Yvonne:

You state that "the very few responses [you've] gotten have made 
[you] aware that language deficit is not a familiar area." 

There may be another reason for the lack of responses to your topic: 
in politically correct linguistic circles the instances of language 
deficit you mention in your messages are considered normal "dialectal 
differences", and treated as alternative language variations which 
need no scholastic intervention as the "native speaker knows what is 
a correct syntactic structure due to his or her innate knowledge of 
grammar."

As I mentioned to you, I grew up in one of the major dialectal areas 
of Romania, Moldavia (the Romanian language has five major dialects),
and I learned standard spoken and written Romanian in public school 
both through implicit and explicit language teaching, as a "new 
language." At the end of public school education, I took an exam in 
the Romanian language and literature on topics covered in the four 
years of high school (besides other two exams which covered the same 
four years of high school) and obtained the High School diploma. All 
those who failed the exam were given a high school certificate only,
which meant that they could not apply and be admitted to college. The 
rigor of those high school exams was such that it separated students 
who had the skills to attend college from those who did not have such 
skills. 

Our teachers never assumed (presumed?) that we knew the standard 
Romanian language from instinct, but treated us as students who were 
learning "another language," the standard variety of the spoken and 
written Romanian, and made sure that our knowledge of language was 
explicit and not only implicit. Knowledge of a good standard Romanian 
was expected for those who attended college. No remedial courses were 
offered to those who did not have the necessary language skills, and 
in most cases, if they did not work individually on their language 
skills in order to reach the expected language level, they had to 
withdraw from college.   

In one of the English Composition classes I teach, I had an European 
student who had taken only a few years of high school English, and 
who was not fluent in the spoken English. Still, his writing skills 
were better than those of the largest majority of the "native" 
students in the class, and his vocabulary was larger than the 
vocabulary of the same majority. The reason is the fact that had 
become literate through the public education he had received in his 
native country. 

I have read a few articles lately which show a direct connection 
betwen lexicon and grammar. Actually, the writers of the articles 
show that a separation of these two language aspects is wrong, as 
there is ample evidence that somehow correctness in language is 
related to knowledge of the lexicon. As teachers and instructors 
know, most students in public schools and college do not like to 
read. This could be a major cause for their poor reading and writing 
skills, and also part of the language skills solution, if they are 
motivated to read and improve their word knowledge and consequently 
their spoken and written language.

Eduard 




On Mon, 7 Aug 2006, Yvonne Stapp wrote...

>I have a background in language deficit (neurolinguistics) 
>and I'm very familiar with speech-hearing and linguistics 
>research in the areas of Specific Language Impairment, Wms 
>Syndrome, delayed L1 development, etc.  I think that 
>background makes it easy to see the parallels between 
>various types of language deficit and what I've seen in 
>unimpaired native speakers' (ESL teachers) formal writing.  
>I think I emphasized that the authors of the samples I 
>posted are NOT impaired.  My point that in formal writing we 
>use more complex vocabulary and sentence structures than we 
>do in everyday discourse and that mastery of language at 
>that level apparently is not learned automatically.  
>
>There are multiple types of language impairment, but in 
>general these four things are typical: (1) limitations of 
>vocabulary (and difficulty acquiring new vocabulary); (2) 
>limitations of sentence structure (adj clauses, center-
>embedded clauses, and passive are especially lacking, and 
>genuinely impaired people are usually unable to learn these 
>structures); (3)poor control of most or all closed class 
>items (pronouns, preps, conj, determiners, morphological 
>markers -tense/aspect, plural, etc--, modals/auxiliaries)  
>(4) coherence (sometimes the structure is fine, but the 
>sentence does not make sense; lexical combinations don't go 
>together, etc).  
>
>I hope this helps.  In the article I just submitted I 
>compared examples from the ESL teachers with examples of 
>deficit.  I didn't do that in my posting, in part because I 
>wasn't sure whether anyone would be interested.  The very 
>few responses I've gotten have made me aware that language 
>deficit is not a familiar area.  
>
>The vast majority of native-speaker ESL teachers are 
>perfectly capable of learning how to use their own language, 
>and they cannot possibly help ESL students if they are 
>unable to explain how to put sentences together, when to use 
>a particular VP construction, etc. If you study a language 
>you have every right to expect your teacher to be able to 
>explain the language to you.  
>
>yvonne
>
>
>
>
>---- Original message ----
>>Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 16:20:06 -0500
>>From: Robert Yates <[log in to unmask]>  
>>Subject: Re: Re ESL teachers' language skills: A 
>misunderstanding?  
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>
>>Yvonne,
>>
>>The formatting of your post with examples confused me.
>>
>>I would very much like to read your analysis of why you 
>consider these
>>examples of a language deficit.
>>
>>Bob
>>
>>>>> [log in to unmask] 08/04/06 7:09 AM >>>
>>Bob,
>>I apologize for the delayed response.  Re your request 
>>for "more specific" examples --I'm not sure what you mean.  
>>Do you want me to explain what the problem is in each 
>case?  
>>If so, please let me know.
>>yvonne 
>>
>>To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the 
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>>Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>Yvonne Stapp PhD
>Assistant Professor of ESL
>James Madison University
>Dept of Exceptional Education MSC 6908
>Memorial Hall 3130B
>Harrisonburg, VA 22807
>phone 540-568-4525
>
>To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web 
interface at:
>     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
>and select "Join or leave the list"
>
>Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/

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