Adult Biliteracy

Sociocultural and Programmatic Responses

Klaudia M. Rivera, Ana Huerta-Macias

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351577441
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Offering an in-depth view of adult literacy/biliteracy by merging two fields—adult literacy and English as a Second Language—this volume brings to the forefront linguistic, demographic, sociocultural, workforce, familial, academic, and other issues surrounding the development of bilingualism and biliteracy by adults in the U.S. As such, it helps to fill a gap in the research literature on language development among adults which has traditionally placed more emphasis on the development of oral English. Most important, it brings to light issues that are integral to the success of immigrant populations in the U.S.—issues that politicians, policymakers, educators, and employers must place at the top of their agendas as immigration reform is being formulated and implemented.
Adult Biliteracy: Sociocultural and Programmatic Responses critically analyzes the assumptions that normalize monolingual and mono-literate approaches to adult education and to the teaching of English to immigrants and other language minorities in the U.S. By integrating theoretical principles with their applications, it furthers the discussion of the effects that bilingualism and biliteracy have on adult instruction. Applying research-based theoretical principles to the contexts in which adults learn, work, engage in civic participation, raise their children, and come together in community, this volume sheds light on the multiple ways in which adults use their first and second languages in the diverse sociocultural and educational contexts in which they function and learn in two languages.
Highly relevant for researchers, professionals, and students concerned with second-language education, adult education, and applied linguistics, this book will particularly interest those whose work focuses on the education of immigrant and national language minorities.

PART I
Adult Biliteracy

Perspectives and Policies

1

Adult Bilingualism and Biliteracy in the United States

Theoretical Perspectives

Klaudia M. Rivera and Ana Huerta-Macías

The Immigrant Profile

The infiux of immigrants to the United States over the past few decades has had a profound impact on the country. The dramatic increase in immigration in recent years has impacted the demographic, economic, educational, and linguistic arenas in this country. The immigrant population is growing 6.5 times faster than the native-born population. The Census in 2000 found 31.1 million immigrants in the United States—more than triple the 9.6 million in 1970 and more than double the 14.1 million in 1980 (Population Resource Center, 2002a). Additionally, estimates are that undocumented immigrants numbered 9.0 million in 2003, with Mexican unauthorized immigration alone growing at about 500,000 immigrants per year (Immigration Facts, 2003). Not surprisingly, Hispanic immigrants, designated as Spanish speakers, accounted for 45% of the 25.7 million increase in the Hispanic population growth in the United States between 1970 and 2000 (Suro & Passel, 2003). While the largest number of immigrants in the United States comes from Latin America (51%), large numbers were born in Asia (25.5%) and Europe (15.3%), with the balance of 8.1% born in other countries (National Institute for Literacy, n.d.).

There is great disparity in terms of economic status between immigrants and native-born populations. Almost 17% of those who are foreign born live below the poverty line, compared to 11% of the native-born population. The poverty rate, however, is lower for European and Asian immigrants (9 and 13%, respectively) than for Latin American immigrants, which stands at 22% (Population Resource Center, 2002b).

Immigrants also have lower levels of formal education than do the native-born populations. Estimates are that 33% of immigrants lack a high school diploma. The gure, however, varies for foreign-born immigrants from different areas and waves. Only 5% of African immigrants, for instance, lack a high school diploma, while the gure is closer to 20% for immigrants from Asia, Europe, and South America. However, the picture is actually more complex when one includes native-born immigrant populations who also lack a high school diploma or General Educational Development (GED). The National Center for Education Statistics (2002), for instance, states that the dropout rate for foreign-born Hispanics, ages 16 to 24, is 44.2%; for native-born rst-generation Hispanics, 14.6%; and for native-born second-generation Hispanics, 15.9%.

The generally low levels of educational attainment by immigrants impact their employment and earnings. The picture for wage disparities again becomes very complex when one considers earnings for both foreign- and native-born immigrants. The earnings gures separated by ethnic group and immigrant/generation status are dif cult to nd because the de nition of immigrants becomes nebulous in terms of generations. Do we still consider, for instance, second- or third-generation Hispanics¹ or Asians to be immigrants? Nonetheless, the g ures that are available for ethnic groups refiect large gaps in earnings. The Pew Hispanic Center, for example, reports that the average full-time Hispanic (foreign- and native-born) worker earned about $31,000, or about 60% of what non-Hispanic Whites earned. The overall pay gap between Whites and Hispanics is $7,000 for men and $5,000 for women (Pew Hispanic Center Fact Sheet, 2002). Additionally, nearly half of all foreign-born immigrant workers earned less than 200% of the minimum wage, compared to 32% of native workers, and they compose 20% of low-wage workers, while they comprise 11% of all U.S. residents (Capps, Fix, Passel, Ost, & Perez-Lopez, 2003).

What about literacy levels among immigrant groups? The 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey found large gaps ranging from 67 to 75 points in composite literacy scores between Hispanic populations (both native and foreign born) and White native-born adults. One report indicated that if the scores were adjusted to exclude all foreign-born adults and native-born Blacks and Hispanics, then the mean scores of the remaining native-born population would greatly rise to rank second highest among all countries. That is, the scores of the Anglo native-born population would jump to second highest among all countries. The most recent survey, the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy, found the percentage of adults who spoke English before starting school decreased, while the percentage of adults who spoke Spanish or Spanish and another non-English language before starting school increased. Scores for the latter population group dropped 17 points for prose and document literacy, compared to the 1992 survey. Therefore, while the assessment did not speci cally look at immigrants, the g ures for those speaking Spanish or Spanish and another non-English language are suggestive of lowered literacy levels among immigrants (National Center for Education Statistics, 2005).

However, currently the United States is “characterized by an extraordinarily high degree of inequality” (Sum, Kirsch, & Taggart, 2002). Thus, language is a barrier for educational and economical advancement for immigrants, the majority of whom are Latino and speak Spanish as their native tongue. Wrigley, Richer, Martinson, Kubo, and Strawn (2003) report that spoken English appears to be important for economic stability and overall success in the United States. They report that a 1999 refugee survey, for instance, showed that only 26% of refugees who did not speak English were employed, as opposed to 77% of those who spoke English. Likewise, the same study reports that the Welfare-to-Work Program in Los Angeles refiected employment rates for Hispanic and Asian English pro cient workers to be 10 to 30 percentage points higher than employ ment rates for Hispanics and Asians who were not pro cient in English. It is no surprise, therefore, that English as a Second Language (ESL) programs are the fastest growing components of adult education programs nationally; in 1997 to 1998, 48% of enrollments were for ESL classes (National Institute for Literacy, n.d.). The need to develop English language skills among immigrants is a common element of this population, as well as pro ciency in Spanish or another language. This population of adults in the United States is bilingual, although to varying degrees. Their literacy levels in the native and English languages also vary greatly, given that there are great discrepancies in their levels of formal education. Therein lies some of the complexity of meeting the language and educational needs of the immigrant populations in the United States. An additional challenge lies in the inextricable ties between language, culture, and social context. Literacy and biliteracy development implies not only the learning of a second language,² but also different ways of viewing and interacting with the world. Both perspectives, linguistic and sociocultural, are explored in this chapter. It is appropriate to rst discuss some of the linguistic issues that adult learners face as they strive to acquire English and to develop biliteracy.

Development of Biliteracy

A general de nition of biliteracy is the ability to read and write in two lan guages. A broader de nition, however, includes more than reading and writing; it includes the ability to construct and communicate meaning in two languages across diverse social contexts and in socioculturally appropriate ways. The ability to do this in one language is, in itself, a challenge for many adults. The ability to do the same in two languages is a major challenge to many. The theoretical processes involved in the development of biliteracy, however, are not unlike the processes of literacy development in the rst language. Many of the strategies used in the development of literacy in the native language are also used in the development of literacy in the second language; in fact, biliteracy development builds on the linguistic knowledge acquired in the rst language.

Traditional psycholinguistic views of literacy considered it to be primarily a static process that involved the reader’s knowledge of sound-symbol relationships. If a reader was able to decode a word or phrase, then she could pronounce it and thus read it. A starting point for literacy development was therefore to learn the letters of the alphabet and the study of phonics. However, there is an extensive body of literature that supports the notion that literacy is much more complex than what traditionalists might lead educators to believe. Learning phonics is only one small piece of the reading process. Knowledge about all of the components of language is critical to reading comprehension and writing. These involve knowledge about how the language works in terms of the sound system (phonology), the syntactic system (grammar), the morphology (word formation), and the semantics (word meaning), for all of these systems of language play a role in the literacy development process. This knowledge about the systems of language is acquired in a natural and subconscious manner by children as they are exposed to and begin to interact in their native language.

Knowing and drawing upon the linguistic systems, however, is only one of the various literacy behaviors of readers and writers of a language. Kucer (2001) summarizes the following strategies and behaviors exhibited by readers as they engage in the reading and writing processes:

• Generating and organizing major ideas and concepts and their corresponding supporting details and, when writing, expanding and elaborating on ideas
• Organizing or integrating meanings across the text into a logical and coherent whole
• Sampling and selecting visual (print) information, such as word beginnings and endings, that is necessary for the formulation of meaning when reading or for the expression of ideas when writing
• Selecting and using a variety of linguistic cues from a range of linguistic systems (semantic, syntactic, morphemic, etc.) to formulate meaning
• Using their knowledge of language and of the world, as relevant, to make sense from print or to create meaning through print
• Making meaningful predictions based on what has been previously read, or planning future meanings when writing, as based on the visual information sampled and selected, and on background knowledge
• Monitoring and evaluating the meaning that is generated to see if it makes sense
• Revising predictions or meanings when something does not make sense
• Using a variety of strategies to make revisions, such as rereading, consulting a dictionary, or deleting ideas when writing
• Generating inferences by building links between prior knowledge and what was read, or discovering new meanings when writing
• Reacting to what is read or written
• Varying the manner in which a text is read (e.g., skimming vs. looking for details) as based on the purpose for reading, or varying the style of writing depending on the purpose and the audience

A learner who is acquiring literacy in a second language is engaging in the same behaviors listed above that are exhibited in the native language. However, there are also differences that are brought about by the interaction of two languages, the native language and the second language, in the biliteracy development process. The following section elaborates on the notions of difference and linguistic interaction.

The Role of Transfer

This linguistic storehouse of knowledge acquired in the native language is used in a supportive role as adults acquire a second language. Studies in bilingualism have indicated that linguistic knowledge transfers from the rst language to the second. Some of this knowledge is directly applicable to the second language, where the languages are similar. For instance, a Spanish-speaking student can directly apply grammatical notions from Spanish to English that function in the same way, such as subject-verb-object word order (e.g., El perro se comió el hueso and The dog ate the bone), the use of pronouns in subject position (e.g., Ella es casada and She is married), and the use of auxiliaries to form the present perfect tense in English (e.g., Ella ha viajado a Guatemala and She has traveled to Guatemala). The learner will hypothesize and reformulate rules about how the second langu...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• About the Editors
• Contributors
• PART I Adult Biliteracy
• PART II Adult Biliteracy in Diverse Contexts
• PART III Themes, Issues, Challenges
• Author Index
• Subject Index