BUILDING ACADEMIC

LANGUAGE IN THE ESL CLASSROOM

Elisabeth Chan

The International Center for EnglishArkansas State University

ARKTESOL - October 28, 2010

What’s the difference?

Magnetic attraction occurs only between ferrous metals.

Our experiments showed that magnets attract some metals.

We found out the pins stuck on the magnet.

Look, it’s making them move. They don’t stick.

Gibbons (2002, p.40)

Magnetic attraction occurs only between ferrous metals.

Our experiments showed that magnets attract some metals.

We found out the pins stuck on the magnet.

Look, it’s making them move. They don’t stick.

Gibbons (2002, p.40)

Registers!

Non-Academic

Academic

Conversational vs Academic Cummins (1981)

BICS – basic interpersonalcommunicative skills ○ 2-3 years

CALP – cognitive academiclanguage proficiency ○ 5-7 years

Cummins’ QuadrantsContext embedded? Cognitively demanding?

Cummins’ Quadrants COGNITIVELY

UNDEMANDING

CONTEXT CONTEXT

EMBEDDED REDUCED

COGNITIVELY

DEMANDING

Academic Bag of Tricks

How academic English is different &

Activities for building:WritingReadingSpeakingVocabulary

WritingOrganization

Content

Grammar

ORGANIZATIONAL PATTERN CONTENT

TOPIC SUPPORTING DETAILS

GRAMMAR COMPOUND SENTENCES COMPLEX SENTENCES

Difference?

Building Academic Writing

Teach and practice the writing process Focus on content

State a topic and develop it Focus on cohesive paragraph structure

Reference, conjunctions, nominalization Focus on sentence structure

Compound, clauses, signal words Paraphrasing

Writing Activities

Sentence TransformationSimple compoundNominalizations every day language

The police investigation of the robbery lasted for one month.

The police investigated the robbery for one month.

Writing Activities

Sentence TransformationSimple compoundNominalizations every day language

ParaphraseHave students pull key words from a level

appropriate academic text and then put away the original text

Now have students paraphrase using only the keywords written down to help

Difference?

Building Academic Reading

Build reading fluency through Extensive Reading

Engage students & increase motivation Explicitly teach reading skills

Model the skills! Use “Think Alouds”

Reading

Titles & Headings Figures Bold words Objectives Language!

Guessing from context!Context-embedded + Cognitively demanding

Speaking

Building Academic Speech Raise students’ awareness

Use discussion groups with questions about differencesListen to lectures or speeches & analyze the language

usedAnalyze research or focus on prevalent structures

Extend conversationAvoid IRE’s = Initiation, Response, Evaluation

(Cazden, 2001)

Speaking Activities Avoiding IRE’s

Ask more open ended questionsRespond with encouragement and in a way that extends

their response and thinking○ T: The teacher –blank– a book to the class every week.

S: readsT: That’s right! Why do we use “read” and not “reads”?

OR

T: Very good! What other verbs can we use?S: gives?T: Excellent! What is a verb we cannot use there? Why not?

Describe this image

Academic Vocabulary Every day vocabulary vs. Academic

(Brook, D. 1998)

Extensive reading Explicitly teach vocabulary learning

strategiesVocabulary notebook activities

Anglo-Saxon French Latin

fear terror trepidation

win succeed triumph

holy sacred consecrated

Vocabulary Activities

Note cards or Notebooks

academic – adj. academy (n.)

academia (n.)

I learn academic

words when I read

my textbooks.

Vocabulary Activities

Note cards or Notebooks

academic – adj. academy (n.)

academia (n.)

academic advising

academic word list

academic studies

school study

academic

hard words textbook

References Arms, K. 1996. Environmental Science. Austin, TX: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Brook, D. 1998. The Journey of English. New York: Clarion Books. Cazden, C. 2001. Classroom Discourse: The Language of Teaching and Learning.

Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Cummins, J. 1981. “The Role of Primary Language Development in Promoting

Educational Success for Language Minority Students.” In Schooling and Language Minority Students: A Theoretical Framework, 3-49. Los Angeles: Evaluation, Dissemination and Assessment Center, California State University, Los Angeles.

Freeman, Y.S. and D.E. Freeman. 2009. Academic Language for English Language Learners and Struggling Readers: How to Help Students Succeed Across Content Areas. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Gibbons, P. 2002. Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning: Teaching Second Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Guthrie, J. and M. Davis. 2003. “Motivating Struggling Readers in Middle School Through an Engagement Model of Classroom Practice.” Reading and Writing Quarterly 9: 59-85.

Swales, J. 2005. “Academically Speaking.” Language Magazine 4 (8): 30-34.

Scholastic. Magnetic Attraction. http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=1227. Accessed October 5, 2010.

POS Hardware. International Point of Sale Cash Registers. http://www.internationalpointofsale.com/store/index.php?cPath=84. Accessed October 5, 2010.

Image Citations

QUESTIONS?CONTACT INFO

Elisabeth Chanechan@astate.edu

http://www.astate.edu/international/tice

The International Center for English

Arkansas State University