Brown’s Optimal Distance Model predicts that efficient second language learning happens at a certain point in the acculturation process. Discover strategies for working through cultural uncertainty while developing language skills.
Teachers of English language learners spend time searching for means to lower learners’ affective filters in the classroom to enable English language acquisition and content-area academic success. However, in our Texas context, we often see learners from similar cultures who are forming friendships, passing STAAR EOC exams, earning credits, and graduating from high school without demonstrating English language proficiency through the TELPAS and oral language proficiency assessments.
This session looks at H. Douglas Brown’s 1980 Optimal Distance Model of Second Language Acquisition and related studies. The acquisition of language and the acquisition of culture can be synchronized, as learners progress through cultural marginalization, separation, integration, and assimilation in parallel with their beginning, intermediate, advanced, and advanced high levels of language acquisition. However, if acculturation proceeds at a faster pace than language acquisition, language development can fall behind.
This session discusses practical aspects for providing English language learners with motivating real-world opportunities to work through experiences of uncertainty and discontent by using linguistic coping strategies to develop their English language skills. Participants are encouraged to share their experiences as well.
