Language Experience

By: CHRISTY ANN A. LACUESTA

What is a Language Experience ?Language experience is a strategy to develop and

reinforce reading and writing by using personal experiences and natural language. In this approach, the students themselves initiate experiences through projects and other resulting interactive activities. In their authentic language students dictate their experiences to the teacher who translates their story into written English. With this documentation as a basic material for reading and writing instruction, the teacher helps the students see the connection between what they signed and what was written. The teacher uses this language experience to develop new vocabulary, comprehension and basics of English grammar.

Language Experience : A Method

Language experience approach is a method actually uses students own words to help them read.

Your student may draw a picture of Dad in a car. In that case you would write underneath the drawing; Dad is in the car.

You continue to collect drawings your students makes and write a short sentence underneath each drawing. A picture of a playground would read. We went to the playground.

When you’ve collected enough pictures you make them into a book for your students to read again and again. Write underneath the drawing a description your student gives for drawing. This way your student will remember much better what is written.

First you will write every word and sentence. Slowly your student will begin to trace over the words you have written and finally the student will write the words and sentences alone.

Some people use this method as a first approach to reading in order to help their student understand that what they’ve drawn and what you have written is a form of communication between the student and yourself.

The Language experience approach supports children’s concept development and vocabulary growth while offering many opportunities for meaningful reading and writing activities through the use of personal experiences and oral language.

Language Experience: A Teaching Approach

Personal Experience ( Dewey,1938)

Literacy Instruction( Huey,1908)

Community Literacy(Higgins,1995)

Service Learning( Herzberg,1994)

Introduction

Language Experience Approach

1

Five-Step Process

1. Teacher and student discuss the topic to be the focused on the dictation. Observations and opinions are exchanged. Oral Language skills are developed and reinforced.2. The Students dictates an account or story to the teacher, who records the

statements to construct the basic reading materials

3. The students read the story several times until the story has become quite familiar. Reading

comprehension is made easier by the fact that the student is reading material that is self generated

4. Individual story words are learned, the other reading skills are reinforced through teacher-designed activities related to the

story

5. Students move from reading their own dictation to reading other-author materials as they develop confidence

and skill with reading process

Theoretical Support

As Jones( 1986) notes, the basic approach to LEA as outlined in the five-step process above draws on several key language learning principles

1. Learning occurs from the

known to unknown

2.Learning occurs most effectively in general to specific

direction

3.Struggling adult readers usually have a

low self-concept as readers and need to be

assured of some immediate success

4. Everyone reads at every LEA session

Four Skills

WHOLE LANGUAGE

HOW DO WE MOST EFFECTIVELY ADAPT THE LEA?

Providing all the input for sometime and taking the heat off the student ( Wales,1994,p.203)

Advocates the use of picture or word cues to initiate and contextualize topics of conversation (Ringel,1989)

Cooperative Learning

LEA follow-up lessons on:

•Grammar•Lexicon

•Pronunciation •spelling

The LEA

Although there is no one “super method” for language teaching, LEA offers a useful and effective method for beginning literacy instruction by linking the students’ language and experience in learning

Language experience encourages students to explore, think and talk. This talk, during and after the language experience, provides many opportunities to expand students’ vocabulary, extend their knowledge of grammar, and scaffold their interactions.

Language experience activities also help to provide a bank of experiences that students have in common. These can be recalled and referred to in subsequent learning.

Language experience activities are often related to current topics or to students’ own lives. They can be particularly effective when linked to a specific text.Examples:●viewing a DVD about native New Zealand birds before or after reading Did You Shake Your Tail Feathers? ●visiting the supermarket after reading Finding Mum to find the items in the storyand making a meal out of the ingredients.●using skype to talk to students in another school before or after reading Talking to Nanny.

The role of the educator to model the writing and the thinking aloud

process;to develop writing skills and introduce different

writing genres through mini-lessons;to promote rereading as a strategy for students

to remember what they are writing about;to develop purpose of writing and writing for

an audience;to demonstrate appropriate writing

conventions.

Observers will see:students and teacher thinking aloud about

their experience while writing about it;the teacher modeling the translation of

students’ signs into an appropriate written version;

students rereading what they have dictatedStudents documenting their language

experience through pictures and written compositions

How to record language experience:Ask students to sign what they are learning.Act as a scribe and write in English what is signed.Sign back to the students to make sure they agree

with the story that was written down.“Think aloud” to demonstrate processes to students.Relate the complexity of the text to the language

level of the students.Let the students contribute drawings or other art to

enhance the writings.Use mini lessons to focus on specific language or

reading skills.

THANK YOU

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