Kimberly E Northrup
Professor Brock
ED 228
21 September 2011

The Benefit of Spanish Content Literacy

          The overall goal in learning a second language is to become fluent in terms of reading, writing, and speaking.  Another benefit in studying a second language is becoming familiar with the culture or cultures involved and being immersed in a world of art and literature that was once not accessible at such an authentic level.  In order to achieve a high level of proficiency in a second language, it is important to acknowledge the significance of literacy.

Usually the term literacy is associated with the language arts and reading comprehension, and while this doesn’t necessarily seem relevant to other content areas, it most certainly does play a key role.  Speaking more specifically, acquiring a second language such as Spanish requires nearly a complete makeover when thinking of sentence structure, vocabulary, and auditory processing, among other skills.  Literacy in a second language certainly benefits the learner in building on these skills.

After reading the Encouraging Second Language Literacy in the Early Grades, it is evident that learning a second language not only expands the material that one has access to and can understand, but also helps students with other subjects.  It states in the article:  “Researches have concluded, nonetheless, that working with children to develop literacy skills in a second language influences their acquisition of English language skills” (Nancy Hayes 286).  The text goes on to mention a scenario where a young girl makes a connection between an unfamiliar word she hears in one class and how she is able to figure out its meaning due to its similarity to the Spanish translation.  The same article later states that second language acquisition allows students to “…explore further the linguistic, cultural, and social aspects of the contemporary literacy practice” (Nancy Hayes 288).

The second article from the American Educational Research Association journal is a study of an elementary reading intervention program and how improved reading has boosted scores in other content areas.  Surprisingly, it is stated that “literacy success becomes increasingly dependent on oral language proficiency and vocabulary knowledge in later elementary school and beyond” (Sharon Vaughn 483).  When I first read this, it made me think the importance of literacy would wane in the later years, but what I now take away from this excerpt is that literacy and the importance of reading in a second language is strongly tied with gains in verbal skills and building a strong vocabulary.

Reading these two articles has definitely given me some more insight on the significance of literacy when teaching a second language.  Originally, I had thought the only benefit from reading in a Spanish class was to build vocabulary and familiarize oneself with grammar and sentence structure from complete immersion in text.  While this assumption still had me considering literacy as an important aspect of my content area, it left out some other benefits from reading in Spanish.

Something I definitely gained from reading the article in Hispania (written by Hayes) is the added benefit of immersing the learner in a completely new culture.  By emphasizing the importance of reading in a class designed to teach a second language, students not only build upon their use of the language, but also improve their knowledge for the culture.  Reading in a second language allows students to read things written from a different perspective and build upon their schema.

Literacy is any content area plays an important role in better understanding material and being able to expand upon existing ideas.  The ultimate goal of attaining literacy is to be able to gain knowledge from what is read and think critically about this knowledge.  When working to acquire a second language, literacy is key in building vocabulary and building upon one’s schema.

Bibliography

Nancy Hayes, Leslie Schrier. “Encouraging Second Language Literacy in Early Grades.” Hispania (2000): 286-296.

Sharon Vaughn, Paul T. Cirino, Sylvia Linan-Thompson, Patricia G. Mathes, Coleen D. Carlson, Elsa Cardenas Hagan, Sharolyn D. Pollard-Durodois, Jack M. Fletcher, David J. Francis. “Effectiveness of a Spanish Intervention and an English Intervention for English-Language Learners at Risk for Reading Problems.” American Educational Research Association (2006): 449-487.