsequently develop phonological awarenessskills at a different rate, in a different order as well as achieving different levels ofphonological awareness when transferring to English as L2. Additional factorssuch as oral proficiency, vocabulary and background knowledge also contributeto the problems that ESL learners experience to becoming literate in English asL2.It is therefore recommended that literacy instruction should initially focus on L1reading skills because of its positive impact on the development of secondlanguage reading skills. Learners should develop a wide range of phonologicalawareness skills through oral language activities to reach the crucial stage of'reading readiness' in order to start their reading instruction in English.Article 2: Research studies investigating the universal and language-specificcharacteristics of literacy development found that phonological awareness skillsmake a significant contribution to the acquisition of early literacy skills inlanguages with transparent, as well as in languages with opaque orthographies.However, there are fundamental differences between African languages andlanguages such as English which have European roots. Language-specificdifferences that exist between the L1 and the L2 impact on the acquisition ofearly reading skills such as phonological awareness. The following languagespecificdifferences between Southern Sotho and English affecting theacquisition of early reading skills were identified:o OriginSouthern Sotho is part of the language subfamily Sotho, which originated fromthe Niger-Congo language group of Africa. English, part of the Germanic subgrouporiginated from the Indo-European language family. Southern Sotho andEnglish, two of the eleven official languages of South Africa, display significantlanguage-specific differences due to their genetic classification. Thesedifferences will impact on the development of literacy skills of Southern Sotholearners transferring to English as medium of instruction.o Structural differencesSouthern Sotho is classified as a synthetic language, and words displayagglutinative characteristics in word formation. Structural analysis often precedesor accompanies the teaching of sight-word reading during the early literacyphase. The identification of word boundaries is also a problem area in Africanlanguages. Confusion with regard to word boundaries will impact on thedevelopment of phonological awareness skills in Southern Sotho. English, alsoclassified as a synthetic language, represent a combination of the isolating,agglutinative and fusional morphological varieties in word formation. Words inEnglish also display many language-specific word structures, e.g. initialconsonant clusters, consonant blends and rhyme that are absent in SouthernSotho. Negative transfer from Southern Sotho to English will influence thedevelopment of phonological awareness skills in English as well as the ability toperform phonological awareness tasks in English.o Phonological differencesThe phonemic inventory of a language is language-specific as it contains thespecific sounds of the language. The development of phonological awareness ina L2 may be more difficult if languages display few similarities in respect of theirphonemic inventories. The different phonemic inventories of Southern Sotho andEnglish may lead to many phonological transfer errors, such as allophonic,phonetic and distributional errors when Southern Sotho ESL learners transfer toEnglish as L2.o Prosodic differences.Prosodic differences between Southern Sotho and English influence the ability toperform phonological awareness tasks in English, such as segmentation ofwords into syllables, onset-rimes and phonemes. For example, tone in SouthernSotho has a semantic function. By contrast, in English, stress has a semanticfunction and is used to distinguish between nouns and verbs. Pronunciation ofthe L1 influences phonological processing abilities such as phonological recodingin long-term memory. Errors in phonological re-coding lead to retrievalmismatches and will result in poor phonological awareness skills in English asL2.o Orthographic differencesSouthern Sotho represents a transparent orthography using the disjunctive wayof writing words. English on the other hand, is represented by an opaqueorthography employing the conjunctive way of writing words. These differenceswill impact on the development of phonological awareness skills as well asdecoding skills in Southern Sotho and in English. It is therefore recommendedthat: •Language educators should obtain as much information as possibleregarding the pronunciation system of their learners' first language, andcompare it to the sound system of English.•Educators of ESL learners must acquire a broad repertoire of skills forteaching the grapheme-phoneme relationships in English to learners whomay be unfamiliar with the English sound system.•Southern Sotho learners should develop phonological awareness bymeans of activities that support not only reading but also writing skills inorder to improve all language skills in English.Article 3: Research studies indicate that phonological awareness in words in the primarylanguage is the most important predictor of reading ability as well as readingdisability during the early literacy phase. However, language-specific differences(e.g. phonological, morphological and orthographic differences at word level)between languages seem to influence the correlation between phonologicalawareness and reading ability. To determine the influence of language-specificdifferences between Southern Sotho and English on the above-mentionedcorrelation the following research questions were raised:�?Will language-specific differences between Southern Sotho and Englishaffect the level of phonological awareness skills of Southern Sotholearners in English as L2?�?Will language-specific differences impact on the correlation betweenphonological awareness skills and sight-word reading in Southern Sothoand in English as L2?One hundred and twenty grade 3 Southern Sotho learners aged 9 to 10 yearsparticipated. Approximately sixty learners were assigned to two groups: mothertongueinstruction and instruction through the medium of English during theFoundation Phase. To address the first research question, both groups weretested on phonological awareness tests in Southern Sotho and in English todetermine their level of phonological awareness in their mother tongue and inEnglish as L2. A sentence segmentation test was also introduced to test theability of Southern Sotho learners to segment sentences into words as this aproblem area in African languages. The result from this test revealed that only14% of Southern Sotho learners could correctly identify words in sentences intheir L1, and 44% of ESL Southern Sotho learners could correctly identify thenumber of words in English sentences. This basic linguistic concept must beaddressed during the early literacy phase in Southern Sotho and in English asL2.The results from the phonological awareness tests in Southern Sotho and inEnglish indicated that Southern Sotho learners in both groups perform at thephonemic level, i.e. at the intermediate level between syllable awareness and themost sophisticated level of phoneme manipulation. Both groups had the lowestscores on phonological awareness tasks that represent linguistic structures thatare absent in Southern Sotho. This is a clear indication that language-specificdifferences between Southern Sotho and English significantly influence the levelof phonological awareness skills in English as L2. The results from the sight-wordreading tests revealed that although both groups of Southern Sotho learnersachieved the same level of phonological awareness, Southern Sotho mothertonguelearners performed better on the sight-word reading tests in their L1 thantheir counterparts in English as L2. This may be due to the fact that it is easier toachieve early reading success in phonetic languages.To address the second research question two correlations were drawn to test therelationship between phonological awareness and an aspect of reading ability,namely sight-word reading in both languages.o Correlation 1: Results from Southern Sotho learners in the SPAT and theSEPAT were correlated with results obtained from standardised readingand spelling tests in both languages.o Correlation 2: The results from Southern Sotho learners in the oral subtestsof the SEPAT and the SPAT were correlated with their results in thenon-word reading and spelling tests of the SEPAT and the SPAT.The results from Correlation 1 and 2 indicate that for both groups thecorrelation coefficient is between 0.4 - 0.6, indicating a moderate to a highcorrelation between the two variables. This is however, not an indication of acausal relationship. Additional factors, e.g. in this study, language-specificdifferences between the L1 and L2 also contribute to the relationshipbetween the variables.It is therefore recommended that:•Direct and specific instruction is given regarding the sound-symbolrelationship that exists in words in English (phonics instruction).•The mother tongue should be used as the medium of instruction for aslong as possible in order to develop cognitive academic skills in alllearners.•A standardised Southern Sotho phonological awareness test isdeveloped as a diagnostic test to identify Southern Sotho learners whoare risk for future reading problems.

[发布机构] University of the Free State