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COMMENT . FEATURES & COMMENT

When reading phonemic processing, while English children are adopting synthetic phonics, a system BLINKING BABIES

rely largely on the semantic area but use over
of learning to read through overt teaching
of patterns of spelling that is supported by
a dozen different areas to read.
Bilingual babies blink if you change language
mid-stream, but if you switch at the end of
the British Dyslexia Association. And yet
Think about that for a moment. We give a
group of Italian teenagers an authentic text
it remains controversial in education in
a sentence they don’t so much as raise an
is not as and ask them to guess the meaning of the much of the English-speaking world. Some eyebrow, recent research from Canada shows.
underlined words from context. Even if they
of the reasons may sound familiar: children
The study tracked eye movements in twenty-
should read real books, not specially written
know the 90 per cent of surrounding words
month-old bilingual infants to see how well
required to guess successfully from context,
ones; they need to learn to use strategies
they could switch languages. The babies
were more accurate in recognising objects
like guessing from context and using the
their brains are not wired to check semantic
information in pictures; and there is evidence
meaning while reading. Small wonder, then,
in pictures when they heard the whole
simple as as Catherine Walter has pointed out, that that gifted children read less well when they instruction in one language, for example:
foreign learners are much less successful at
learn though phonics. That last one may
‘Find the dog,’ than when languages were
be true, but should extra progress for the
switched mid-sentence, as in: ‘Find the
guessing from context than English speakers.
linguistically gifted come at the expense of
We are asking them to read in a different part
chien.’ Infants’ pupil size also increased during
of their brain.
everybody else?
a mid-sentence language switch, suggesting
The opacity of our L1 seems to dictate
Australian teachers may currently be
The cognitive load was reduced, however,
how we process the written word. A series fighting synthetic phonics tests but phonics an increased cognitive overload.
of papers from bilingualism researchers in is already compulsory from early primary when the language switch came after the end
the Basque Country show that L1 speakers in English language classes in China. They of a sentence, as in: ‘That one looks fun! Le
of Basque and Spanish – both transparent want native-speaker teachers to help them. chien!’ The same pattern of performance was
languages – process reading letter by letter, Unfortunately, the native speakers don’t found in bilingual adults asked to perform the
making scanning and skimming almost know how. After all, Chinese children can same task, even though the switched words
impossible. English and French L1-speakers just transfer their reading skills honed on were basic. The authors argue that the study
process in whole words, which is harder but thousands of characters to decode English. shows that young bilinguals can control and
faster. Bilingual Basque–French and Spanish– Can’t they? monitor their languages in real time in the
French children use a system between the same way as bilingual adults.
two. What is the EFL profession doing to
address these issues? Nothing much that we MELANIE BUTLER n Byers-Heinlen, K, Morin-Lessard, E,
can see. Editor at large Lew-Williams, C (2017) Bilinguals control
The UK government is not waiting to @MelanieButler_E their languages as they listen Proceedings of the
see what the EFL gurus have to say. They National Academy of Sciences
Expecting all English language students to learn to read and spell in the same
way as they do in their native language is misguided, writes Melanie Butler
e need to talk about spelling. dyslexia, a condition that correlates not only
It is, after all, the single most time learning to spell, they learn to read much with reading difficulties but with learning a
difficult thing about English, more quickly and have a much lower rate of second language.
Wat least according to a survey dyslexia. Do we test them for this problem? No,
of second-language speakers at Cambridge Around 1 per cent of Spanish children are we’re too busy trying to decide their learning
Assessment. They would agree with a style. Even if we find out they have the
comment I saw on social media recently: EFL follows the problem, what do we do to support them?
‘English is a simple language with a simple All too often, the answer is nothing. Dyslexia
grammar and a psychotic spelling system.’ mantra that the reading does not appear in our training courses or our
Yet in EFL we barely teach it. Foreign textbooks. In the magic world of EFL, it does
children, it seems, are expected simply to skills from a child’s first not exist.
acquire it naturally, though no child in the EFL follows the mantra that the reading
English-speaking world would be expected language are transferred skills from a child’s first language are
to get through primary school without being to their second language transferred to their second language and
taught and tested in spelling. In the US it is therefore don’t need to be dealt with at all.
a national obsession, with groups of children and therefore But the skills you use to learn to read in a
subjected live on television to trial by transparent language are completely different
orthography in a so-called ‘spelling bee’. don’t need to be dealt to the ones you need to read in an opaque
They don’t have spelling bees in Spain. one like English, French or Arabic.
Spanish is a transparent language with an with at all In their book The Learning Mind, Sarah-
almost perfect match between graphemes Jayne Blakemore and Uta Frith describe
and phonemes; words are spelled exactly the diagnosed as dyslexic, while the rate in the the differences between the brain processes
way they’re pronounced. The same is true English-speaking world is 8 to10 per cent. Italian children use to read and those used by
of Turkish, Finnish and Italian. Transparent- When Spanish or Turkish children try to learn English children. The Italians process reading
language speakers don’t just have an easier English, 8 to 10 per cent will also develop entirely in the area of the brain dedicated to
24 November 2017 editorial@elgazette.com 25