L1+and+L2+Literacy+Development

__**L1 and L2 Literacy Development **__

**Grammatical Competence** is the linguistic dimension of academic language. Scarcella has divided grammatical competence into 5 components: phonological, lexical, grammatical, sociolinguistic and discourse.

1. Phonological - deals with oral language and is complicated because different forms of a word are pronounced differently 2. Lexical - refers to the vocabulary of academic English 3. Grammatical - refers to sentence structure. Sentences in academic writing and speech are longer and more complex than those in conversational language 4. Sociolinguistic - the ability to use language for different functions, like apologizing or introducing 5. Discourse - the ability to structure connected ideas in a form appropriate for the subject area

__**L1 ACQUISITION** __


 * 1) L1 acquisition is genetically triggered at the most critical stage of the child's cognitive development.
 * 2) The 'engine' of language – its syntactic system – is 'informationally encapsulated' – which means that children are not even aware of developing a complex, rule-governed, hierarchical system. Most L1 speakers do not even realize this is what they are using.
 * 3) The L1 is typically acquired at the crucial period of cognitive development; pre-puberty, when L1 and other crucial life-skills are also acquired or learned.
 * 4) Children never resist L1 acquisition, any more than they resist learning to walk.
 * 5) Given even minimal 'input' during critical pre-pubescent development, all humans acquire the L1 of the society or social group they are born into as a natural and essential part of their lives. Even brain-damaged and/or retarded children usually acquire the full grammatical code of the language of their society or social group.
 * 6) In short, L1 acquisition is an essential, biologically–driven process. It is part of every individual's evolutionary history and development in the most critical stage of that individual's acquisition of essential life-skills.

__**L2 LEARNING** __


 * 1) L2 learning is not genetically triggered in any way unless the child grows up bi-lingually (in which case, it is not really L2 learning at all).
 * 2) <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The syntax of the L2 is not acquired unconsciously, or at least not in the way L1 syntax is acquired. Few L2 learners develop the same degree of unconscious, rule-governed insight into and use of the L2 which they demonstrate with the L1.
 * 3) <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The L2 is not learned as part of the learner's general cognitive development. It is not an essential life-skill in the same way that the L1 is.
 * 4) <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">There is often great conscious or unconscious resistance to L2 learning.
 * 5) <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Many highly intelligent individuals with impressive learning skills often have great problems learning an L2. Many L2 learners 'fossilise' at some stage, so that even if they use the L2 regularly, and are constantly exposed to input in it, they fail to develop full grammatical or 'generative' competence.
 * 6) <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">L2 learning is not a biologically-driven process. It is not an essential aspect of an individual's general development. especially when the L2 is simply another subject on an already overloaded school curriculum or something that has to be undertaken by people with busy lives and heavy work-loads.

====<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Freeman, Y. S., & Freeman, D. E. (2009). //Academic Language for English Language Learners and Struggling Readers//. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. ====