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by Jane D. Hill and Kirsten B. Miller
Table of Contents
In the 1980s, the field of second-language acquisition was widely influenced by theories developed by Krashen and Terrell (1983) and Cummins (1984). Krashen proposed five hypotheses to explain how another language is acquired, and Cummins introduced us to the differences between basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS), or conversational language, and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP), or what we now know as academic language. (We explore these concepts further in Chapter 2.) More recently, Anstrom and her colleagues (2010) delivered the 50-page Review of the Literature on Academic English: Implications for K–12 English Language Learners, which documents the research that contributes to our understanding of academic English and how it is taught and learned.
In other words, this is a complex concept and one addressed by many scholars. In this chapter, we sort through the research to investigate language functions and structures; highlight what it means for students to use productive accountable talk and "sound like a book"—that is, to express their reasoning using academic language; and show how function, structure, and discourse fit into a framework that will help teachers identify the content-area academic language needed to explicitly teach their students.
Language can best be understood as action, rather than form or function alone (Walqui, 2012); students learn to do things with language when they participate in meaningful activities that engage and challenge them. Students will learn more English when engaged in the action of talking with other students than through typical teacher-directed activities designed solely to deliver content. Participation in oral activities has a dual purpose: it develops conceptual understanding and increases language use.
Fathman, Quinn, and Kessler (1992) point out that "language functions are specific uses of language for accomplishing certain purposes" (p. 12). In other words, the function of language is dependent on its purpose in a given lesson. For example, are students using it to describe? Explain? Persuade? Language structure, by contrast, refers to the words themselves and how they are strung together into phrases and sentences.
Language functions exist in both oral and written communication. In real-life conversations, we may need to describe our weekend, explain how to get to a restaurant, or persuade a friend to help us with a project. Knowing how to use these language functions allows us to participate fully in these conversations. In school, we teach students to write for a variety of purposes. For example, we might ask a student to describe an animal in a report, explain how to plant a seed in a procedural manner, or persuade classmates to recycle.
A powerful reciprocal relationship links talking and writing. Talking allows students to develop ideas and language they can use while writing, and writing allows them to develop ideas and language they can express orally.
When teachers ask students to write for a variety of purposes and across different genres, students learn language functions. According to Gibbons (1991), a multitude of language functions for speaking occur in the classroom each day, including the following:
The term language structure refers to what students say: the phrasing, key words, and grammatical usage that students acquiring English will need in order to participate in a lesson. Like language functions, language structures exist in both oral and written communication. Whereas language function is the "purpose" for talking, language structure refers to the "what"—the elements that culturally and linguistically diverse students will need to help them get the English out of their mouths.
To identify the language structure that accompanies language function, teachers should think in terms of the following elements:
Returning to the example of the real-life conversation mentioned earlier, when we describe our weekend, we might naturally say something such as "Over the weekend, I went to the zoo. I went to the park. I cleaned my kitchen. I also walked my dog." Consider the overall phrasing necessary to communicate this information. Appropriate sentence starters could include "Over the weekend, I went to ___" or "I ___ my___." Key words could include the names of places and things such as park, zoo, dog, and kitchen. A grammar minilesson could focus on the use of past-tense verbs or the idiomatic expression over the weekend. Let's take a look at some examples that illustrate the language functions, structures, and objectives that need to be addressed in a lesson.
Subject: Language Arts
Content Objective: To learn how to express persuasive opinions
Language Objective: To use sentence starters such as "I think" and "In my opinion" to form opinions
The language function is persuading because the lesson involves expressing opinions in order to persuade. The language structure is using the sentence starters "I think" and "In my opinion." The language objective is therefore using these starters to express opinions.
Subject: Mathematics
Content Objective: To comprehend the differences between two or more polygons
Language Objective: Using more than and less than to compare polygons
The language function includes both identifying and comparing in a two-step process. Students will need to be able to identify each polygon and then say how the polygons compare to one another. Because students will need to understand comparative structures such as greater than and less than, the language objective becomes using these phrases to compare polygons.
Subject: Social Studies
Content Objective: To understand the period of the 1920s and the women's rights movement
Language Objective: To learn contractions in order to make comparisons
Because students will be comparing what women could and couldn't do—and what they did and didn't do—in the 1920s, they will need the language function of comparing. The language structure is contractions. The language objective is to learn contractions in order to make comparisons.
Conversational language differs from academic language. Conversational language is the informal, chatty way of talking that students use with family and friends, whereas academic language is language used at school and characterized by longer, more complex sentences that contain vocabulary less frequently heard than the vocabulary in everyday spoken English.
Each content area includes particular discourse, or ways of talking. For example, passive voice is common in science, because science is objective and we refer to scientific phenomena by focusing on the action. For example, "experiments were conducted by the scientists." Students in the process of learning English need teacher modeling of this type of language use and time to interact with others and use the passive voice when they "talk science."
Just as science is known for passive voice, history is known for chronological discourse, because it's written according to a time sequence. Certain transitional words, also known as signal words, accompany historical text and are used by authors to link ideas together. The language of time sequences includes words such as initially, followed by, immediately, afterward, meanwhile, and eventually. We want students to use these words when discussing history in the classroom. Mathematics, on the other hand, focuses on generalizations and principles, using academic language such as if … then, for instance, generally, it could be argued that, and therefore.
When we ask students to use the language of science, history, or math, we're asking them to "sound like a book." Students may initially need to have their learning scaffolded. Teachers can first ask students to verbalize something as if they were their parents or as if they were the principal. Next, students could be asked to sound like a scientist, historian, or mathematician. In analyzing how professionals speak, students should be led to recognize that such speech involves longer, more complex sentences and uses higher-level vocabulary than is common in everyday speech. The use of signal words contributes to creating longer compound sentences.
Given the growing numbers of English language learners and other students in need of language development in our classrooms, simply teaching content is no longer enough. Subject-matter teachers are being called upon to address the academic language that accompanies their content.
The Academic Language Framework (see Appendix A for a blank template) offers a structure for deciphering the language demands of content. Here's how to use the framework:
Task
Exemplars
Academic Language
Function of Language
Vocabulary
Grammar
Sentence Starter(s)
Sequence events in one of the chapters.
"First, the sky grew dark and everyone went to the storm shelter. While they were in the barn, Sarah remembered some important mementos in the house. Afterwards, Caleb noticed the colors of the sky were the same as the ocean Sarah described."
sequencing
mementos
adverbs of time
First, ____.
Next, _____.
Meanwhile, _____.
Afterwards, _____.
Vocabulary: key words needed to engage in the standard; for example, mementos.
Grammar: grammatical structures and parts of speech; for example, adverbs of time.
Sentence Starters: sentence starters students will find helpful; for example, First, _____; Next, _____; Meanwhile, _____; and Afterwards, _____.
In Chapter 3, we demonstrate how to use the framework to set language objectives. Chapter 5 illustrates how to use the framework to incorporate cooperative learning structures while implementing Common Core State Standards in mathematics. In Chapters 7, 8, 10, and 11, we apply the framework to the Next Generation Science Standards and the Common Core State Standards via the strategies of nonlinguistic representations, summarizing and note taking, identifying similarities and differences, and generating and testing hypotheses.
Another way to help teachers think about the language that students need in order to be successful is to use McREL's second-language acquisition and taxonomy matrix (see Figure 1.2)—what we call the Thinking Language Matrix (Hill & Björk, 2008a, 2008b). This matrix aligns the levels of thinking from Bloom's taxonomy (Bloom, Engelhart, Furst, Hill, & Krathwohl, 1956) to the stages of second-language learning. (For this book, we use Bloom's original taxonomy from 1956. Although there has been a revision and other taxonomies have since been developed, the original Bloom's is most familiar to the majority of teachers. When we present new information, such as aligning stages of second-language acquisition with the taxonomy levels, starting with the familiar can help avoid misapprehensions.)
Levels of Thinking and Language Functions
Level of thinking and academic language required for any task; move from concrete recall to more complex, abstract levels.
Tiered Thinking Across Stages of Second-Language Acquisition
Language moves from simple to complex in grammatical tenses, forms, vocabulary, etc.
WORD → MODEL → EXPAND → SOUND LIKE A BOOK
Preproduction:
nonverbal response
Early Production:
one-word response
Speech Emergence:
phrases or short sentences
Intermediate Fluency:
longer and more complex sentences
Advanced Fluency:
near native
Comprehension
classify, describe, discuss, explain, express, identify, indicate, locate, recognize, report, restate, review, select, translate
The student represents which set has more/less by arranging the blocks.
Sentence starter:
There are ___ red blocks than blue blocks.
OR
Key vocabulary:
more, less, equal
"There are more red blocks than blue blocks because this set has eight and the other set has six."
"These two sets are equal because they both have seven blocks."
Using the matrix, teachers can address the language demands in their lessons as follows:
See Appendix B for a blank template of the matrix. The example that follows explains how a teacher might use the process to create the completed matrix shown in Figure 1.2.
The English Language Proficiency Development Framework developed by the Council of Chief State School Officers (2012) offers helpful ways to think about the academic language embedded in the Common Core math standards. For example, Common Core Mathematical Practice Standard 1 expects students to make sense of problems and persevere in solving them (Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). At a kindergarten level, a student might be asked to "explain data," which would be found under Levels of Thinking in Comprehension. With this in mind, a teacher might expect students to say "There are more red blocks than blue blocks because this set has eight and the other set has six" or "These two sets are equal because they both have seven blocks." The teacher records these examples in the Intermediate/Advanced column. The teacher would then think about the purpose of the small-group discussion and conclude that students are describing how sets are formed. Students then need sentence starters, such as "There are _____ red blocks than blue blocks," or the specific vocabulary words more, less, and equal. This is recorded in the Early Production/Speech Emergence column. The teacher may decide that the Preproduction students can represent sets with more or less by using red and blue blocks (manipulatives) to represent the data and compare the number of blocks in each set. This demonstration is recorded in the Preproduction column.
Examples of the Thinking Language Matrix appear in each of the following chapters to illustrate how to engage students at all stages of second-language acquisition in the levels of Bloom's taxonomy.
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