Abstract
When an adult migrant begins to acquire a second language, it is often presumed that the learner is already equipped with first language literacy and can therefore transfer these same literacy skills during their acquisition of the new, second language. However, many adult second language (L2) learners lack the opportunity to develop first language (L1) literacy prior to migration. Currently, nearly 10% of the world population is unable to read and write in any language (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2017). Many of these individuals and their families may need to migrate at some point in their lives, thus needing to acquire new languages to function in their new settings. Such adults need to learn both an entirely new language and doubly first-time print literacy. Yet, unlike children who generally acquire initial literacy at a young age in their L1, these adults are acquiring literacy in adulthood, which is arguably more difficult due to differences in brain plasticity (Knowland & Thomas, 2014) as well as social and economic barriers which impact one’s available time to devote to learning. Moreover, adult immigrants and refugees with emergent literacy may be acquiring this first-time ability to read and write in a new language they may have never previously been exposed to. Imaginably, their simultaneous process of acquiring an entirely new language along with the acquisition of first-time literacy (in the novel language) can be a remarkable undertaking.
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Acknowledgements
I gathered the data for this study as part of my doctoral research at the University of California, Davis. I would like to thank my advisors Vaidehi Ramanathan, Julia Menard-Warwick, and Claudia Sánchez-Gutiérrez for their guidance and feedback on my work.
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Gonzalves, L. (2021). A System of Erasure: State and Federal Education Policies Surrounding Adult L2 Learners with Emergent Literacy in California. In: Warriner, D.S. (eds) Refugee Education across the Lifespan. Educational Linguistics, vol 50. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79470-5_15
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