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ARTICLE ABSTRACTS

Teacher practices and perspectives for developing academic language. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 17(1), pp. 93-116. (2007) Blackwell Publishing.

This study investigates the ways in which middle grade teachers develop academic language in intermediate-level English learners who attend mainstream content classes. Analysis of field notes, transcripts, and student work show that (a) academic language and higher-order thinking skills are closely linked, and (b) classroom discourse patterns and activities both develop and impede language growth. The teachers used four principle communication strategies: questioning, gestures, connecting to background knowledge with examples and analogies, and personifying. The results suggest that students, despite growth in certain dimensions of cognition and language, also learn counter-productive“rules of school”. This research is intended to benefit the millions of‘non-mainstream’ students worldwide who struggle in schools that have been created and shaped to serve mainstream purposes.

Keywords: academic language, cognition, scaffolding, classroom discourse, English learners

Esta investigación analiza cómo los maestros de la escuela secundaria desarrollan el lenguaje académico de los estudiantes con niveles intermedios de inglés. El análisis rindió los temas siguientes: (a) el lenguaje académico y las destrezas cognitivas y están vinculados; (b) los patrones discursivos y las actividades desarrollan e impiden el crecimiento del lenguaje académico. Las maestras usaron varias estrategias comunicativas: preguntas, gestos, ejemplos, analogías, y la personificación. Los alumnos, a pesar de del crecimiento del lenguaje académico, aprenden unas“reglas escolásticas” contraproducentes. Esta investigación tiene la intención de beneficiar a los millones de estudiantes minoritarios que tienen dificultades en las escuelas que se formaron para servir a los propósitos de los grupos lingüísticos y socioeconómicos dominantes.

Palabras clave: lenguaje académico, cognición, apoyo pedagógico, discurso escolar, aprendices de inglés

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Professional Development for Active Learning in Sub-Saharan Africa: Reflectively Practicing a Community-Centered Approach. Journal of Education for International Development 3:1. (2007) U.S. Agency for International Development.

This article describes the activities, challenges, and participants’ reflections of a teacher training program in Ethiopia. In response to the recent emphasis on more student-centered teaching approaches in the last decade, the training addressed ways to develop active learning methods and alternative assessments in settings where resources are scarce and class sizes are large. It also offered a chance for teachers to critically reflect on the
effectiveness of many Western ideas and practices that are imported for development purposes. Key insights that emerged from reflection and discussion included (1) people learn more effectively when they actively use and discuss topics in practical and realistic ways; (2) students and teachers can benefit from performance-based assessments that show deep understandings of topic; and (3) traditional and community and home education practices must be considered when integrating new teaching methods.

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Integrating academic language, thinking, and content: Learning scaffolds for non-native speakers in the middle grades. (October, 2006). Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Volume 5, Issue 4, pp. 317-332, Elsevier.

The purpose of this action research study was to explore possibilities for scaffolding academic language and historical thinking for non-native English speaking students in two middle school classrooms. The teaching approach focused on six dimensions of historical thinking: background knowledge, cause, effect, bias, empathy, and application. The following questions guided the observations and conclusions: 1) What types of instructional activities appear to develop historical thinking skills and related academic language among English Language Learners? 2) How can teaching for a writing assessment help to shape this thinking and language development? Results suggested that multimodal scaffolds for both thinking and language, designed to help students succeed on a motivating assessment task, developed cognitive and communication skills.

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The Third Language of Academic English: Five key mental habits help English language learners acquire the language of school. Educational Leadership, (2005) Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Academic language is the linguistic glue that holds the tasks, texts, and tests of school together. If a student doesn’t have this glue, things often fly apart and failure can occur. Because academic language is hard to define, for now it will be the set of words and phrases that: 1) describe content area knowledge and procedures; 2) describe complex thinking processes and abstract concepts; and 3) create cohesion, coherence, and direction in written and oral discourse.

For English learners, this academic language is like a third language that they must acquire, the second one being the more concrete, social language of the hallways, community, and media. This“third language” is full of new words, ways of thinking, figurative expressions, grammar structures, verb tenses (e.g., passive voice), and communication strategies. Many English learners, even those who appear to be fluent because of their well-developed social language, struggle to effectively negotiate and navigate this increasingly complex language of school. And unlike the relative ease of first language acquisition, academic language doesn’t as readily grow inside the heads of our students as they are exposed to it.