What? Whole Language in ESL?

As a future Language Arts teacher, my courses in that content area at Meredith have focused on a lot on the differences between phonics and whole language. My EDU 300 class, Introduction to Language Arts, has explored this difference in great depth. As a result, for the native-English speaker, it seems as though phonics is more beneficial to learning. Because of this notion, I wanted to examine whole language when dealing with English Language Learners.

According to our textbook, Bilingual and ESL Classrooms Teaching in Multicultural Contexts, current ESL and bilingual approaches advocate a whole language philosophy. The whole language philosophy was originally developed for English speakers in English language arts classes. Specifically, “Whole language approaches focus on use of authentic language that is meaningful to students, proceeding from whole to part, integrating development of multiple language modes and domains” (Ovando 149). From what I gathered from the explanation, whole language works from general knowledge to specific knowledge: meaning first, then conventions. This is explained further, “Whole language focuses on using language, focusing on meaning first, getting students to write early and often, accepting invented spelling for beginners but expecting conventional spelling as students advance in the writing process, exposing students to high-quality literature and authentic texts from diverse writing genres, allowing students to make choices in reading, and encouraging all to be voracious readers” (qtd in Ovando 149).

In terms of the general Language Arts content classroom, this holistic approach to reading and writing is deemed as inadequate. In fact, many scholars in favor of the phonic approach have called the whole language philosophy the “crime of the century.” Those opposed to the whole language approach, feel that this approach does not give students the foundation on which to form a concept of spelling, grammar, and vocabulary. It has been thought that whole language is merely a memory device, and it ignores the phonic composition of words in the English language.

Overall, I found it interesting that the whole language approach is used in current English as a Second Language classroom despite the large debate surrounding this philosophy. It will be interesting to see which philosophy will be used in my future school.