Advancing Elementary-Level Students' Linguistic/Cultural Proficiencies Through Children's Literature

Introduction

Although the concept of proficiency has been a central concept in the field of second language acquisition for several decades, the construct for a long time was not adequately operationalized (Nunan, 1986); more recently, various models of language proficiency have been proposed to address this issue (Motallebzadeh & Moghaddam, 2011). Nevertheless, since proficiency is such an essential notion in language teaching and learning, there have been several attempts to define and understand the term. For example, some researchers suggest that proficiency encompasses both competence (“the speaker-hearer’s knowledge of his language”) and performance (“the actual use of language in concrete situations”) (Chomsky, 1965, p. 4). Canale and Swain (1980) concur by claiming that competence is “…knowledge of grammar and other aspects of language” (p. 3), and that performance is “…the realization of these competencies [grammatical and sociolinguistic] and their interaction in the actual production and comprehension of utterances” (p. 6). Thus, competence can be understood as the learner’s knowledge about the target language, while performance can be understood as the learner’s ability to use the target language effectively in communicative situations (Harsch, 2017; Hulstijn, 2007; Thomas, 1994). In a similar vein, cultural proficiency can be understood as “the wherewithal to understand and possess the skills and behaviors to relate effectively with individuals from various cultures and backgrounds” (Ezzani, 2014, p. 2). As with the conceptualization of language proficiency outlined above, cultural proficiency can include both competence (e.g., one’s knowledge about important aspects of the target culture) and performance (e.g., one’s capacity to discern patterns and variations in the target culture) (Singerman, 1996). Thus, educators need to facilitate the development of students’ linguistic and cultural cognitive aptitudes and behavioral realizations in order to ensure that learners understand and demonstrate “…what it takes to communicate capably across, or for that matter, even within cultures” (Warford & White, 2012, p. 401).

This chapter reports on a research study intended to document, analyze, and understand the contributions of incorporating children’s literature to elementary-level Spanish students’ developing language (hereafter referred to as “linguistic”) and cultural competencies simultaneously. The chapter begins with an exploration of several theories related to the development of students’ linguistic and cultural competencies respectively along with a review of related literature and a summary of the gaps in this literature that the study addresses. The chapter then provides a synopsis of the research context and the data collection and analysis procedures for the study along with important findings from the study that demonstrate the relevancy of the children’s books to students’ emerging linguistic and cultural competencies.