Re: Kelleen's paper

Angel M.Y. Lin (mylin who-is-at oise.on.ca)
Wed, 13 Dec 1995 15:17:09 -0500 (EST)

Dear Pete, Judy, and fellow xmca'ers,

Interestingly, Kelleen Toohey offers a critique of Lily Wong-Fillmore's
theoretical framework on sociocultural grounds. I tend to agree with
Kelleen on this... traditional L2 research talks about "individual
differences" in personality, in sociableness... or in strategy use, but I
think Kelleen wants to critique this individualistic theoretical
orientation by using a COP perspective. Strategies and personality
traits are not always helpful... neither are linguistic abilities...
Kelleen seems to want to argue that it all depends on what the commmunity
in question can accept... and that can change with time, too; so, I guess
she wants to adopt a more dynamic, social approach than traditional L2
approaches which like to talk about the traits/strategies of "the good
language learner"... I hope Kelleen will be on-line again to join in the
interesting discussion!

Angel

On Wed, 13 Dec 1995, Pete Farruggio wrote:

> Angel,
>
> Sounds like there's some convergence with Lily Wong Fillmore's findings
> that the more gregarious personalities, who throw themselves into exchanges
> with mainstream speakers and do a lot of "faking it" with the little L2
> they have, are the fastest L2 learners.
>
> In other words, personality plays a big role, and may even be more
> important than actual language competence.
>
> Pete Farruggio
>
>
> >On Tue, 12 Dec 1995, Mike Cole wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Hi Angel-- The least you owe us for using xmca to communicate with
> >> Kathleen is a summary of why her paper, "Learning English as a
> >> second language in kindergarten: A community of practice perspective."
> >>
> >> Sounds like just the sort of thing that ought to be published in
> >> Mind,Culture, and Activity, it sounds like. What does it say?
> >> :-)
> >> mike
> >>
> >
> >Hi Mike and fellow xmca'ers,
> >
> >Yes, a summary that was what I thought some of you might run after me for...
> >(cannot be lazy :-)
> >
> >Well, I think it would be best for Kelleen to do it... (but I guess she's
> >been off-line for some time... appeared so in her note to me attached to
> >her paper...)
> >
> >OK summary here: (see if I could do it in 5 minutes' of typing :-)
> >
> >(1) Site: Canadian kindergarten, children about 5 years old; a mainstream
> >classroom of 20, 11 non-English-speaking; recent immigrant children;
> >Kelleen focuses on 2 children, a boy from Singapore, a girl from Hong Kong;
> >
> >(2) Theme: practices, identitiy construction, and access to classroom
> >resources and PLAY with others (it's my key word approach :-) : the
> >relationship among the 3
> >
> >(3) Problem facing the non-English speaking children: how to get accepted
> >into the mainstream English-speaking children's community
> >
> >(4) Things that help:
> >
> >:construct an identity that's acceptable to the
> >norms of the mainstream community so that this new comer can have the
> >role of a LPP
> >
> >: if the newcomer happens to have the skills valued by the community,
> >e.g., making gifts, skills in using crayons and scissors, writing one's name
> >
> >: an identity that is palatable to the community e.g., a quiet cute
> >little girl
> >
> >(5) Things that may not necessarily help: English lingusitic competence
> >(contrary to what traditional L2 research says)
> >
> >
> >(6) Kelleen's point: SLA is embedded in the larger project of the
> >newcomer seeking access to the mainstream community, in her/his
> >relative success or failure, and involves those things that help or not
> >help the newcomer to enter into the COP...
> >
> >
> >Alright, does this summary help?
> >
> >Angel
> >
> >P.S. I have some queries that I'd like to discuss with Kelleen, mainly
> >around the question of "identity"... what is meant by "identity" in her
> >paper? The notion seems to need some more work...
>
>
>