Take the DARE
Throughout the book, we challenge you to take the DARE by posing questions, providing activities, and offering resources for you to reflect on in each section. Whether you are reading this book on your own or with colleagues, each activity is aimed at helping you identify ways to focus on academic language use in your practice.
As an example, in this section, we ask you to engage in deep reflection about language by answering the following questions:
1 How do you define academic language use?
2 What is your teaching and learning philosophy? Does it include academic language use? If so, how? If not, how might you include it?
3 What common beliefs about academic language development do you share with colleagues?
4 What role do you believe academic language use has in teaching and learning?
5 How do you include discussions about language use in your classroom or promote them in your school?
Academic Achievement
In the previous section, we explored what theory has to say about the role of academic language in learning; in this section, we focus on identifying the impact language has on academic achievement. We define academic achievement as students’ success in meeting short- or long-term goals in education in relation to their performance outcomes and challenging state academic standards. In this continuing era of assessment and accountability, educators need to be able to show evidence of academic achievement of all of their students.
Recently, research has emerged that connects academic language to academic achievement (Bailey, 2007; Francis, M. Rivera, Lesaux, Kieffer, & H. Rivera, 2006; Heppt, Henschel, & Haag, 2016; Schleppegrell, 2004). This research points to the fact that students who master the use of academic language are more successful in accessing the knowledge and information in textbooks, academic resources, and assessments (Francis et al., 2006). While students may be able to accrue knowledge without the use of academic language, as information becomes more complex, so too does language. Therefore, students who have not had experiences with using academic language have a more challenging time engaging with content in school than children who have had exposure to its use early on.
The scope of academic language is not limited to discipline-specific vocabulary but also includes grammatical forms and ways of organizing oral and written information in academic-specific ways. These conventions have been established and look differently from one discipline to another. For example, the language of sequencing the steps in solving a mathematical story problem is quite distinct from the language of sequencing the events in a biography. It becomes apparent that students use language in many different ways throughout the day. Most important, however, academic language encompasses disciplinary discourse, and key uses of academic language assist in leveraging how oral and written text is organized and communicated.
While we have known about the critical role of language in learning and in academic achievement, we often presume students already have the language needed to engage in learning or that they will acquire it through their environment or exposure. While this may be true for some language development and some of the students, an intentional focus on language use ensures that of all students are included in teaching and learning. More specifically, an intentional focus on language provides more equitable opportunities for students to interact with academic discourse and assures that all students have the tools to participate meaningfully in activities designed to mediate learning.
Remember that for ELLs and ELLs with disabilities, academic language use is not necessarily confined to English but, in fact, should be inclusive of their home language(s) as well. These students have extensive linguistic and cultural repertoires that are resources to tap in expanding their thinking, knowing, and doing. So when we speak of academic language use, we are not language specific; we wish to acknowledge and encourage the potential transferability of thoughts and actions between languages.
Take the DARE
Here are some ideas to begin thinking about academic language use in your classroom:
Identify the various ways in which language is used in texts.
Observe how students use language(s) during group work or presentations.
Record yourself, and reflect on your own use of language in your classroom.
Review student work with a focus on their use of language.
Recognize how many opportunities your students have during class to use language with each other in meaningful ways.
Document student language in your classroom environment (e.g., word, phrase, or concept walls; posters; charts; and bulletin boards).
Educational Equity
As we mention throughout this prelude, there are countless ways of using language. The fact that many children come to our schools from minority backgrounds—racial, cultural, social, and linguistic—often means that they may have had different experiences and perspectives (Gutiérrez, 2007; Tate & Rousseau, 2007). With these experiences come different assets and strengths that students bring to school; however, these positive qualities and talents often become invisible when students walk in the door. Taking on the mission for educational equity means finding ways to make students’ resources visible, relevant, and connected to teaching and learning in meaningful ways (Rigby & Tredway, 2015; U.S. Department of Education, 2013).
In brief, educators’ direct access to academic language development is an avenue that contributes to educational equity. Key uses of academic language facilitates educators’ and students’ recognition, use, and expansion of linguistic resources. We DARE—discuss, argue, recount, and explain—teachers and school leaders to focus on the value of language, along with content for each discipline.
Take the DARE
Some resources or activities that take place in schools facilitate students’ academic language learning. Identify which of the following occurs in your school, and discuss with colleagues:
☐ Teams of educators identify the presence of academic language in your state’s academic content standards.How has it been made known to all teachers?How are these language demands distributed across units of instruction throughout a school year to ensure their coverage?
☐ Grade-level or instructional teams state language goals, language targets, or objectives for their units of instruction.How are these communicated to students and families?How are students involved in determining specific language objectives?
☐ Educators design activities that provide opportunities for students to develop their oral and written language during instruction.How are these lesson-based activities related to the larger language goals and/or language targets for units of instruction?How do these activities help determine whether a language goal and/or target has been met?
☐ Assessments contain language that is grade-level relevant yet accessible to students.How do assessments elicit language from students?How are students expected to use language in assessment?
☐ Educators monitor students’ language development, especially for ELLs and ELLs with disabilities.How are language data recorded or shared among educators?How is language development reported to families?
☐ Educators analyze the relationship between students’ language development and their academic achievement with careful attention to ELLs and ELLs with disabilities.How are language data analyzed and interpreted?How do language data impact content area instruction?
Whether you complete this DARE on your own or as part of a team, identification of language use is only the beginning. An extension activity would include determining