Development and demonstration of metalinguistic awareness in adult ESL learners with emergent literacy

Abstract

Many U.S. adult schools currently aim to create academic and career pathways by implementing higher order thinking and metalinguistic application in their ESL curriculum. However, this ‘ability to reflect on and manipulate the structural features of language’ poses a significant hurdle to adult ESL learners newly learning to read and write, as typical metalinguistic measurements – including written journals and grammaticality judgement tests – require significant levels of literacy. Furthermore, L2 adult learners developing first-time literacy typically have difficulty performing oral-based metalinguistic tasks, such as segmenting words and sentences, concluding (L1) literacy influences (L2) metalinguistic awareness .This study argues that metalinguistic awareness in L2 learners with emergent literacy can be demonstrated via alternative measures. Using a discourse analytic approach, the researcher leverages transcripts to underscore six learners’ engagement with metalinguistic reflection, such as attunement to morphosyntactic and semantic relationships, despite emergent levels of both English oracy and literacy. Utilizing a sociocognitive framework of second language acquisition, the study calls attention to the role of social interaction in developing metalinguistic insights, and the ways knowledge is collectively constructed among the participants.