English 391: Topics in Applied Linguistics
Linguistics and Language Arts
Instructor: Dr. Johanna Rubba

Course Objectives
You will be notified promptly of any changes to this page.

Last updated 11/30/11

> NOTE: I do not hold review sessions for tests/exams. This study guide is provided for you so that you can, as you work through the objectives over the course of the quarter, ask questions about items you are not clear on, and/or come to me during office hours to check your progress with the objectives.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR FINAL EXAM:

• Dates: Section 01: Fri., Dec. 9, 10:10 am - noon. Section 02: Tues., 12/6, 1:10-3 pm. Latecomers will not get extra time for the test.
• Bring:
  • A 100-question oblong scantron (50 ea. side; NOT the size of a full page)
  • A SMALL blue book (buy that right away, too). ONLY SMALL BOOKS, PLEASE.
  • A pencil and eraser for the scantron.
  • A pen for the blue book (answers in pencil are too light to read. I have to require pen from now on).
• Test coverage:
  • Below the dashed line is material covered since Test #2. All of this is subject to testing.
  • Material above the line: Objectives (or parts of Objectives) marked §§ are subject to testing.

Click on the title below to go directly to the objectives for each course unit:

Macro-objectives: entire course
Unit 1: Introduction to the Course
Unit 2: Sound
Unit 3:Vocabulary
Unit 4:  Sentences (Syntax)
Unit 5: Second Language Acquisition
Unit 6: Diversity

You will demonstrate achievement of these objectives through assignments, tests, and your project. Use this list as a STUDY GUIDE; work through these objectives DURING the course. Write answers to the questions posed in the objectives. DO NOT WAIT until the week before a test to work on them. Work on them as this becomes possible through readings and class lectures. When you need help, visit me in office hours, or send me an e-mail (a brief one) -- I am glad to help and don't think questions are a sign of stupidity! Test items are drawn directly from these objectives.

The best way to use these is to keep them handy when you read assignments or when you review your class notes. Work on each topic while we are working on it in class. Pretend these are short-essay questions or analysis problems, and write out answers to them. If the explanation is given in the Objective itself, study it and rewrite it in your own words. Check each item off when you feel you have worked on it enough to understand it and explain it to someone else. If you want to check that you are understanding things and writing enough detail, bring your work to an office hour, and I'll be very happy to go over them with you and give you any needed tips or further explanations! I have written out a sample for you about one aspect of phonemic awareness. (Click on that phrase to see the model.)

Objectives in italics and marked ## are quoted directly from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing booklet "Standards of Program Quality and Effectiveness for the Subject Matter Requirement for the Multiple Subject Teaching Credential" issued in September, 2001. This document can be viewed in full at this address:

 http://www.ctc.ca.gov/educator-prep/STDS-subject-matter.html

Scroll a short way down the page until you see a box with the title in it. You can then click on either PDF or MS Word to get a copy of the document. It is highly recommended that anyone preparing for teaching in California download it and read it.

Macro-objectives: entire course

A. Students will re-think the goals and methods of language arts instruction K-12, in view of what they learn in this course. They will be prepared to put in writing the ways the course changes their thoughts on language arts K-12 and how it influences their own plans for teaching.

B. Students will master basic knowledge about the structure of the English language, so that they leave the course prepared to expand this knowledge in further coursework or on their own.

§§ C. Students will understand the general nature of first-language acquisition in children, focusing on its developmental nature, and especially on the quantity and complexity of linguistic abilities children have acquired BEFORE they enter kindergarten. They will understand the general nature of second-language acquisition and factors that affect it.

D. Students will be prepared to put in writing ways the course has influenced their concept of literacy.

## "Standard 8: Diverse Perspectives
The subject matter program encourages and enables prospective multiple subject teachers to develop respect for human similarities and differences; awareness of their own perspectives pertaining to human diversity; openness to new perspectives regarding important variations among people; and critical understanding of the nature and forms of human discrimination and ways to overcome them."

E. Students will become more aware of how languages vary from one another and begin to understand the types of difficulties children whose first language is not English face in learning English and studying in an English-only classroom.

§§ F. Students will understand the nature of dialect diversity: the systematic equality of all dialects, and the scientific invalidity of most popular opinion on this subject. Students will be prepared to put in writing the ways the course has changed their thinking about the notion 'dialect' and about how children of various dialect backgrounds should be treated in school.

Micro-objectives -- Unit By Unit

-----------------------COVERAGE OF TEST #1 BEGINS HERE-----------------------

Unit 1: Introduction to the Course

1-1   What are the five systems or components of language, and what kind of linguistic units does each deal with? This refers to the five structural systems that make up any language: the semantic, text, syntactic, morphological/lexical, and phonetic/phonological systems.

§§ 1-2 What do linguists mean when they say that all language users possess a 'mental grammar'? When and how is this knowledge acquired (for one's native language)? How many components of language (as in 1-1) does this mental grammar cover?

§§ 1-3) What is the difference between linguistic knowledge (intuitive or unconscious knowledge of language; "language ability") and metalinguistic knowledge (conscious knowledge about language; being able to talk about and analyze language)? Be able to give an example of each. Why is this distinction important in language arts teaching? Note: The word linguistic has two senses: (1) having to do with language in general (as in, for example, "the linguistic profile of South Africa" -- how many languages are spoken there, by how many people, etc.); (2) having to do with the science of linguistics (e.g., "linguistic terminology", "linguistic analysis". It is important to realize that, when contrasted with "metalinguistic knowledge", "linguistic knowledge" does NOT mean knowledge of linguistics. It means a person's ability to use language without being aware of rules or thinking about what s/he is doing. Knowing linguistics, that is, knowing about phonemes, being able to analyze a word into its parts, knowing definitions of terms like "noun"  or "subject", or being able to diagram a sentence, is metalinguistic knowledge.

1-4  Be able to write a summary of James Paul Gee's notion of a discourse, including the following:

• §§ definitions of and differences between primary vs. secondary discourses and mainstream vs. non-mainstream discourses
• how he views the relation between discourses and literacy;
• §§ his critique of American education regarding discourses and literacy;
• be able to give examples from your own life of discourses you have mastered or would like to acquire, with several criteria for membership in each. 

Unit 2: Sound

Sound in language

## "Candidates for Multiple Subject Teaching Credentials are able to identify and demonstrate an understanding of the fundamental components of human language, including phonology ... "
## "Candidates for Multiple Subject Teaching Credentials ... apply knowledge of similarities and differences among groups of phonemes (e.g., consonants and vowels) that vary in their placement and manner of articulation." Course material that enables you to do this is covered in the following objectives:

2-1 Explain what features are and how they arise from actions of the vocal tract. Give several specific examples in your discussion, for example, how the vocal cords participate in making sounds like /z/, or how the raising or lowering of the velum creates non-nasal vs. nasal sounds. Understand that each speech sound is a combination of features. Be able to give examples of 2-3 sounds that contain the features you choose to learn.

2-2 Understand what phonemes are, and how they help a language create many thousands of labels for concepts (i.e., words). Understand that different languages and dialects have different phoneme inventories, and that this is one cause of "foreign accent". Be able to give one example of phoneme differences between English and another language (Spanish, Vietnamese) (that is, be able to give one example of a sound that is present in one language but absent in another).

2-3 Know the phonemes of English. Demonstrate this knowledge by being able to give the phonetic symbol for each phoneme, along with 2 or 3 example words that contain each. You do not have to memorize the three-term label for each phoneme, e.g. 'voiced alveolar fricative' for /z/. Make flash cards, and work hard on remembering that "i e a o u" have their Spanish, German, or Italian pronunciations. (Allophones are not subject to testing; that is, I don't expect you to be able to use the symbol for flap, nasalization, or aspiration.) ALL SYMBOLS SUBJECT TO TESTING ON THE FINAL. BE CAREFUL OF SYMBOL SHAPES.

2-3a Be able to render a word spelled in English in phonetic symbols (showing phonemes only, not allophones, except schwa), and be able to render a word in phonetic symbols in English spelling. (Only selected symbols will be tested on Test #1 and Test #2. All symbols are subject to testing on the final.)

2-4 What is a syllable? What are the parts of a syllable? Be able to recognize or give an example of a syllable from English or another language, identifying all of its parts.

2-5  What are sequence constraints/phonotactic constraints? Give one example from English; give an example of phonotactic differences between English and another language, such as Spanish or Japanese. Why do these differences make pronouncing a new language difficult?

## "Candidates for Multiple Subject Teaching Credentials apply knowledge of both the development of a first language and the acquisition of subsequent ones."

§§ 2-6 Be able to explain what it means to say that first-language acquisition is developmental (overall, not just with respect to phonology)?

2-7  What does it mean to say that children's phonological acquisition is developmental? Be able to describe briefly each of the following:

• Babbling
• Order of acquisition of phonemes: which classes earlier, which later; by which age are all phonemes mastered?
• What is the sequence of acquisition of syllable structure?
• Be able to give two examples of different child processes (e.g., syllable-structure simplification vs. sound substitution).

-----------------------COVERAGE OF TEST #1 STOPS HERE-----------------------

-----------------------COVERAGE OF TEST #2 BEGINS HERE-----------------------

Spelling and spelling instruction

## "Candidates ... know the predictable patterns of sound-symbol and symbol-sound relationships in English ... "

## "Candidates can demonstrate knowledge of phonemic awareness (e.g., the processes of rhyming, segmenting, and blending)."

## "Candidates know the differences between phoneme awareness and phonics."

## "Candidates for Multiple Subject Teaching Credentials understand and use the major descriptions of developing literacy. In both English speakers and English learners, candidates can identify the progressive development of phonemic awareness, decoding, comprehension, word recognition, and spelling (including its complexities related to the interaction of phonology, the alphabetic principle ... "

§§ 2-8 Phonemic awareness:

• Define phonemic awareness.
• How does being phonemically aware provide a foundation for learning to spell and read? Which particular spelling skills does it prepare children for (see Objective 1-15)? MODEL RESPONSE: "In order to spell and read, a child has to be able to match the written symbols of our spelling system with the sounds in a word. If a child does not know that a word is a string of individual sounds, the child will not understand how the alphabet works, and will not be able to match a sound to a letter. Phonemic awareness training makes children aware of the individual sounds in words and enables them to identify the various sounds. Once a child can do this, she or he can then learn to connect a certain sound to a certain spelling, such as the sound /k/ to both 'c', as in 'cap', and /k/, as in 'kite'. Once a child understands this, he or she is ready to master all of the other spelling skills (see Objective 1-15).
• Note: Restrict yourself to oral/aural skills, not spelling skills. Phonemic awareness does not involve knowledge of letters or of how letters match up to sounds. (Phonemic awareness is a very important topic for future teachers, especially teachers of early or remedial literacy.)

2-9 What is an orthography? (An orthograpy is any type of writing system.)
§§ 2-10 What makes an alphabet different from a syllabic or logographic writing system? For a review of different kinds of writing click here.
2-11 The English spelling system:

• What are some predictable (regular) spellings for a few English sounds?
• What are spellling rules (spelling patterns)?
• How do some of these patterns (such as double letters and silent letters), which seem unnecessary, actually help by signalling how a word is pronounced? Click here for the reading on this topic.

2-12 What is phonics? What is the difference between phonics and phonetics? Click here for a handout.

2-13 Developmental spelling:

• What are 'invented' or 'developmental' spellings (sometimes referred to as 'phonetic spelling' in teaching materials)?
• Give several specific examples. How do these spellings indicate that, even though the spelling is wrong, the child is still learning the spelling system?
• Why do some experts recommend permitting invented spelling in early spelling instruction?
• What is my recommended teacher response to invented spelling?
• Why do I recommend it?

2-14 Distinguish carefully between phonemic awareness skills, which do not require knowledge of the alphabet, from spelling skills, which do. The best way to think about this is to ask yourself whether a skill can be carried out entirely by ear, without referring to or looking at written letters or written words (for instance, matching a picture with the spoken word that names the object in the picture). Such a task would be a phonemic awareness task.

§§ 2-15 Know the inventory of spelling/reading skills children need, and be able to define and exemplify each:

Unit 5: Second Language Acquisition (SLA)

Note: This reading often makes reference to language competence. This term originates in linguistic theory, and is set in opposition to language performance. Competence refers to a person's underlying knowledge of language ñ the mental grammar covering language structure, from pronunciation to sentence structure, and including the lexicon (mental dictionary). Performance refers to language in action ñ events of language use. The difference is similar to the difference between knowing how to ride a bicycle ñ knowledge you retain even when you're not riding one ñ and actually riding a bicycle. Competence guides performance, but in performance things can go wrong. With bicycle riding, for example, you might lose your balance and fall when going over a bump, or, on a particular day, you may be too tired to bike up a steep hill. This is equivalent in language to things that get in the way of perfect execution of language rules ñ your pronunciation is imperfect if you speak with your mouth full of food; fatigue can make speech effortful and lead to errors, and so on.

You also find in the reading the phrase Universal Grammar (UG). This is a theory of language that claims that specific parts of our brain are devoted to language alone, and that our knowledge of language is "pre-set" at birth with regard to certain language features called parameters. UG offers certain options for language; vb use the feature + or -null subject (whether or not a language requires every verb to have a subject) to illustrate. A child is born knowing that the language she will learn will either require subjects (-null subject) or allow omission of them (+null subject). All the child has to do is listen to the language around her and "set" the parameter to either + or -. Both of these ideas ñ competence vs. performance and UG ñ are controversial within linguistics. Large numbers of linguists subscribe to these ideas, and large numbers do not. This is a long and complex reading.

Note that each section ends with an "Assessment" -- an overview of the section and conclusions the authors draw about the nature of SLA. These should help you answer the following.

Unit 5: Second Language Acquisition (SLA)  NEW OBJECTIVES  HERE The "Assessment" part of each section provides a summary, along with the authors' conclusions regarding the topic of the section.

5-1 To what extent do SLA researchers concern themselves with teaching second languages?

5-2 What does the development of an L2 in a learner look like?

5-3 What are a few important similarities between first and second language acquisition? (No need to say that errors occur in both; that is obvious [although similarity in errors would be worth mentioning].)

5-4 Does transfer from L1 account for all learner error? Explain.

5-5 According to VanPatten & Benati, is classroom instruction the best way to learn a second language?

5-6 What do VanPatten & Benati conclude regarding critical period theories?

5-7 Describe three aspects of an individual person that might affect SLA.

Unit 6:  Diversity  

6-1 Review the differences between the three populations that California schools serve: native speakers of standard English (so-called "proper English", the English found in schoolbooks), native speakers of nonstandard English (e.g., Appalachian English, Chicano English, Native American English, African American English, Brooklynese, etc.) and English learners (children whose native language is a language other than English, such as Spanish, Korean, Hmong, Russian, etc.). It is particularly important to remember that our schools recognize and take measures to serve English learners (whether these methods are effective or not), but not native speakers of nonstandard English. These children are just treated as if they have not learned English properly, and their native dialect is treated as full of mistakes. Review the negative effects of this attitude as set out in Wheeler and Swords' article. Remember that the schools are designed for middle-class speakers of Standard English.

6-2 What is the difference between deficit and resource approaches to dialect and language diversity in the classroom?

6-3 Dialect differences: How do different dialects of a language arise? Why do some dialects come to be thought of as "proper", while others are seen as deficient or inferior?

6-4 Review the difference between linguistic knowledge (unconscious language ability) and metalinguistic knowledge (ability to talk about language, know and use linguistic terms such as subject or adjective, and analyze language consciously). Why is this difference important in grammar teaching in school? What is the typical mistake that both teachers and language arts materials make concerning this difference?

• Do children need to be taught the information that the lesson presents, or have they already mastered it just by acquiring their home dialect?
• Does the lesson distinguish clearly between linguistic and metalinguistic abilities?
• Does the lesson openly acknowledge the fact that inflectional morphology and sentence structure differ across English dialects (for instance, by comparing dialects as equals or by talking about informal vs. formal English), or does the lesson take an "only one right way" approach?
• If it does openly acknowledge variation, does it treat this variation with sensitivity?

6-6 Be prepared to summarize Wheeler and Swords' criticism of 'correctionist' grammar teaching, and also their approach to teaching grammar and the benefits they claim it brings.

6-7 Be able to describe very briefly the following types of education for English learners (all of these are often referred to as "bilingual education", but only some involve instruction in the child's native language): Review these and the list given by Nieto together.

• Submersion/immersion (as defined in class): There is no special treatment for English learners at all; they are simply put into a mainstream classroom and left to fend for themselves. The goal is to produce fluent English speakers; the native language is ignored. This certainly does not qualify as bilingual education.
  
  
• Sheltered immersion: English learners are placed in mainstream classrooms, but the teacher takes steps to make the content comprehensible to the students in various ways, such as defiining words they probably don't know, asking them basic questions about a story, etc. This method aims only to make children fluent in English; the native language is acknowledged, but maintaining it or developing further proficiency in it is not a goal. This is not bilingual education.
  
  
• Immersion (as defined by Nieto): Children start school in the new language, spending the first two or three years learning only that. Then native-language instruction is introduced. Read Nieto as to why this is a bad idea for children of lower socioeconomic status. The goal is bilingualism. This qualifies as bilingual education.
  
  
• ESL (also known as "ESL pullout"): Children are "pulled out" of the mainstream classes for some period of time each day or each week and given ESL instruction. The goal here is to produce children who are fluent in English; the native language is ignored. Hence, it can't really be called bilingual education.
  
  
• Transitional bilingual education: These are programs designed to transition children into knowing English by beginning instruction in their native language and gradually shifting to English. One they are competent in English, instruction in the native language stops. The goal here is to produce children who are fluent in English; there is no concern for continued development of the native language. This would qualify as bilingual education, even though it does not aim to maintain bilingualism in the child.
  
  
• Maintenance or developmental bilingual education: This kind of program aims to produce children who are fully bilingual and have academic proficiency in their native language as well as English. Instruction in both languages continues through the whole school career. This qualifies as bilingual education.
  
  
• Two-way bilingual education (also known as two-way immersion): Both native English speakers and English learners learn each others' languages; different programs do this in different ways, but the goal is to have all the children become academically proficient in both languages. This qualifies as bilingual education.
  

6-8 What are the recommendations for teaching ELLs, as per instruction in our class and the Nieto reading? Know the specific recommendations, and the reasons behind them, including research results, regarding the following:

• Submersion/immersion vs. bilingual instruction
• Number of years of bilingual instruction necessary for a child to achieve academic competence in the new language
• Neglect of the child's native language vs. development of academic skills in it
• Attitude towards the child's native language and culture

6-9 Does California's education law regarding ELL's (Proposition 227) meet any of these criteria? If so, which ones? If it doesn't, how does it fail? You can read the full text of Prop. 227 (http://primary98.sos.ca.gov/VoterGuide/Propositions/227text.htm). The most relevant sections of the law are Whereas (e) and Article 2 section 305, but I recommend reading the whole law. Consider not just what is stated in the law, but also what is left out, for instance regard for the student's home culture, advantages of bilingualism for all children, etc.

6-10 What role does the socioeconomic class of a child play in his/her success in bilingual education?

------------------------END OF COURSE OBJECTIVES---------------------------

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