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ARKTESOL Springdale presentation by Elisabeth Chan of The International Center for English at Arkansas State University October 28, 2010. This presentation discusses the difference between conversation and academic English and includes tips and tricks to help students bridge the gap.
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BUILDING ACADEMIC
LANGUAGE IN THE ESL CLASSROOM
Elisabeth Chan
The International Center for EnglishArkansas State University
ARKTESOL - October 28, 2010
What’s the difference?
Magnetic attraction occurs only between ferrous metals.
Our experiments showed that magnets attract some metals.
We found out the pins stuck on the magnet.
Look, it’s making them move. They don’t stick.
Gibbons (2002, p.40)
Magnetic attraction occurs only between ferrous metals.
Our experiments showed that magnets attract some metals.
We found out the pins stuck on the magnet.
Look, it’s making them move. They don’t stick.
Gibbons (2002, p.40)
Registers!
Non-Academic
Academic
Conversational vs Academic Cummins (1981)
BICS – basic interpersonalcommunicative skills ○ 2-3 years
CALP – cognitive academiclanguage proficiency ○ 5-7 years
Cummins’ QuadrantsContext embedded? Cognitively demanding?
Cummins’ Quadrants COGNITIVELY
UNDEMANDING
CONTEXT CONTEXT
EMBEDDED REDUCED
COGNITIVELY
DEMANDING
Academic Bag of Tricks
How academic English is different &
Activities for building:WritingReadingSpeakingVocabulary
WritingOrganization
Content
Grammar
ORGANIZATIONAL PATTERN CONTENT
TOPIC SUPPORTING DETAILS
GRAMMAR COMPOUND SENTENCES COMPLEX SENTENCES
Difference?
Building Academic Writing
Teach and practice the writing process Focus on content
State a topic and develop it Focus on cohesive paragraph structure
Reference, conjunctions, nominalization Focus on sentence structure
Compound, clauses, signal words Paraphrasing
Writing Activities
Sentence TransformationSimple compoundNominalizations every day language
The police investigation of the robbery lasted for one month.
The police investigated the robbery for one month.
Writing Activities
Sentence TransformationSimple compoundNominalizations every day language
ParaphraseHave students pull key words from a level
appropriate academic text and then put away the original text
Now have students paraphrase using only the keywords written down to help
Difference?
Building Academic Reading
Build reading fluency through Extensive Reading
Engage students & increase motivation Explicitly teach reading skills
Model the skills! Use “Think Alouds”
Reading
Titles & Headings Figures Bold words Objectives Language!
Guessing from context!Context-embedded + Cognitively demanding
Speaking
Building Academic Speech Raise students’ awareness
Use discussion groups with questions about differencesListen to lectures or speeches & analyze the language
usedAnalyze research or focus on prevalent structures
Extend conversationAvoid IRE’s = Initiation, Response, Evaluation
(Cazden, 2001)
Speaking Activities Avoiding IRE’s
Ask more open ended questionsRespond with encouragement and in a way that extends
their response and thinking○ T: The teacher –blank– a book to the class every week.
S: readsT: That’s right! Why do we use “read” and not “reads”?
OR
T: Very good! What other verbs can we use?S: gives?T: Excellent! What is a verb we cannot use there? Why not?
Describe this image
Academic Vocabulary Every day vocabulary vs. Academic
(Brook, D. 1998)
Extensive reading Explicitly teach vocabulary learning
strategiesVocabulary notebook activities
Anglo-Saxon French Latin
fear terror trepidation
win succeed triumph
holy sacred consecrated
Vocabulary Activities
Note cards or Notebooks
academic – adj. academy (n.)
academia (n.)
I learn academic
words when I read
my textbooks.
Vocabulary Activities
Note cards or Notebooks
academic – adj. academy (n.)
academia (n.)
academic advising
academic word list
academic studies
school study
academic
hard words textbook
References Arms, K. 1996. Environmental Science. Austin, TX: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Brook, D. 1998. The Journey of English. New York: Clarion Books. Cazden, C. 2001. Classroom Discourse: The Language of Teaching and Learning.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Cummins, J. 1981. “The Role of Primary Language Development in Promoting
Educational Success for Language Minority Students.” In Schooling and Language Minority Students: A Theoretical Framework, 3-49. Los Angeles: Evaluation, Dissemination and Assessment Center, California State University, Los Angeles.
Freeman, Y.S. and D.E. Freeman. 2009. Academic Language for English Language Learners and Struggling Readers: How to Help Students Succeed Across Content Areas. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Gibbons, P. 2002. Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning: Teaching Second Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Guthrie, J. and M. Davis. 2003. “Motivating Struggling Readers in Middle School Through an Engagement Model of Classroom Practice.” Reading and Writing Quarterly 9: 59-85.
Swales, J. 2005. “Academically Speaking.” Language Magazine 4 (8): 30-34.
Scholastic. Magnetic Attraction. http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=1227. Accessed October 5, 2010.
POS Hardware. International Point of Sale Cash Registers. http://www.internationalpointofsale.com/store/index.php?cPath=84. Accessed October 5, 2010.
Image Citations
QUESTIONS?CONTACT INFO
Elisabeth [email protected]
http://www.astate.edu/international/tice
The International Center for English
Arkansas State University
