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Morphology: What Do You Need to Know and Why?
When ELLs are learning English, they will be encountering morphological rules that may be different from those in their heritage language. As mentioned in the section on Phonology, it is always helpful to familiarize yourself a bit with your ELL’s first language. A knowledge of the word formation processes in both the L1 and L2 will put you in a better position to anticipate some of the challenges the student may face in acquiring the new language. Another reason for understanding (and being able to teach) the derivational processes of words is that you will be able to provide your students with some very helpful strategies when they are on their own and have to figure out the meaning of an unfamiliar word. What follows are a few key morphological concepts that should be useful to you in the classroom.
When ELLs are learning English, they will be encountering morphological rules that may be different from those in their heritage language. As mentioned in the section on Phonology, it is always helpful to familiarize yourself a bit with your ELL’s first language. A knowledge of the word formation processes in both the L1 and L2 will put you in a better position to anticipate some of the challenges the student may face in acquiring the new language. Another reason for understanding (and being able to teach) the derivational processes of words is that you will be able to provide your students with some very helpful strategies when they are on their own and have to figure out the meaning of an unfamiliar word. What follows are a few key morphological concepts that should be useful to you in the classroom.