Promoting Literacy in Adult Second Language Learners: A Systematic Review of Effective Practices

Abstract

Literacy is an essential tool for functioning in a modern society and, as such, it is often taken for granted when developing second language learning curricula for people who need to learn another language. However, almost 750 million people around the world cannot read and write, because of limited or absent formal education. Among them, migrants face the additional challenge of having to learn a second language as they settle in a new country. Second language research has only recently started focusing on this population, whose needs have long been neglected. This contribution presents a systematic review of the classroom-based research conducted with such learners and aims at identifying the teaching practices that have proven to be successful and the principles that should inform curriculum design when working with this population. A first observation emerging from the review concerns the scarcity of experimentally validated studies within this domain. Nonetheless, based on the results of the available literature, this work highlights the importance of contextualized phonics teaching and of oral skills development, which turn out to be most effective when emphasis is put on learners’ cultural identities and native languages.

Modifiable predictors of health literacy in working-age adults - a rapid review and meta-analysis

“…The number of language programmes often is insufficient [ 71 ], and disadvantage as well as material circumstances resulting from migration or refugee status such as family issues, home, mobility issues (especially refugees often have to change accommodations) and cultural diversity limits the reach and the acceptability of language-only programmes [ 71 ]. If language proficiency programmes are available, contextualized phonics teaching and oral skills development should be focused on [ 72 ]. Realistic language materials that relate to daily life conversations activities and personal documents could be further effective ways of promoting language skills [ 73 ].…”

Potenziare La Consapevolezza Morfologica Nella Lettura E Nella Comprensione Del Testo in Italiano in Contesti Di Fragilità Linguistica

“…Se presentate in forma ludica e accattivante, invitando gli studenti a vestire i panni dei detective linguistici, queste attività possono essere molto motivanti ed efficaci e portare a sensibili miglioramenti, aiutando gli allievi ad applicare autonomamente le strategie apprese nel recupero del significato delle parole complesse tipicamente presenti nei testi di studio di tutte le discipline. È da notare che questo approccio e il tipo di attività proposte si differenziano da quelle normalmente contenute nelle sezioni di morfologia nei libri scolastici, in cui si tende a presentare una regola facendo attenzione solo agli aspetti formali, con poca considerazione per la dimensione semantica e scarsa incentivazione dell'utilizzo di strategie morfologiche per la ricostruzione del significato di parole complesse (Lo Duca, 2018;Piccinin, Dal Maso, 2023). Tali attività, che tipicamente si presentano come piuttosto ripetitive e meccaniche, rischiano di restare fini a se stesse, generando un tipo di conoscenza definita inerte, che fatica poi ad essere trasferita ad altri ambiti e utilizzata attivamente in contesti diversi.…”

Facilitating Sustainable Career Development in Fragility: A Psycho-Linguistic Intervention for Employability of Individuals with Fragile Literacy Skills

“…As for L2 learners, studies focusing on linguistic interventions are still rather limited and frequently based on practitioner observations rather than rigorous experimental testing. Efficient literacy development practices for such learners have been found to benefit significantly from a balanced and holistic approach, combining both bottom-up (i.e., starting covering letters, sound/symbol correspondences, and building up to words and sentences, emphasizing automatic recognition over understanding meaning) and top-down (beginning with recognizing common words and short sentences, and introducing letters and sounds later on) strategies [24,25]. Explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics is crucial, helping learners to understand the relationship between letters and sounds, and develop decoding skills.…”

“…It is interesting to note that both the promotion of literacy skills coupled with psychological resources results in an increase not only of employability perception but also in the dimension of hope, self-efficacy, resilience, and optimism. These appear as crucial elements for such individuals, who may perceive themselves as not able to deal with the labor market [24,25,[27][28][29][30][31][32][33].…”