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Many students, ranging from native English speakers to recent immigrants, need help in understanding and using the language of school. Language is the lifeblood of learning in all content areas, and it plays a major role in academic achievement. Building Academic Language explains the main functions and features of academic language that teachers (language arts, history, math, & science teachers, etc.) should know for supporting academic reading, writing, and discussion. The book includes research-based instructional and assessment activities that content teachers can use to build students' abilities to understand and describe the many abstract concepts, higher-order thinking skills, and complex relationships in a discipline. The book emphasizes an approach that builds from students' existing ways of learning and communicating, scaffolding them to think, read, write, and talk as content area experts do about math, science, history, and language arts.

Topics and themes include:

• What is academic language and how does it differ by content area?
  
  
• How can language-building activities (discussions, small groups, etc.) support content understanding?
  
  
• How can we build language abilities for content reading and writing - and vice versa?
  
  
• How can we build on students' diverse ways of understanding, learning, and communicating about the world?
  
  
• How can we more effectively model and scaffold academic language in our teaching and assessment?

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TOC and EXCERPTS

Preface

Chapter 1 - Understanding How Students Use Language

Chapter 2 - Language for Academic Thinking

Chapter 3 - Cultivating Academic Language Acquisition

Chapter 4 - Content- Area Variations of Academic Language

Chapter 5 - Academic Classroom Discussions

Chapter 6 - Academic Listening and Speaking in Small Groups

Chapter 7 - Language for Academic Reading

Chapter 8 - Language for Academic Writing

Chapter 9 - Building Language into Lessons & Assessment

Appendices: