The Five Stages Of Second Language Acquisition

Anyone who has been around children who are learning to talk knows that the process happens in stages-first understanding, then one-word utterances, then two-word phrases, and so on. Students learning a second language move through five predictable stages: Preproduction, Early Production, Speech Emergence, Intermediate Fluency, and Advanced Fluency (Krashen & Terrell, 1983). How quickly students progress through the stages depends on many factors, including level of formal education, family background, and length of time spent in the country. It is important that you tie instruction for each student to his or her particular stage of language acquisition. Knowing this information about each student allows you to work within his or her zone of proximal development-that gap between what students can do on their own and what they can with the help of more knowledgeable individuals (Vygotsky, 1978). Another reason for all teachers to gain insights into their students` stages of second language acquisition is to meet the requirements of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, which requires ELLs to progress in their content knowledge and in their English language proficiency. How are we going to accomplish this if we are not all responsible for content and language?

Tiered Questions

Research shows that high levels of student engagement are "a robust predictor of student achievement and behavior in school" (Klem & Connell, 2004, p. 262). One way for mainstream teachers to engage their ELLs more is by asking tiered questions. We recommend that teachers ask frequent questions throughout their lessons, as doing so lets ELLs practice their new language and helps teachers assess how much of the content the ELLs understand. Of course, questions should be tailored to each ELL`s level of second language acquisition.

Classroom Example

To improve her ability to ask tiered questions, a 1st grade teacher asks the school ESL teacher to demonstrate the strategy in her class during a discussion of The Three Little Pigs. For each stage of second language acquisition, the ESL teacher asks the following types of tiered questions:

Preproduction: Ask questions that students can answer by pointing at pictures in the book ("Show me the wolf," "Where is the house?").

Early Production: Ask questions that students can answer with one or two words ("Did the brick house fall down?" "Who blew down the straw house?").

Speech Emergence: Ask "why" and "how" questions that students can answer with short sentences ("Explain why the third pig built his house out of bricks." "What does the wolf want?").

Intermediate Fluency: Ask "What would happen if ." and "Why do you think ." questions ("What would happen if the pigs outsmarted the wolf?" "Why could the wolf blow down the house made of sticks, but not the house made of bricks?")

Advanced Fluency: Ask students to retell the story, including main plot elements but leaving out unnecessary details.