Elaine Tarone, Martha Bigelow, Kit Hansen
Literacy and Second Language Oracy
Published in this series:
BACHMAN: Fundamental Considerations in Language Testing
BACHMAN and PALMER: Language Testing in Practice
BRUMFIT: Individual Freedom and Language Teaching
BRUMFIT and CARTER (eds.): Literature and Language Teaching
CANAGARAJAH: Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in Language Teaching
COHEN and MACARO (eds.): Language Learner Strategies
COOK: Discourse and Literature
COOK: Language Play, Language Learning
COOK and SEIDLHOFER (eds.): Principle and Practice in Applied Linguistics
DÖRNYEI: Research Methods in Applied Linguistics
DÖRNYEI: The Psychology of Second Language Acquisition
ELLIS: Second Language Acquisition Research and Language Teaching
ELLIS: Task-based Language Learning and Teaching
ELLIS: The Study of Second Language Acquisition (2nd edn.)
ELLIS: Understanding Second Language Acquisition
ELLIS and BARKHUIZEN: Analysing Learner Language
FOTOS and NASSAJI (eds.): Form-focused Instruction and Teacher Education
HOLLIDAY: The Struggle to Teach English as an International Language
HOWATT: A History of English Language Teaching
JENKINS: English as a Lingua Franca
JENKINS: The Phonology of English as an International Language
KERN: Literacy and Language Teaching
KRAMSCH: Context and Culture in Language Teaching
LANTOLF (ed.): Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning
LANTOLF and THORNE: Sociocultural Theory and the Genesis of Second Language Development
LARSEN-FREEMAN and CAMERON: Complex Systems and Applied Linguistics
MACKEY (ed.): Conversational Interaction in Second Language Acquisition
MEINHOF: Language Learning in the Age of Satellite Television
NATTINGER and DECARRICO: Lexical Phrases and Language Teaching
PHILLIPSON: Linguistic Imperialism
SEIDLHOFER (ed.): Controversies in Applied Linguistics
SELIGER and SHOHAMY: Second Language Research Methods
SKEHAN: A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning
STERN: Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching
STERN (eds. P. ALLEN and B. HARLEY): Issues and Options in Language Teaching
TARONE and YULE: Focus on the Language Learner
WIDDOWSON: Aspects of Language Teaching
WIDDOWSON: Defining Issues in English Language Teaching
WIDDOWSON: Practical Stylistics
WIDDOWSON: Teaching Language as Communication
WRAY: Formulaic Language
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in
Oxford New York
Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
With offices in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
OXFORD and OXFORD ENGLISH are registered trade marks of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Oxford University Press 2009
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
Database right Oxford University Press (maker)
First published 2009
2012 2011 2010 2009
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
No unauthorized photocopying
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer
Any websites referred to in this publication are in the public domain and their addresses are provided by Oxford University Press for information only. Oxford University Press disclaims any responsibility for the content
ISBN 978-0-19-442300-7
Printed in Spain by Unigraf S. L.
For our parents:
Ernest Tarone and Betty Tarone
Patricia Dennis and Albert Bigelow
Thomas Hansen and Bran Hansen
Acknowledgments
Most importantly, we wish to recognize and thank the Somali teens and adults who agreed to participate in our study. Their time is precious and we are so grateful that they were willing to spend the time to talk to us and complete our many different tasks. We thank Ali Osman for helping us recruit participants, and the Children’s Home Society and the Somali Education Center for allowing us to use their space to meet participants. Thanks to Eileen Watson for being the first to welcome us into Cedar Riverside neighborhood activities in 2001 and for her wise counsel about how to proceed with our research in respectful ways.
This research was supported by the resources of the University of Minnesota in a number of ways. Two University of Minnesota Graduate School Grants in Aid of Research supported our research, one awarded to Elaine Tarone in 2002 and another in 2003 to Martha Bigelow, who also won a single-semester leave to gather data and immerse herself in the community. In 2004 Elaine Tarone and Kit Hansen were given a College of Liberal Arts Graduate Research Partnership Program grant. All these grants funded Kimberly Johnson, Larry Davis, Mike Hinrichs, and Becky Uran Markman, who helped us with research, transcription, and data analysis. Nora Wildgen White is the artist who drew pictures we used to gather the data (see Figure 3.2). The University of Minnesota has also supported our travel to numerous conferences to present versions of the papers upon which this book is based.
We are deeply grateful to Jenefer Philp, whose original study simultaneously anchored and inspired us. We wish to acknowledge Bonnie Swierzbin and Bob delMas, who were co-authors with us on papers published with the data reported in this book. We benefited greatly from feedback on earlier drafts of segments of this book by Michael Graves, Abukar Ali, Anne Lazaraton, Jim Lantolf, Lourdes Ortega, Merrill Swain, Henry Widdowson, Jill Watson, and George Yule. Mike E. Anderson provided weekly encouragement on getting this project to completion. Finally, we would like to thank our editor, Cristina Whitecross, with whom it has been such a pleasure to work.
Abbreviations
ACT