Academic Language

Modified from Nancy Brynelson presentation, CSU Center for the

Advancement of Reading, July 17, 2004

Other People’s Children: cultural conflict in the classroom

Lisa Delpit, 1995, The New Press

• Within our celebration of diversity, we must keep in mind that education, at its best, hones and develops the knowledge and skills each student already possesses, while at the same time adding new knowledge and skills o that base. All students deserve the right both to develop the linguistic skills they bring to the classroom and to add others to their repertoires.

Outcomes for the Day

• Understand dimensions of academic language (student, language, content area)

• Analyze text as an aid in planning

• Identify ways to teach academic English through content instruction

Who are your students?

• International students• Long-term residents of U.S.• Recent arrivals to U.S.• English dominant students with primary

language background other than English• Speakers of “school” English• Literate students• Students with limited literacy

Success at the University and in Life…

Depends on learning to read and write well.

Learning to Read and Write Well

• Presents unique challenges for students who have not acquired academic English

• Depends not on learning basic reading and writing skills, but also on

• Learning advanced academic language and

• Acquiring knowledge of advanced content

What is academic English?

• Based on your reading of Chapter One of Accelerating Academic English, discuss your understanding of academic English with a partner.

Linguistic Features

Look at the table on p. 21 of Chapter One. Review the everyday and academic uses of each component?

Identify specific examples in your own content area. (10 min.)

Report to the class.

Cognitive Features

• Knowledge component

• Higher-order thinking component

• Strategic component

• Metalinguistic component

What are the particular cognitive demands of your discipline?

Sociolcultural Features

• Norms

• Values

• Beliefs

• Attitudes/motivations/interests

• Behaviors/practice/habits

How do these features interact with linguistic and cognitive features within your discipline?

Example of Academic Language

• “If we hadn’t deprived the soil of essential nutrients, the plant would have grown larger.”

• What is required to comprehend this sentence?

“If we hadn’t deprived the soil of essential nutrients, the plant would have grown larger.”

Reading skill

• Accurate and automatic identification of each word

• Knowledge of word meanings

• Motivation to read the sentence for a purpose

“If we hadn’t deprived the soil of essential nutrients, the plant would have grown larger.”

Language skill

• Understand complex language structure indicating the conditional mood: If…would have

• Know verb use: past perfect: hadn’t grown as form of grow, and

• Know comparative form of the word large - larger

“If we hadn’t deprived the soil of essential nutrients, the plant would have grown larger.”

Content knowledge

Knowledge of plant science and scientific experimentation is required in order to understand the words deprived, nutrients, and soil as used in this context.

Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom Lisa Delpit, 1995, the New Press

“…what I mean by “skills”—useful and usable knowledge which contributes to a student’s ability to communicate effectively in standard, generally acceptable literacy forms…skills are best taught through meaningful communication, best learned in meaningful contexts. Students need technical sills to open doors, but they need to be able to think critically and creatively to participate in meaningful and potentially liberating work inside those doors.”

Vocabulary Development

Mortar words: Basic and general utility words we need to build sentences

• Connecting words required to construct complex sentences such as: because, then, but, sometimes, before, therefore.

• Prepositions and prepositional phrases such as: on, in, under, behind, next to, in front of, between, in the background

• Basic regular and irregular verbs: leave, live, eat, saw, went

• General academic vocabulary such as: notice, think, analyze, direct, plan, compare, proof, survive.

Vocabulary Development

Brick Words

Content and concept vocabulary-often low utility

Examples: government, symbols, arid, revolt, War of Independence, habitat, polarized, and germinate

Language Function and Form

Functions (tasks): uses of language in formal and informal settings for social purposes and academic purposes.

Forms (tools): grammatical features, word usage, vocabulary, syntax, embedded questions, etc.

Linking form and function

Brick and Mortar words

Analyzing Text to Plan Instruction

• Analyze text using the rubric (use handouts and blank rubric)– Background knowledge– Functions– Vocabulary– Structures

Prioritize features for instruction

Plan instruction

Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the ClassroomLisa Delpit, 1995 The New Press

“…students must be taught the codes needed to particpate fully in the mainstream of American life, not by being forced to attend to hollow, inane, decontextualized subskills, but rather within the context of meaningful communicative endeavors;…they must b allowed the resource of the teacher’s expert knowledge, while being helped to acknowledge their own “expertness” as well.