An Introduction to Applied Linguistics

4.2 Literacy acquisition
In addition to critical (and sometimes sceptical) comment on current received
opinion on language learning and teaching issues, applied linguistics also contributes
its careful reading of published results in these fields. The study that is now briefly
described, the critical literature review of biliteracy illustrates the applied-linguistic
contribution to the ongoing debate on literacy in education.
As part of a project investigating schooled literacy in the second language (in this
case, English in Australia for speakers of other languages) a critical literature review
from an applied linguistic perspective was commissioned (BIP 1997). Given the
prevailing view among English as a Second Language (ESL) practitioners of the need
to establish prior literacy in the first language (L1), it was important to sift the pub -
lished evidence carefully.
During the twentieth century, literacy has broadened its scope beyond reading
and writing. The term ‘multiple literacies’ expresses one type of broadening by vali -
dating often unacknowledged skilled language practices. A plausible interpretation
of the broadening to more and more domains is that literacy has extended its
province from the apparently straightforward sense of learning the skills of reading
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and writing to the more all embracing sense of the demands of contemporary
education. According to this interpretation, contemporary literacy and schooling
are synonymous. What this means, of course, is that traditional ideas of schooling
have also adapted so as to incorporate these wider demands. Surprisingly, therefore,
literacy and schooling are still in step with one another. Just as schooling used to
mean becoming literate in reading and writing, so present-day literacy means being
schooled in multiple literacies.
Much of the discussion about becoming literate, both in the narrower sense
of acquiring reading and writing skills, and in the broader sense of schooling,
emphasises the ‘rules of the game’ aspect, that is seeing (and accepting) what it’s for
(where ‘it’ encompasses reading/writing and schooling).
An issue of concern in schools with multilingual populations is that of the role of
the first language (L1), and particularly of L1 literacy, in the acquisition of second-
language (L2) literacy, that is of literacy in the school language. Applied linguists
become involved with this type of literacy question in two ways, first in helping
define literacy in such a way that it is possible to distinguish between the skills of
reading and writing and the wider sense of ‘reading the world’ (Olson 1994), and
second in clarifying what is meant by being literate in the traditional skills, that is
at what point or cut-off a learner is not literate. In discussions of the relationship
between the L1 and the L2, the consensus seems to be that since literacy skills
transfer from L1 to L2, L1 literacy should be taught prior to, or simultaneously with,
L2 literacy.
There is a weak version of this view and a strong version. The weak version states
that for full L2 literacy development it is desirable that there should be prior
adequate development in L1 literacy. The strong version goes further, claiming that
unless there is an adequate base of L1 literacy there can be no L2 literacy develop -
ment. Views such as these derive in part from the earlier work of Jim Cummins
(1984).
Those taking up the strong position emphasise one of two values of prior L1
literacy: the first is that literacy in a second language is easier because learners know
what literacy is from their first-language experience. The second value makes the
knowledge argument, that proper cognitive development is possible only where
literacy has been acquired in the L1.
There is of course a sceptical view. That is that what is needed to acquire literacy
in an L2 such as English is more and better instruction in that L2, in this case
English. The underlying argument here is that there is no general connection
between L2 literacy and the L1 and that a case-by-case approach should be taken
when considering policy. School success, it is pointed out, depends on a number of
factors, including attitude to schooling. In the morass of individual variation the
school turns out to be uniquely powerful. What this suggests is that the good school
can make all the difference to the acquisition of literacy in an L2, while the bad
school can jeopardise the L2 student’s chances. No surprise there! Interestingly, of
course, it places the responsibility for an L2 learner’s success as much on the school
as on the student’s attainments in the L1.
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If there is a moral to the study of schooling in a second language, it is that there
is no homogeneity, 
except for the school
. Languages differ, learners differ, contexts of
learning differ, and the L1–L2 relationship differs. It is incumbent on researchers and
teachers therefore to take account of previous learning and at the same time not
to assume that all previous learning in the L1 is necessarily what matters most for
subsequent learning in the L2.
The contribution of applied linguistics to a study of schooled literacy in a second
language is to demystify the role of the first language and to examine carefully just
what influence it has, motivationally, cognitively and linguistically.