Acquistion vs. Learning

I'm five weeks into my second course in a series of requirements to get my ESOL endorsement (English to Speakers of Other Languages).  It will be a year-long process with 7 different courses and a practicum experience - I'll be able to complete that teaching in my own classroom since I teach such a high percentage of English Language Learners.  One of the more interesting topics thus far has been a debate about "Learning" vs. "Acquisition" - Hooked on Phonics vs. Whole Language, Drill and Kill vs. Drop Everything and Read!  Here's a taste of what I'm thinking and writing for the class...

The Yin and Yang of Linguistics

Along with a full-time position in the Salem-Keizer School District, I work for a college-access organization called Willamette Academy, whose mission is to “Educate, Inspire, and Empower.”  These are lofty words with somewhat ambiguous, flexible meanings, but I wholeheartedly carry this mission into all of my work with students.  Ultimately, my job is to do those three things, no matter the age of my student or subject matter of my course.  At times, an inquiry-based, Acquisition model of teaching is most appropriate and effective.  In other circumstances, a direct instruction, Learning model is better.  A student-driven teacher should be flexible enough to try multiple approaches in response to student achievement and intentional teacher reflection.  In other words, we must not be tied to one camp or another; we ought to do what works for our students, and be willing to adapt our pedagogies when we do not see results.  I will provide personal anecdotes in which Acquisition teaching strategies yielded positive results, and classroom situations in which I implemented more traditional Learning techniques with success.

            My current curriculum is directly tied to student performance on the OAKS in reading.  If students pass the test, they move out of the class at the end of the semester.  I work with a team of teachers to design our instruction and assessments with two philosophies and goals in mind - to prepare students to be successful, literate people, and to prepare students to pass the OAKS.  Those goals often overlap, but not always.  Most students enter with a strong opposition to reading.  Many lack skills, many lack motivation, and some are missing both.  The strong majority of students struggle in other subjects due to this difficulty and/or distaste for reading – attendance and behavior issues go hand in hand, so we are diligently working to entice students to come and be engaged every day.

            With these factors in mind, we often start with an Acquisition approach.  We want students to have choices, to find our class different than previous reading experiences, and to break down whatever affective barriers students might have to picking up a book.  Instead of Silent Sustained Reading, we “Read For Fun.”  Every day.  We play music while students roam around the room for a Book Walk, surrounded by high-interest titles and age-appropriate topics.  We help students decide which books are a good fit, and reserve judgment about what is too easy or too difficult.  We let students decide, and then we provide feedback based on their goals and our foresight.  We get students to go from, “I hate reading” to, “This is the first book I’ve ever finished.”  Students pass the tests and exit our classes, but still come back time and time again to borrow books.  Acquisition is empowering, and it brings back the joy in literacy.  But it is not the be-all, end-all.

            I have had students in my class for several consecutive semesters, determined to pass, plowing through independent reading books, but not improving much in their OAKS scores.  These students need something else.  They already have a passion for reading and literature, but they lack specific skills measured by the test.  For them, the devil is in the details.  Some need explicit instruction in multiple choice strategies.  Others need to memorize literary terms.  Many need practice making logical inferences, and they need it to be taught in a linear and formulaic manner: “My Schema + Clues From the Text = Inference.”  It takes a lot of time to assess this type of student’s particular needs, but that effort is worth the time and energy. 

Last semester I spent three hours compiling strand data for each student, comparing their three most recent OAKS scores across individual standards.  Then, I developed differentiated mini-units for the three weeks leading up to the next round of testing.  One group of students did a word study unit, memorizing root words and affixes.  They made flashcards, played matching games, created their own words using the various parts, and then had to apply that knowledge to unfamiliar words.  Half of that group had dramatic jumps in their vocabulary strand during the next round of testing.  We had done independent word studies with their Read For Fun books before, but nothing as pointed and specific as the roots unit.  I asked students what they thought as we were learning the word parts, and several of them articulated how satisfying it was to be able to memorize something and know the right answer.  Reading is complex, especially at the high school level when so much of the curriculum is delivered through difficult text; as a result, giving students something to really dig into and feel they had mastered was just the trick.
Learning and Acquisition are the yin and yang of the linguistic world.  One is not wholly successful without the other, and we must always be responding to our students' needs and interests.  There is no perfect curriculum, instructional strategy, or assessment.  In fact, these are as varied as our young people.  This dilemma makes our task more difficult, but surely we knew that getting into the profession.  An effective teacher is willing to expand his or her repertoire and adjust according to the minds and bodies in the room, even if that means taking steps back and forth between each end of the continuum.