Primary Language Instructional Theory Synopsis
Reed and Railsback (2003) maintain that a "basic knowledge of language
acquisition theories is extremely useful for mainstream classroom teachers
and directly influences their ability to provide appropriate reading
instruction to ESL students. It is especially important in those schools
or districts where limited resources result in little or no instructional
support in a student's native language. In these "sink-or-swim"
situations, a committed mainstream teacher with a clear understanding of
language acquisition can make all the difference". There are various types
of strategies that have been developed to address the primary instruction
of ESL students. Three programs that include various strategies are:
• Developmental Bilingual Programs
• Two-Way Immersion Programs or Dual-Language or Bilingual
• Newcomer Programs
Primary Language Instruction (Antunez, 2004) is used to help students
keep up with academic content, but the focus is on phasing students into
English-only instruction as quickly as possible. Upon the move into an
English-only classroom, the student's primary language is not neglected,
but it is also not developed in the academic setting. Therefore, the ESL
student may experience problems with learning the language, thus also
inhabiting their ability to learn how to read in English. The main
emphasis of the student's education becomes the learning of the curriculum
or reading the written English word. The ESL student may begin to feel
overwhelmed and experience feelings of frustration. The teacher will need
to explore different methods to discover what will work with each ESL
student and help them to become interested in not only learning to speak
English, but to also read the new language (Garcia, 2000).
The goal of the Two-Way Immersion o...