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Academic Language

Academic language, or the language of schooling, includes both general academic words and discipline specific academic words necessary to succeed in the lesson task (Nagy & Townsend, 2012). Zweirs (2008) defines academic language as "the set of words, grammar, and organizational strategies used to describe complex ideas, higher order thinking processes, and abstract concepts" (p. 20). Academic Language is the means by which an educator knows if a student can communicate to met the goals or objectives for the lesson.

It is important for educators to keep in mind that academic language is both receptive (seen/heard) and productive (spoken/read). Receptive and productive descriptions of language are also called language modalities. The acronym SWRL ("swirl") helps in remembering to consider each of the language modalities needed for learner success; SWRL stands for Speaking, Writing, Reading and Listening. It is beneficial for candidates to consider all language modalities when thinking about how learners will be asked to meet the lesson's content goal or objective (Goldenberg, 2013; Vogt, Echevarria, & Short, 2010).

"Bricks, Mortar, and Buildings" is a nine-minute video that presents a metaphor for academic language by the same title (Benegas & Stolpestad, 2019). This metaphor will also be used to assist in identifying the academic language needs of your instructional sequence and learning goals. Determining the academic language demands related to the lesson objective is a very important step in planning for the success for all learners.

Multilingual Learners

Building candidate awareness of academic language is important for the support and success of all learners, but is of crucial importance for multilingual learners. Multilingual learners refer to all children and youth who are, or have been, consistently exposed to multiple languages. It includes learners known as English language learners (ELLs) or dual language learners (DLLs); heritage language learners; and students who speak varieties of English or indigenous languages. Ensuring that academic (English) language is clear helps students be successful with lesson activities and objectives, thereby increasing overall student achievement.

WIDA, a non-profit language and educational research consortium, shares this a summary of guiding principles which are important to keep in mind regarding academic language development:

Multilingual learners can use their languages as an asset; Languages Other Than English (LOTE) can be utilized in teaching academic language.

  • Multilingual learners’ languages and cultures are valuable resources to be leveraged for schooling and classroom life; leveraging these assets and challenging biases help develop multilingual learners’ independence and encourage their agency in learning (Little, Dam, & Legenhausen, 2017; Moll, Amanti, Neff, & González, 1992; Nieto & Bode, 2018; Perley, 2011).
  • Multilingual learners’ development of multiple languages enhances their knowledge and cultural bases, their intellectual capacities, and their flexibility in language use (Arellano, Liu, Stoker, & Slama, 2018; Escamilla, Hopewell, Butvilofsky, Sparrow, Soltero-González, Ruiz-Figueroa, & Escamilla, 2013; Genesee, n.d.; Potowski, 2007).
  • Multilingual learners use their full linguistic repertoire, including translanguaging practices, to enrich their language development and learning (García, Johnson, & Seltzer, 2017; Hornberger & Link, 2012; Wei, 2018).

Multilingual learners connect new academic language to their prior linguistic and experiential knowledge.

  • Multilingual learners use and develop language when opportunities for learning take into account their individual experiences, characteristics, abilities, and levels of language proficiency (Gibbons, 2002; Swain, Kinnear, & Steinman, 2015; TESOL International Association, 2018; Vygotsky, 1978).
  • Multilingual learners use and develop language through activities which intentionally integrate multiple modalities, including oral, written, visual, and kinesthetic modes of communication (Choi & Yi, 2015; Jewitt, 2008; van Lier, 2006; Zwiers & Crawford, 2011).
  • Multilingual learners use and develop language to interpret and access information, ideas, and concepts from a variety of sources, including real-life objects, models, representations, and multimodal texts (Ajayl, 2009; Cope & Kalantzis, 2009; Jewitt, 2009; Kervin & Derewianka, 2011).

A full summary of WIDA's guiding principles, including supporting research, is available at: https://wida.wisc.edu/sites/default/files/resource/Guiding-Principles-of-Language-Development.pdf or by clicking on the PDF embedded here for your convenience: 

It is also helpful to remember that language acquisition is an individual process that occurs over time, in different "stages." This four-minute video provides a quick review of the stages of language acquisition and their average timelines, as researched by behavioral linguists. It can help both learners and teachers to know how quickly an average student learning a new language might progress. Language acquisition is a complex process, and that there can be many variations due to individual factors and influences, including prior educational history and motivation.

Now, we will take a look at how we communicate and talk about academic language in instructional planning by further defining academic language and how to identify it in relationship to your lesson's learning goal and subject specific content.

Defining Academic Language

In the UNW School of Education Lesson Plan document, you will find prompts asking you to:

Identify the following language demands used to accomplish the objective(s) of the lesson:

Function:

Form:

Syntax:

Discourse:

Let's take a closer look at what each of those prompts are asking you to identify to help clarify what academic language is needed for your learners to be able to accomplish their lesson objective(s). Then we can consider what additional scaffolds and supports are needed to support academic language success for all learners as well as multilingual learners with differing specific language proficiencies.

Language Demands

There are several concepts involving language that students are expected to understand and make use of in the lesson. These are demands of the student that are necessary for understanding content, participating in the lesson you will be teaching, and meeting the lesson objective. Language demands include function, form, syntax and discourse.

Here is a visual to help with conceptualizing the Types of Academic Language:

Students need explicit instruction in academic language in each of these areas in each discipline to understand content and express their understanding. 

Function

To learn and express understanding of content, students need to be taught the purpose or function of the language for the particular lesson task. Functions of language refer to what the language is used to perform. Often the function is a part of the lesson objective. The function most often indicates the purpose of the cognitive, communicative, and/or physical action.

When you think of ‘function’, think about the verb as often the function is expressed as a verb such as critique, examine, retell argue, and categorize. Other examples of function include the following, along with their associated or related functions (Benegas & Stopelstad, 2020); Academic language function words in bold are used by the EdTPA teacher assessment system (www.edtpa.com):

  • Locate-- define, seek information, count, identify, indicate, match, name, point, recall, recite, repeat, reproduce, state, select, recall.

  • Order—Categorize, organize, develop, discover, complete, process, outline, retell, order
  • Describe— inform, explain, identify, report, retell, recount, reorder, represent, depict, paraphrase, summarize, conclude, prepare, convert, translate, generalize, extrapolate, narrate.
  • Classify— arrange, organize, categorize, construct, create, generate, summarize, arrange, group
  • Compare/Contrast— Describe (similarities and differences), distinguish, identify, recognize, separate, differentiate.
  • Analyze— calculate, interpret, classify, categorize, predict, deduce, differentiate, examine, discriminate, distinguish, group, illustrate, infer, order, recognize, relate, transform
  • Synthesize— Arrange, categorize, combine, compile, compose, construct, create, deduce, explain, formulate, generalize, generate, integrate, modify, organize, prepare, plan, produce, propose, rearrange, reconstruct, relate, reorganize, revise, solve, summarize.
  • Justify— argue, persuade, discriminate, prove, deduce, document, support, question, validate, verify, debate, construct, persuade
  • Infer-- predict, hypothesize, extrapolate, restate, summarize, reconstruct, synthesize, derive, deduce, explain, create, construct 
  • Evaluate- argue, appraise, assess, compare,  conclude, consider, contrast, criticize, critique, decide, describe, determine, discriminate, grade, judge, justify, recommend, validate, verify, test, support, rate, rank, measure, interpret, relate, identify, explain, indicate, confirm.


Form

 Students also need to be taught and need to demonstrate use of forms of language. Forms are new words, (including content-specific vocabulary). When you think of form, think about words used to convey the message, words used to build or convey the concept, multiple meaning words, or words that will be important to understand the overall meaning of the text. You will need to identify these for (or with) students at the beginning, and throughout the lesson. Also, provide opportunities for students to use this vocabulary during the lesson to demonstrate their understanding of the vocabulary.  Though content area vocabulary lists are often long, identifying academic language forms informs instructional goals by narrowing down to 1-3 words, selected because of their great impact on communication and learning.

A commonly used metaphor for the academic language term "form" would be that of the bricks used to build a building or architectural structure, as discussed in the video "Bricks, Mortar, and Buildings". We can further extend the metaphor by imagining that these "bricks" are created by all the things that make up words. How do you make bricks? Well, you must combine clay and water within a frame or brick form before baking it. In a similar fashion, the building blocks of the term "form" in academic language include the sounds of words (phonology), the meaning of words (semantics), and the parts of words (morphology).

Working alone or with a partner, take a moment to reflect on an example for each that would connect to your instructional goals. You can use this equation as a frame to help you focus on the reasons why these particular forms are terms that some students need explicitly taught in order to be successful in your content area:

  • Form: Phonology (word sounds) = _______________________________ (commonly misheard word from your content area; includes misspelled words)
  • Form: Semantics (word meaning) = ______________________________ (commonly misapplied or misunderstood word from your content area)
  • Form: Morphology (word parts) = ______________________________ (a commonly incorrect prefix, suffix, or root word part from your content area)

Syntax

Syntax refers to structure of words, phrases and sentences. When you think about syntax, think about sentence structure and length, transitions and connectives such as ‘because’ and ‘however’. Syntax also include a myriad of grammatical constructs and elements, including but not limited to verb tenses, passive voice, pronoun references, order of words in sentences, conventions of print, and musical, mathematical, and scientific notations. Consider how syntax may affect students’ understanding and communication of important content and concepts through analyzing how students will SWRL throughout your intended instructional sequence. 

To continue our metaphor from above, syntax would be like the mortar of a construction project. It is the cement, or glue, that holds the bricks in place so that the structure can begun to be built. We can think of the mortar much like the grammar that holds our language together so that we can communicate our thoughts and ideas.

For practice, think of a phrase or sentence that you would like your students to be able to understand or produce that relates to your lesson objective or content area and share it here:

  • _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Now, complete the following objective using the provided sentence frame to demonstrate your skills and celebrate your syntax!

  • I can identify the syntax related to my content area using ______________________________________________ (name a language structure used above), such as ___________________________________________________________ (your example of this structure) with the support of this sentence frame and lesson plan handbook guided notes. 

Note that in the above example objective frame, the underlined form "identify" communicates the academic language function and the phrase "this sentence frame and guided notes" communicates the supports or tools provided to assist in developing language use and understanding. An example of completing the above syntax might be: "I can identify the syntax related to my content area using grammatical terminology, such as 'phrases' with the support of this sentence frame and lesson plan handbook guided notes."

This exercise does illustrate how providing a support such as a sentence frame can extend syntax, but more importantly first illustrates that the instructor needs to reflectively think through and describe the academic language that is necessary to meet demands of the lesson objective.

Discourse

Discourse is the broadest of the four language demands. Discourse refers to how we talk in our specific disciplines. To engage in the discourse of the discipline, students need to know the terminology and way of speaking in the discipline in order to be successful. We also use a different discourse when we speak in reading class than we do in social studies or music class. Did you know that nonverbal gestures are even a part of discourse-specific language? Discourse describes a more holistic view of the academic language for communication that is required, or the largest conceptual segments of language.

When trying to define the needed holistic language to complete an academic task, it is helpful to think about the text types and genre labels given to different types of discourses. There are many ways to classify discourse. There is both written and spoken discourse. There is also monologic (produced by one speaker or writer), dialogic (produced by two speakers or writers), and multi-party (with three or more contributors). The types of discourse used can be classified according to communicative purpose, style, intended audience and formality within the given text or genre. Taken together, these classifications acknowledge that different language is typically used for a poem, a science lab report, an organized tutorial video, a persuasive essay, an orchestral piece, an artist's biography, or a small group discussion. Preparing students to recognize and engage in appropriate use of discourse will help them be successful in the lesson. 

Relative to further classifying the formality of discourse students will need which is typical of academic language, we must also consider "register" and helping students "switch registers" to meet the language goals. Register is the linguistic term meaning that we use different discourse patterns when we speak or write to different groups or contexts. For example, we speak differently when talking casually with friends than we do when giving a formal presentation. We also speak differently when we summarize than when we debate. We can explicitly teach students what discourse type, genre, or register is needed to communicate in the given context.

Extending our architectural metaphor yet again, discourse would be like the building that is created. Just as there as many distinct types of buildings, there are many distinct types of discourses. Imagine that your subject-specific content is filled with buildings of various shapes and sizes that relate to the prevalence of specific discourses used most often in your field of study to interact, learn, and complete projects or tasks.

Rather than list all the possible types that exist, it is potentially more helpful to identify discourse that is most often used within your content area major. Label the "buildings" below with 4 types of discourse that are used most often to communicate in your subject-specific area, related to the language domains (SWRL). The first one is done for you, but feel free to think of your own example as well.

                                                                                                           

                   Speaking Discourse:                     Writing Discourse:                       Reading Discourse:                      Listening Discourse: 

Example: _informal partner discussion__            _________________________              _________________________              ___________________________

Identifying Academic Language Demands

Prior to creating the academic language goals, it's important to take an inventory of the language demands of the lesson. Your UNW lesson plan form can guide you through thinking about the function, forms, syntax, and discourse your students will use or, in other words, the SWRL language domains needed relative to your particular context and learning goal. 

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: A Narrated Example

 

This academic language example is related to the lesson objective, “All students will be able to compare and contrast concepts of then and now (including past, present, and future) by matching pictures of objects from the past to their current counterparts, getting at least 5 out of 6 pairs correct.” When identifying the academic language demands related to this objective, a teacher may think reflectively through the following:

The academic language the students will need to know to be successful in this lesson includes function words: “sort” and “pair up/match”. 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. I will do this by doing an example together, then asking a volunteer pair to come up and illustrate how to match a pair together. I am expecting that not all objects from different eras will be familiar to all students. We will be talking about objects shown in the book and discussed together that the students may not know, including “records”, “cassette tapes”, and “CDs”.

Additional language demands include understanding forms related to this lesson in connection with past and present. Key terms include “past”, “present”, “future”, and “then” and “now”, along with a variety of adverbial forms and phrases related to time. Some students may produce adverbs of time such as "last century", "last year", "X years ago", and "today."  I think some students may use these adverbial time words (forms) that show when something happened out of order. This may relate to the semantic meaning or use of the words. Usually, these words work well at the end of the sentence, as in "These cassettes were used in the past".  Most students in my class know how to use correct verb tenses, though "were from/were used" and "are from/are used" verb phrases (syntax) can be reviewed for those students who need it. 

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 though it is a common title for this type of comparative activity. Students may not know what or when “then” refers to and we will look for context clues to show us the specific timeframe.If needed, I will use baby and childhood pictures of me representing change over time to show them additional visuals representing “past” and “present”. They do love seeing photos of me when I was young! It is a great way to "hook" them in.

I will use their attention to then read very lengthy sentences together (chorus reading) and create a bulleted list of important concepts in these sentences to model for students how to do close reading to gain the most information by asking volunteers for observations. Some students might otherwise 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 models a compare/contrast text structure related to both syntax and discourse. 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. I will highlight key adverbial time forms (words) and syntax (sentences). We will convert our bulleted list to a T-chart to organize our "then and now" information. This T-chart graphic organizer/poster, also known as an anchor chart, will then later be added to with sentence frames that students can use to demonstrate their ability to perform the compare/contrast function.

To support the students in expressing their understanding of the lesson objective by following directions, I will use the Document Camera to model what it means to “sort” and “pair-up” as I use the above listed forms related to the academic language demands to meet the objective. I will ask students for an example of "sort or match", and perhaps someone will demonstrate how to sort crayons and pair up similar crayons or other similar example based on previous learning experience. We will then proceed to the social studies activity of sorting and pairing up with the "then and now" featured objects.

To further support my students' semantic word understanding and usage, 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. We will brainstorm together a list of related adverbial time words or phrases, including "last year", "years ago", "in the present", etc. which people use to talk about past/present/future. Making connections to their prior knowledge in this way will help them understand the meanings of our new academic vocabulary as well as model the correct placement in a sentence (syntax). 

Students will have two specific opportunities to express their understanding of this content and use the academic language associated with it:

1) 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 pairs will also be asked to explain 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_________________.” and

2) Presenting their sort to another pair, using the following past and present frame as needed, with the expectation that all students will be able to explain their findings in complete sentences, such as: a) "__________________ (were from/were used) (past adverb of time) but now, ________________ (are from/are used)." These frames would be presented as models (i.e. "Cassettes were used many years ago but now most people use a web streaming service like Spotify.") with any correct sentences brainstormed by students which correctly use the frame (both form and syntax) being added to the anchor chart as an example. 

Academic Language Scaffolds and Supports

Explicit supports must be provided within the lesson to support the academic language 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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