Prebeginning or preliterate learners present a unique challenge to the ESL teacher accustomed to students who can write the Latin alphabet.

Students may speak a language that uses a non-Latin alphabet such as Arabic, Chinese or Japanese, or they may be nonliterate in their own language. In some cases — Russian, for example some of the reading skills may transfer even though the alphabet is different.

Should we delay communication functions while teaching the writing system? Or should the learners first study by listening and repeating without using the written language?

There are several ways for the instructor faced with this problem to develop skill-building exercises to aid the nonliterate students in the class without delaying communicative functions. Examples of visual discrimination, memory and sequencing exercises will be shown and discussed below. The place of whole word recognition in a mixed holistic approach will also be examined.

Basic literacy is essential to the learning process. Both reading and writing are active skills that aid language acquisition and reinforce speaking skills.

Note the following about students in an adult ESL literacy class from Diana Keathley, language services manager in Oklahoma: "Some are highly educated and well-trained in their home country, but they have broken language skills, so they take menial jobs. English is the difference for them."

Some learners of ESL whose L1 has a non-Latin alphabet such as Iranians may write out new words in phonetic transcription just as English learners of Farsi or Arabic write out the words in English letters. However, this type of transcription will delay the acquisition of the written code. Literacy is an essential aspect of communication.

The following statement is from the ACTFL National Standards: "Communication is at the heart of second language study, whether the communication takes place face-to-face, in writing, or across centuries through the reading of literature."

Using photographs

Photography has been suggested as a way to begin literacy training. Students can use photographs to analyze texts and organize their thoughts with knowing an extensive amount of vocabulary, and they can engage in storytelling as well.

They can sort photographs by age, gender, type of picture or any other criteria. They can guess when and where the pictures were taken and for what purpose. Then, they can take their own pictures and make a narrative. Working with pictures is good preparation for writing assignments that will come later in their ESL courses.

  • It is an excellent way to provide differentiation for English-language learners.
  • It relieves pressure from reluctant students or striving readers and writers by providing the opportunity to read and analyze photographs instead of traditional print texts.
  • It represents a culturally responsive teaching method as it demonstrates a way to welcome all voices in the classroom to be heard and valued (Literacy through photography).

Next, a holistic approach that emphasizes vocabulary development in context works well.

It involves all the skills of language, not just the recitation of the alphabet. Students learn to recognize whole words in a meaningful context while learning phonetic skills.

They approach the script on either a whole word (or sight word) and a phonological level. The two subskills of phonetic decoding and sight word recognition work together and learners should be encouraged to apply both strategies.

In teaching ESL literacy, teachers should approach the writing and reading problem on the same two fronts. The alphabet can be taught along with whole words "sight words" that are in daily use in the classroom. These large language units are learned as cognitive wholes via visual and auditory channels.

High-frequency words relevant to the learners' activities make good sight words. These words include pronouns, greetings, official words used in applications, warning signs and professions all make good sight words. These are words that students recognize instantly without having to stop to figure them out.

As the students add to their sight-word repertoire, they will improve their skills and be able to move on to phonetic decoding. Other strategies include recognizing word patterns, related words such as important/importance, context and bound morphemes such as un- as in unusual and -ly as in slowly.

Sight words

Forms:

  • Name
  • Address
  • Student Number
  • Telephone Number

Signs:

  • Men
  • Women
  • STOP
  • Railroad Crossing
  • Post Office
  • EXIT

Warnings:

  • Danger
  • Poison
  • Caution

Students learn to recognize the whole unit as they work on the decoding process. Teachers should work with meaningful units of language such as these high-frequency words listed above.

Choose words that are already in active use even if they are not on the official vocabulary list. While practicing the words, the learners begin to associate the letters with the sounds, and they begin to recognize familiar words in different contexts. For example, they may learn STOP in an exercise on traffic signs and then may meet the word on an exam or see the word again in an advertisement, for example: Stop smoking now!

As the class is working on the sight words and conversation skills necessary for prebeginners, the instructor begins to introduce the four literacy subskills of visual discrimination, visual memory, visual sequencing and active vocabulary.

Someone totally nonliterate would work on basic same/different exercises using numbers, letters and words. Students look to the number on the left and track to the right. Each exercise should have between 10 and 20 items:

Exercise 1: Same/Different: Mark the number that is different:

  • 3 2 2 2
  • 8 8 6 8
  • 21 21 21 22
  • 12 13 12 12
  • 88 88 86 88

Exercise 2: Same/Different: Mark the numbers that are the same:

  • 54 55 54 53
  • 14 14 13 41
  • 65 56 65 61
  • 101 102 111 101
  • 83 38 83 82

These exercises also help students learn visual sequencing. They are trained to look to the left and track to the right along the line of numbers. From numbers the exercises move on to letters and then words such as these preliteracy exercises:

Exercise 1: Copy the alphabet:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

a _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Exercise 2: Mark the letter that is different (Use 10-15 items per exercise):

  • A S A A
  • F D D D
  • T T T Y
  • O P O O

Exercise 3: Mark the letters that are the same:

  • A A S P
  • B C J B
  • R T R Y
  • T Y O Y

The students are training their visual memory and working on their left-to-right visual sequencing. The students should be able to name the letters. It is easier for the learners to discriminate if they know the names and sounds of the letters, and it makes it easier for the teacher to communicate with them as well.

Next, the class can move on to whole words. Each exercise should have at least 10 items:

Exercise 4: Mark the word that is different:

  • name lame name name
  • run sun sun sun
  • Monday Monday Sunday Monday
  • go so go go

Exercise 5: Mark the words that are the same:

  • June July June soon
  • cat hat mat cat
  • call call ball tall
  • is his his it

These simple exercises can pave the way to more complex ones where the students begin reading and writing sentence-level discourse. The instructor should try to use the key words in realistic situations and communicative activities, otherwise the exercises may degenerate into mere list reciting. Students need to read what they have written in preparation for reading longer passages.

Have students engage all the language systems for learning-auditory memory, visual memory, sight-word recognition, visual discrimination and sound-symbol correspondence.

The sight words give the students something to work with right away while they are learning how to decode them phonetically. Students work with familiar words that are in their active vocabulary, limited though it may be.

New information is related to information already stored in memory. They graft the incoming material onto what they already know as their literacy skills increase. Students learn to read by reading, and by reading what they have written since words are best learned in context.