English As A Second Language In The Mainstream

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Learning English while Learning in English The first observation I have made while reading this article is that it is not only students from non-English speaking backgrounds who might have difficulty coping with the English syllabus. It is interesting that it is also students who do come from an English-speaking background. That is to say, that some students who come from an English speaking background sometimes have enormous difficulties in accessing the written component of the English curriculum. In examples such as these, speaking English fluently does not appear to greatly help the student concerned express his/her thoughts, opinions, impressions and ideas in written English. It is interesting how divergent these two skills can be. From this point of view, I whole-heartedly agree with the idea that BIC (Basic Interpersonal Communication) is exercised far more than CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) in lower secondary education when you would think that the reverse is true. Students at this level would be at a distinct advantage if they could begin to understand the language associated with such tasks as formal letter-writing, note-taking skills from texts and report writing etc from the very outset. As a learner of another language myself, namely French, I can definitely understand the advantages in knowing another language in order to help with language acquisition in English and vice versa. Bilingualism does seem to help the student of English in many ways and conversely the student of a second foreign language as well. For example, when I was at university in Australia, having a sound understanding of English grammar helped me greatly in understanding linguistic concepts and structures in the French language. I was able to compare structures and see the logic involved in how other languages construct their grammatical systems and

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