Language Experience Approach in Action

We recommend using the Language Experience Approach (LEA) as an effective way to immediately address a learner's Language needs. LEA was recently used by Sandra LaPerche, one of our tutors, to identify her learner Yan's specific language strengths and weaknesses.

When using the Language Experience Approach (LEA), tutors ask their learners to tell a story by sharing a personal experience.

LEA is built around direct transcripts: the tutor writes down exactly what a learner says in response to a prompt, oftentimes a simple question of even a picture. 

In this case, tutor Sandra LaPerche printed out a picture of a park near Kunming, China as a conversation starter for her learner Yan, whom Sandra knew was from the region pictured:


Image source: Trip Advisor

Here is what Yan said, word for word:

This is a national park close to Kunming. It's called a stone forest like a candle forest, but they are stone, and an different stone looks like different thing. Some of them look like birds and some of them look like animals such as dog, bear and snake. There is built for fantastic story. Long time ago there was a ocean and a beautiful girl want to see his boyfriend, so she used some magic to make the ocean change to stone. This is a love story. It's about how the stone forest came.

From this transcript we notice see that Yan did fairly well with definite/indefinite articles ("a national park," "the ocean," "a love story"), but used "a"/"an" inconsistently ("an different stone" and "a ocean"). Possessive pronouns also appear to be an issue for Yan, when she attempted Yan to talk about the beautiful girl and his [sic.] boyfriend. Overall, howeover, the Yan's grammar is not bad. The LEA transcript allowed Sandra to assess what Yan's language weaknesses are. They began with the possessive pronoun "her" as in "her boyfriend."

Anyone learning a new language has a limited vocabulary, and this is an issue that lessens with time and experience. Until an English learner attains a full grasp of basic vocabulary, there are concepts the learner must paraphrase, or "talk around." For example, if you were trying to describe a huge pillar of stone, you might say "a rock that is very tall and thin" or something to that effect. In the Kunming example, Yan said:

There is built for fantastic story.

Out of context, this makes little to no sense. By looking at the surrounding sentences, we can tell what Yan was trying to say. She leads by first describing the park, then by following up with a romantic tale of the park's history. "There is built for fantastic story" now begins to take on a meaning - something to the effect of "the park is the basis of [the setting for] a myth."

Assuming this was the intended meaning, it's not surprising that the learner didn't know the words "myth" or "legend" or the phrase "the setting for." Although such words and phrases don't come up in common speech very often, they reflect what Yan needs to learn now. Paraphrasing like this allow tutors to pinpoint the vocabulary words their learners need to learn that day to better express themselves.

Yan finished her story thus:

...she used some magic to make the ocean change to stone. This is a love story. It's about how the stone forest came.

There is a minor vocabulary issue (use of "came" when "came to be" or "was created" would be a better choice), but more important, this is a beautiful narrative. The learner has a good enough grasp of English to go beyond basic statements to create a distinct tone in her narrative. It's one thing to respond to a prompt correctly; it's another to begin to speak  with a unique voice.

It's important to consider a student's intentions and their voice when reviewing an LEA transcript with your learner. 

When reviewing a transcript, identify the largest and most pressing errors first, and work only on those at first. An LEA transcript can be revisited numerous times to address all of the errors it catches, one after the other, over time, until learner and tutor have addressed all the errors it reflects. As long as the primary focus is making the learner more articulate about a story they have told, LEA transcripts remain enjoyable and effective.

In a future posts, I'll talk more about LEA transcripts and how tutors can use them to access the sophistication and intelligence. Stay tuned.

Happy tutoring!

Kris


















Kristofer Pieper
Programs and Social Media Intern, English At Large
Tufts University class of 2016

ENGLISH AT LARGE
Literacy and Learning for Life
Join the conversation