| One question facing educators of limited English proficient (LEP) students is at what stage of language acquisition should literacy instruction be introduced. Early second language (L2) acquisition theory argued that children acquire L2 like L1 and that the natural order of acquisition is listening, speaking, reading and writing. Teachers were told that, as children do not begin learning to read in their first language until they are orally fluent, neither should L2 learners begin reading and writing until listening and speaking had been mastered. This strongly influenced classroom practice and continues to do so in many districts.;The assumption that language acquisition is linear across the four language modalities has been challenged by a number of researchers including Cummins (1984), Krashen (1982, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1994), and Goodman, Goodman and Flores (1979) who assert that LEP students can acquire written language simultaneously with oral language and that reading and writing contribute to overall language development. Researchers challenging advocates of literacy delay maintain that reading provides additional input to the learner and writing allows further opportunity for experimenting with language. If this is true, students are at a great disadvantage in being delayed in their introduction to literacy.;This study used error analysis to test whether language is indeed acquired sequentially across the four modalities--listening, speaking, reading and writing--or whether it develops simultaneously in both oral and written language. Listening was not included since it provided no clear way of obtaining data for analysis. Reading, speech and writing samples were obtained from 10 LEP students in a classroom in which they were engaged simultaneously in oral and written language. The student errors were marked and five morphemes--pronouns, irregular past, regular past, past to be, regular plural--were chosen for analysis. The hypotheses stated that the three target modalities would show a similar order of acquisition, that the morphemes would be acquired first in reading as a receptive modality and that speech would not precede writing.;With the exception of a change of place of one morpheme in Reading, the first hypothesis was supported. Morphemes showed the same order of acquisition across the modalities. Reading preceded the other two modalities with a significant difference in the majority of the morphemes. Speech and writing showed no difference. Writing errors tended to match speech errors. It was evident that language development was occurring in all three modalities and that the data clearly did not support the theory that oral language must precede written language. All the students, at whatever stage of language acquisition, were engaged in comprehending text and in meaningful writing and, over the eighteen months of the study, showed development of structures in all three modalities. |
