Scaffolding Writingfor

ELL Students

From BICS …BICS - Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills Everyday communication Language of basic needs e.g. shopping,

greetings Conversational -> colloquial May rely on ritualised exchanges e.g. How are

you? Acquired unconsciously in everyday situations

… to CALPCALP - Cognitive Academic language Proficiency Classroom language Language for learning and assessment needs

e.g. explain, analyse, summarise Mainly reading and writing Highly specialised specific to subject areas Needs to be taught, practised and learnt

The theory…BICS“Context embedded” and “cognitively undemanding”

CALP“context reduced” and “cognitively demanding”

…

The scaffold…

Stage 1 Doing an experiment

Stage 2 Introducing Key Vocabulary

Stage 3 Teacher guided reporting

Stage 4 Journal writing

The readings…

Baker, C. (2006). Cognitive theories of bilingualism and the curriculum In Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism, 4th ed. pp. 166-186. Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters.

Gibbons, P. (2002). Reading in a Second Language. Scaffolding Language Scaffolding Learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, pp.77-101.

Make it relevant…

Get into department groups – large departments may split up into smaller groups, smaller departments may join with others

Identify the more complex writing requirements of your department

How could you scaffold students from conversational discussion to formal writing?