academic language: important for all, critical for ells

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Academic Language:Important for ALL, Critical for ELLs

Gisela Ernst-Slavit, PhD

Washington State University Vancouver

[email protected]

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Introductions

• About Dr. Ernst-Slavit

• Upcoming WebinarAcademic Language: From Paper to Practice on June 16 at 1:00 PM

Register: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7088709061402399234

• August Half-day Workshops

August 5 in Toppenish; August 20 in MarysvilleAugust 4 in Sumner; TBD in Eastern WA

• PowerPoints, Webinar Recordings and Training Announcements:http://www.k12.wa.us/MigrantBilingual/Training.aspx

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7088709061402399234

http://www.k12.wa.us/MigrantBilingual/Training.aspx

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1. Why focus on academic language?

1. What is academic language?

-Slavit3

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Why Focus on Academic Language?

1. CCSS, NGSS,…

2. Growing ELL population

3. Too many ELL “lifers”

4. Social justice

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Shifts due to the CCSS, NGSS,…

Opportunity for ELLs: Greater access to rigorous instruction and high expectations

New challenge: To change how ELL instruction has been approached and delivered--

◦ Emphasis on academic language

◦ Amplification instead of simplification

◦ Integration of academic language and content

Gisela Ernst-Slavit6

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Growing Population of ELLs

7Gisela Ernst-Slavit 2012-2013 Data- National Center for Education Statistics

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Growing Population of ELLs

8Gisela Ernst-Slavit Digest of education Statistics 2014, Tables 203.20, 25, 30

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Too many kids graduating without the knowledge & skills(Wong Fillmore & Snow, 2000)

Ti-Sang, Grade 6

12 years old

From Cambodia

Can hardly speak

Khmer

Gisela Ernst-Slavit 9

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Too Many Kids Graduating w/o the Knowledge & Skills(Wong Fillmore & Snow, 2000)

Hmm...they--they, like, speak Cambodian more because they more comfortable in it. They don’t want to talk English sometime because--when they go to school they don’t, like, really talking, right? But when at home they chatter-talk. ‘Cause they kind of shy, you know, like, when the teacher call on them and they don’t know the answer, sometime they know the answer but they shy to answer. If you ask them, ask them so quietly, they answer.


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WA state ELLs – Grades 4-8

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Social Justice(Bartolomé, 1998; Ernst-Slavit & Mason, 2011, Gee, 1990;

Gottlieb & Ernst-Slavit, 2014; Macedo, 1994)

We should not assess what we don’t teach

Pedagogy of entrapment: requiring of students what schools do not explicitly teach

Students from minority cultural, linguistic, and racial groups might have limited access to academic discourses


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Social Justice

For ELLS, school might be the only setting where they have the opportunity to encounter and acquire academic language, and their teachers might be the most significant single source of oral academic language (Ernst-Slavit & Mason,

2011, p. 432).


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What is Academic Language?

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Academic Language

A register

Specific linguistic features associated

with academic disciplines

Found in textbooks, tasks, talk and

tests

Students must produce it!!!


(Anstrom, 2010; Bailey, 2007; Bunch, 2009; Ernst-Slavit &

Mason, 2011; Gottlieb & Ernst-Slavit, 2014; Gottlieb, Katz, &

Ernst-Slavit, 2009; Francis et al, 2006; Schleppegrell, 2004;

Zwiers, 2008)

Dimensions of Academic LanguageGottlieb & Ernst-Slavit, 2014

Discourse Level

Sentence Level

Word/Expression Level

• Text types

• Genres

• Cohesion of text

• Coherence of ideas

• Types of sentences—simple, compound, complex

• Word order

• Prepositional phrases

• Phrasal verbs

• Colloquial expressions

• General, specialized, and technical content words

• Nominalizations (use of verbs, adjectives, or adverbs as nouns, such as produce and production)

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Dimensions of Academic LanguageGottlieb & Ernst-Slavit, 2014

Discourse Level

Sentence Level

Word/Expression Level

• Autobiographies

• Story problems

• Lab reports

• Historical argument

• Sequence words

• Logical connectors

• Complex noun phrases

• Historical present

• Setting

• Right angle

• Hypothesis

• Democracy

Language arts, Math, Science, Social studies 17

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AcademicLanguagefor

thinking,knowing,acting,interacting,speaking,reading,

andwriting

EnglishLanguage

Arts

Math

Science

SocialStudies

Art,HealthMusic,

PhysicalEd

Go

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lavi

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Aca

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ngu

age:

Def

init

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s an

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text

s. C

orw

in.

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Vocabulary-E.g., multiple meaning words(Judit Moschkovich)

Unique meanings in mathematics


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Types of Vocabulary


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The Language of Mathematics

Vocabulary

Letter Conventions

Symbols

Grammatical Features

Discourse or Genres

Gisela Ernst-Slavit

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Letter Conventions(Ernst-Slavit & Slavit, 2013)

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Symbols(Ernst-Slavit & Slavit, 2013)

Mathematics uses symbols to represent concepts, functions, values, operations, or structures (e.g., sequences). Most ideas and concepts are eventually illustrated with the use of symbols.

There are the 10 digits: 0,1,2,...9

There are symbols for operations: + - x / √ ±

There are symbols that "stand in" for values: x, y, ...

There are many special symbols: = ≠ ≈ ∞ < ≤, ...

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Grammatical FeaturesE.g., Prepositions

“Do you say divided by or divided into?” --Maximo, 5th grade ELL

“What’s the difference between the area of a triangle and the area inside the triangle?”

Of and Off (percentage of or off something)

The temperature fell by 12 degrees The temperature fell from 12 degrees The temperature fell to 12 degrees

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DiscourseE.g., Story Problems

“There are 4 windows in the attic

and each window has 8 panes of

glass. One friend cleans every third

pane. Two of you clean the rest.

Who cleans the least number of

panes?”

(Houghton Mifflin’s Math Central, 2001, p. 241).


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Story Problem:

A certain construction job usually takes four workers six

hours. Today one worker called in sick, so there are

only three workers. How long should it take them to do the

job?

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Assessment and Academic Language

The rectangle is twice as long as it is wide. What is the ratio of the width of the rectangle to its perimeter?

27 National Assessment of Educational Progress

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Assessment and Academic Language

The rectangle is twice as long as it is wide. What is the ratio of the width of the rectangle to its perimeter?

28 National Assessment of Educational Progress

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Segment 1

24 T: He ate 7/8 of a pizza

25 We’ll get to that later, Mark

26 You’re makin’ it tough! (writing) Hum… how much… how much

pizza

27 did Mark and Tonci eat altogether? That tells us to do what?

28 Ss: Add … 10/8

29 T: 10/8. Uh – is that top number bigger than the bottom number?

30 Ss: Yes

31 Doug: You can do, um, 1 whole and, um, 2/8

32 T: (writing) Could we reduce that if we wanted to?

33 Ss: Yes

34 T: Ah, some of you have figured that out.

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Talk and Academic Language – Ernst-Slavit & Mason (2011)

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Segment 1

24 T: He ate 7/8 of a pizza

25 We’ll get to that later, Mark

26 You’re makin’ it tough! (writing) Hum… how much… how much

pizza

27 Did Mark and Tonci eat altogether. That tells us to do what?

28 Ss: Add … 10/8

29 T: 10/8. Uh – is that top number bigger than the bottom number?

30 Ss: Yes

31 S: You can do, um, 1 whole and, um, 2/8

32 T: (writing) Could we reduce that if we wanted to?

33 Ss: Yes

34 T: Ah, some of you have figured that out.

Comparing fractions with

different denominators

altogether

Numerator of fraction

2/8

Knowing when & how to reduce fractions30

Talk and Academic Language – Ernst-Slavit & Mason (2011)

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Text Context

“Look, it’s making them move. Those didn’t stick.”

Student talking in a small group as

they were experimenting with a

magnet

“We found out the pins stuck on the

magnet.”Student telling the Teacher what she

had learned from the experiment

“Our experiment showed that magnets

attract some metals.”Students’ written report about the

experiment

“Magnetic attraction occurs only between

ferrous metals.”An entry in a child’s encyclopedia

about magnets

Talk: Different registers in the classroom

(Gibbons, 2003)

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Language awareness

Texts

Tests

Tasks

TalkDiscourse

Sentence level (grammatical structures)

Word level (vocabulary)

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Gisela Ernst-Slavit, PhD WSU [email protected]

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Selected References

Anstrom, K., DiCerbo, P., Butler, F., Katz, A., Millet, J., & Rivera, C. (2010). A

review of the literature on Academic English: Implications for K–12 English

language learners. Arlington, VA:The George Washington University Center for

Equity and Excellence in Education.

Bartolomé, L.I. (1998). The misteaching of academic discourses. Boulder, CO:

Westview Press.

Egbert, J. L., & Ernst-Slavit, G. (2010). Access to academics: Planning instruction

for K-12 classrooms with ELLs. Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

Ernst-Slavit, G. & Slavit, D. Mathematically Speaking. Language, March 2013,

pp. 32-36.

Ernst-Slavit, G., & Mason, M.R. (2011). “Words that hold us up”: Teacher talk and

academic language in five upper elementary classrooms. Linguistics and

Education, 22, 430–440.

Gee, J. 1990). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses. London:

Falmer Press.

Gibbons, P. (2003). Mediating language learning: teacher interactions with ESL

student in a content-based classroom. TESOL Quarterly, 37 (2), pp. 257-273.

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Selected References – cont.

Gottlieb, M., & Ernst Slavit, G. (2014). Academic language in diverse

classrooms: Definitions and Contexts. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.


classrooms: Mathematics Series. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.


classrooms: English Language Arts Series. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Wong Fillmore, L. & Snow, C. (2000). What teachers need to know about

language. Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics.http://faculty.tamu-

commerce.edu/jthompson/Resources/FillmoreSnow2000.pdf

http://faculty.tamu-commerce.edu/jthompson/Resources/FillmoreSnow2000.pdf

academic language: important for all, critical for ells

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