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Academic language must be planned for and taught during the lesson. This includes having students demonstrate use of the academic language within the lesson sequence, with opportunities for evaluation and feedback. Function, form, syntax, and discourse work together to achieve communication for the purposes of meeting the content learning objective.
Academic Language Example
This academic language example is related to the lesson objective, “All students will be able to understand the concept of then and now (past, present, and future) and use the terms in their correct context as well as be able to match up pictures of objects from the past to their current counterparts, getting at least 4 out of 6 pairs correct.”
The academic language the students will need to know to be successful in this lesson includes function words: “sort” and “pair up”. Students will be using these words when we are working with the past/present matching cards. These words may not be new for all students in the class but I will be sure to show all students an example of what I am asking them to do to make sure they understand.
Additional language demands include understanding vocabulary related to this lesson in connection with past and present: “past”, “present”, “future”, and “then” and “now”. We will also be talking about objects shown in the book and discussed together that the students may not know, including “records”, “cassette tapes”, and “CDs”.
I will display text from our social studies book on the document camera and, together as a class, we will examine the text to look for the words past, present, future, then, and now. We will talk about the syntax that may cause confusion or misunderstanding for students. For example, I think the students may misunderstand what the author is referring to when he writes, “Then and Now” as a heading. Students may not know what “then” refers to and we will look for other text to show us the specific timeframe. We will also read very lengthy sentences together and create a bulleted list of important concepts in these sentences as students may struggle with the long sentences, skim or skip information and as a result miss some important information that is necessary to understanding the entire text.
Also, in displaying the text, I will talk about how the author structured the text. It is a compare/contrast text structure. I will point this out to students to see why the author is using visuals within the text and how the charts relate to the compare/contrast text structure.
To support the students in expressing their understanding of this academic language, I will use the Document Camera to model what it means to “sort” and “pair-up” as I use the academic language. I will have students demonstrate how to sort crayons and pair up similar crayons following my modeling and before we proceed to the social studies activity of sorting and pairing up.
To further support my students, I will help students make connections between “past”, “present”, and “future” to the more familiar words “yesterday”, “today”, and “tomorrow” that we use every day during our Morning Meeting/Calendar routines. Making connections to their prior knowledge in this way will help them understand the meanings of our new academic vocabulary. In addition, I will use baby and childhood pictures of me representing change over time to show them additional visuals representing “past” and “present”.
Students will have two specific opportunities to express their understanding of this content and use the academic language associated with it. They will engage in a sorting and pairing-up activity with a partner in which they will use the words, “sort”, “pair-up”, “past”, “present”, and “future” with their partners. Students will also be asked to defend their sorts by using the sentence frame, “I sorted in this way to compare and contrast. This shows the past because___________________. This shows the______________________ because_________________.” |
Academic Language Scaffolds and Supports
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Explicit supports must be provided within the lesson .Tools and practices to support the academic language development include, but are not limited, to the following:
- Anchor Charts
- Diagrams, charts, graphic organizers or other visuals
- Sentence frames and sample text
- Learner-friendly definitions or visual definition
- translation to relevant Languages Other Than English (LOTE)
- Multiple exposures
- Semantic maps to expand the word
- Demonstrations
- Teacher modeling
- Guided note-taking
- Authentic examples/non-examples and application with authentic purposes
- Word learning strategies such as inferring or use of context cues
- Working with a partner or in a small group
- Opportunities to use the academic language to report out or write about the learning
Function, form, syntax and discourse work together. For example, if students are to compare and contrast ‘mitosis’ and ‘meiosis’, you may wish to identify the function, model comparing and contrasting and provide multiple examples of comparing and contrasting.
You will want to identify the following content vocabulary (form)-diploid cells, chromosomes, nuclear membrane, replication, and genome.
Next, you would identify the forms needed for comparing and contrasting—less, more, least, -er, -est, compare, comparison, like, unlike, similar, similarity, differ, different, and difference.
You will want to examine text together in which these words and concepts are introduced. Examine the text together to discuss troublesome points such as choice of words, ideas, and grammar components. “Dissecting the text” in this way is a support for students.
You would then identify additional supports you will use to assist students in using the academic language—perhaps a Venn Diagram.
Lastly, identify opportunities for students to express their understanding through a particular discourse pattern. What will be the expectations for this expression and in what context will they share?
More of all students, including to meet the specific needs of students at differing academic language proficiency levels. Based on your analysis of your academic language needs and your instructional context, you may elect to utilize one of more research-backed supports to enhance explicit instruction in order to address the following prompt in your UNW School of Education lesson plan document:
What additional scaffolds and supports are needed to support academic language success for these learners?
Tools, strategies, and practices to support academic language development include, but are not limited to:
- Anchor Charts
- Diagrams, charts, graphic organizers or other visuals
- Sentence frames and sample text
- Learner-friendly definitions or visual definition
- translation to relevant Languages Other Than English (LOTE)
- Multiple exposures
- Semantic maps to expand the word
- Demonstrations
- Teacher modeling
- Guided note-taking
- Authentic examples/non-examples and application with authentic purposes
- Word learning strategies such as inferring or use of context cues
- Working with a partner or in a small group
- Opportunities to use the academic language to report out or write about the learning
You may be thinking, how do I know which tool, strategy, or practice to select? This is a great question, and really relates to the context for learning. Consider what supports might be logically related to the most important aspects of your academic language demands relative to your learners and objective, and confer with peers/colleagues or your cooperating teacher, and take an opportunity to reflectively consider what supports already exist and what other supports may be useful.
For a general example of this process, say the content objective includes the function "compare and contrast". Logically, supports for learners related to syntax could be the inclusion of sentence frames as well as a visual or model. In this given context, a graphic organizer worksheet such as a Venn Diagram may then include the teacher written frames presented in order of complexity:
1) "___________ can be (compared to/contrasted with) __________ is...."
2)"By contrast, ______________ is also greater/lesser than __________________ because __________________..."
3) "Correspondingly, __________________ is seen to have __________________ and __________________ , so then...."
With the visual model to help organize relevant information, the above frames would notably extend or enhance the syntax of learners who need to orally report their findings to a peer with appropriate transition words based on subject-specific content. An appropriate challenge might be to see if students could use all three or perhaps create their own comparison or contrast statement based on their analysis.
More language support tools and examples are located within this handbook in 6.5 Appendix E - Academic Language Objective. Included in Appendix E are further instructions on how to understand the language proficiency levels of your multilingual learners and use that information to inform your selection of instructional supports to meet the needs of each individual.
A Summary of How to Determine Academic Language Objectives:
- identify the language function by telling what students are being asked to do through language in relation to your lesson objective,
- identify the form(s), you will explicitly teach to help students perform the function. These are the words, or bricks.
- identify syntax issues that may be troublesome and work through these with students. These are the phrases and sentences, or mortar.
- identify discourse guidelines, specifically how you expect students to talk about the content or concept;
- Identify the opportunities you will provide to have students express their understanding of content. In addition,
- identify the supports you will use to help students express their understanding of the content being taught.
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