Comments on Jill Sinclair Bell's "The Relationship between L1 and L2 Literacy: Some Complicating Factors": A Reader Reacts

Abstract

Jill Sinclair Bell's fascinating description and analysis of her own experience studying Chinese literacy skills (Vol. 29, No. 4, Winter 1995) raises important issues for teaching literacy at all levels, from learning a new script to the acquisition of critical literacy skills. Her emphasis on the complicated nature of transfer and on the influence of unconscious assumptions about the meaning of literacy, how literacy should be learned, and which "qualities of self' (p. 687) are displayed in literacy is very welcome in a field where often students and teachers hope for the simple answer. In particular, these issues are of crucial importance in English for academic purposes writing classrooms where teachers need to address issues of contrastive rhetoric, help students access academic discourse communities, and provide students with meaningful feedback. My purpose here is to examine the implications of Bell's article for this setting and to draw on other literature to find some pedagogical directions to address these issues.