HOW CAN TEACHING ACADEMIC LANGUAGE HELP YOUR EAL STUDENTS TO ACHIEVE?

 

Developing students’ academic language proficiency is one of our core aims and underpins our approach to EAL student progress and intervention. 

 

When we refer to “academic language”, we’re talking about the language students need in order to understand the content that is being taught across the curriculum; the language needed to process learning; and the language students need in order to understand what they are learning, how and why; as well as  to self-monitor this.

 

The targeted teaching and intervention of academic language is characterised as EAL best practice by a number of linguistic and educational specialists, and we summarise some of their key findings below, in order to illustrate how and why our programme has been developed in this way.

 

To start with, Maxwell-Jolly, Gándara, & Mendez Benavídez, in 2005, identified why the teaching of academic language is so crucial for EAL learners.

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They indicated that, for EAL learners, “improving their English is not enough to ensure success in school” as, in order to succeed, they must also learn “English for the classroom and tests, and disciplinary content material such as history [and] science”.

 

Furthermore, EAL learners must also acquire “basic academic skills” to be able to “access school subjects and communicate understanding of content”.

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Dr Robin Scarcella, in 2003, told us that this “academic language” also includes the language of higher-order thinking such as inventing, inferring and conceptualising, and includes both oral and written communication skills too.

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Echevarria, Short and Powers, in 2006, highlighted that “without systematic [academic] language development, students never develop the requisite academic literacy skills needed for achieving success in mainstream classes, for meeting content standards, or for passing standardised assessments” 

 

Echevarria, Short and Powers also identified that students must have an in-depth knowledge of words in context, in order to achieve fluency; something that is crucial for students’ academic success. 

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It's been identified that there are three dimensions of academic language which are:

 

• Linguistic

• Cognitive

• Sociocultural/ Psychological 

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These three dimensions work together to achieve academic English fluency and were first identified by Kern in 2003, who argued that all three dimensions must be addressed by schools in order for EAL students to reach their potential.

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Summarised briefly, linguistic fluency includes: 

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• an understanding how language functions (grammar rules, intonation, parts of words parts);

• where and when to use certain genres and forms of writing;

• writing organisation and structure (discourse markers etc); and

• academic vocabulary, including words that are used across subject areas, for example: analyse, explain.

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Cognitive fluency includes: 

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• critical thinking skills;

• higher-order thinking skills;

• identifying fact from opinion;

• reading texts critically;

• writing and speaking persuasively using evidence; and

• students thinking about their own language acquisition, and evaluating/monitoring their own learning.

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Sociocultural/Psychological fluency includes: 

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• “social and cultural norms, values, beliefs, attitudes, motivations, interests, behaviours, practices, and habits” (Scarcella 2003); and

• “the particular conventions and norms that characterise the people who use it” (Scarcella, 2003);

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Gee (1996, 2002) points out that students learn these conventions by “participating in specific ways of being and acting in academic contexts.” Therefore, students do not necessarily learn these codes through explicit instruction but from being around speakers of the target language. For example, being included in mainstream learning,

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Resources: Information adapted from Suzanne Van Steenbergen, 2008, “Beyond Words : Making Academic Language Real for Secondary English Learners”

 

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