Phonological Fluency Amongst Adolescent Low Literacy Second Language Learners.

Abstract

There is a long-standing belief that teaching vocabulary in semantic sets to second language learners aids later language acquisition. This paper reports a study of how adolescents with English as an Other Language with low levels of literacy in English organise words. 45 young learners aged 16-19 from an inner-city further education college participated in the study: 15 ESOL low literacy learners, 15 ESOL learners and 15 as a non-ESOL control group. They were tested on phonological verbal fluency tasks and, contrary to expectations, the ESOL group with literacy needs outperformed the ESOL group. This suggests that effortful learning of letters and sounds may produce deeper processing. On the other hand, there was evidence of semantic interference in output, suggesting learning words in semantic sets might not always be optimal for learners with low literacy.