supporting english learners with academic content in the

Supporting English

Learners with Academic

Content in the ClassroomLesly Wade-Woolley

University of Alberta

• Conversational Language • Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS)

• Used daily to communicate with others

• Context-Embedded

• Fluency acquired relatively quickly

• Academic Language • Cognitive Academic language Proficiency (CALP)

• The language of text and content areas

• Context-Reduced

• Fluency acquired significantly later than BICS

Dimensions of Language

BICS/CALP Trajectory

iris.vanderbilt.edu

• Students need BICS for social interactions with peers, teachers, broader community

• However, good conversational skills may be accompanied by poor academic language skills.• Caution - overgeneralizing one dimension of language to the other:

risk of over-identification of problems

• Good BICS does not mean equivalent level of CALP

• Students need to develop CALP to deal with academic content in school• Caution - insisting on 5 – 7 years before intervening : risk of under-

identification of problems

• Sometimes slow or no progress at acquiring CALP (and BICS) can be a sign of language-related learning problems

Academic Language and School Success

https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/ell/cresource/q1/p02/#content

Today I will share four recommendations for teaching academic

content and literacy English learners

Overall recommendations from the Institute for Education

Sciences bolstered by specific examples

These recommendations have been recognized by the What

Works Clearinghouse as being supported by research evidence

My goal today is to give you some things to think about and try in

your classroom with your students.

So what do we need to know about helping our ELs

acquire CALP?

1. Select a set of academic vocabulary words and teach

them intensively over several days in several different

contexts.

2. Use content-area teaching as an ideal place to

integrate oral and written English language instruction.

3. Make available to your students regular, structured

opportunities to develop written language skills.

4. Intervene in small groups with instruction to support

students who struggle in literacy and English language

development.

Select a set of academic vocabulary words and teach

them intensively over several days in several different

contexts.

What is academic vocabulary?

Words that are used primarily in academic content areas,

used more frequently in essays, readings and discussions

in these areas than in informal and social conversation

• General academic vocabulary (factor, exhibit, tangential)

• Domain-specific vocabulary (commutative, diode, atom)

Recommendation 1:

• Be brief, interesting and engaging

• Contain a variety of target words you could choose from

• Connect to the unit of study and build students’ knowledge

• Provide detail and examples to promote understanding

• Contain ideas that can be discussed from a variety of

perspectives

• Be at grade level, even if you need to scaffold the text so ELs

can access the ideas and learn new words.

1.1 Start with an engaging, content-rich text. It should:

• Plan the instruction over several days – this promotes depth

of knowledge

• Select 5 – 8 words (the exact number will depend on your

students’ grade). More than 10 will result in superficial

learning

• Wide reading and language-rich environments by themselves

are unlikely to be sufficient for ELs’ needs.

1.2 Pick a small set of academic vocabulary words for

in-depth instruction

Pick words for instruction that…

.. are central to understanding the text

… are frequently used in the text

… are likely to appear in other contexts

… have multiple meanings

… have affixes

… have cognates across languages

1.2 Pick a small set of academic vocabulary words for

in-depth instruction

Pick six words that you might choose for

instruction.

Be prepared to say why you chose them!

Make sure the words you choose meet at least

two of the criteria

So let’s try it!

Provide student-friendly definitions

1.3. Use multiple modalities to teach academic

vocabulary in depth:

Merriam-Webster online

Pursuit (noun) 1. The act of trying very hard to achieve

something. After winning the first playoff game, our

team continued our pursuit of the championship.

2. The act of following or chasing someone or

something. My dog is in pursuit of my neighbor’s cat as

it runs across the street.

3. An activity, hobby, or interest. Mario spends most of

his free time on outdoor pursuits like riding his bike and

playing football.

A definition from a student-friendly dictionary


Explicitly clarify and reinforce definitions using examples,

non-examples and concrete representations where

possible



ENORMOUS

definition

antonyms

non-examples

examples

synonyms

Can you fill this in?




possible

Provide opportunities for students to respond to questions

where they have to show their grasp of subtle differences in

meaning



A show or

display that is

meant for a lot

of people to

see

To show or

express

feelings

exhibit

The exhibit we saw at the zoo

really helped the children

understand how animals play

together.

After coming back from our

trip to the zoo, some of the

children exhibited anger and

sadness at the way that

animals were treated.




possible

Provide opportunities for students to respond to questions

where they have to show their grasp of subtle differences in

meaning

Embed the targets words in writing assignments



Writing prompt:

If you were visiting a zoo, would you rather see animals

exhibited in a natural environment, or in a caged

environment?

Students will encounter a large number of new word as

they progress through school; it is not possible to provide

explicit instruction for all of them

Context clues

Word parts

Cognates

1.4. Teach word-learning strategies to help students

independently figure out the meaning of words

Read the sentence containing the unknown word and look

for helpful information in the sentence. Also look at the

previous and following sentences.

A natural environment for a gorilla has grass and trees,

while an unnatural environment is a cramped cement area.

Context clues

Morphological word study helps students understand how

related words share bits of common meaning

Work with the selected word to identify their part of speech

and how prefixes and suffixes can turn them into other,

related words.

Word parts

Provide sentences from the original text containing the target

words and have students re-write the sentences to keep the

same intent but using a new form of the target words.

Use content-area teaching as an ideal place to

integrate oral and written English language instruction

As students move into higher grades, they are expected to

read, comprehend, and articulate the meaning of

increasingly complex and abstract texts, and participate in

discussions with their peers.

This can be challenging for many students, especially

English learners.

Recommendation 2:

Use short video clips or other visuals to anchor the content; they are

engaging, hey provide background knowledge, and provide a shared

learning context in which to facilitate discussion.

At the same time, use graphic organizers to scaffold organization of

material around a common text structure.

These make apparent the patterns and relationships among facts,

terms and concepts

Consistent use of graphic organizers can increase comprehensibility

of content and also serve as source material for writing and speaking

activities.

2.1 Strategically use instructional tools to anchor teaching

After reading watching a video about zoos back in the day

and reading the zoo text, students complete a graphic

organizer showing similarities and differences between zoos

now and then. Teacher support will be needed at first.

Teacher can

model while

doing a think-

aloud, or provide

a partially-

completed

graphic

organizer and

guide to

completion.

This cause and effect organizer can be completed with

material from the video and text. This organizer can be

used to plan and organize for a written assignment or an

oral presentation.

Explicit teaching of academic vocabulary should be embedded

in content area instruction.

Think about technical terms like photosynthesis, but also the

more general words convert and process.

Students who are learning about the House of Commons in

socials will need to know the words election, representative,

and government.

2.2 Foreground the teaching of content-specific and

general academic vocabulary during content-area

instruction

These sessions do not have to be long, but they should be frequent.

Consider pairing students with heterogeneous levels of English

proficiency

Students get to rehearse and practice their responses before

sharing with the whole class – building preparation and confidence

Ensure that any questions or prompts allow ELs to respond to

inferential as well as factual questions

Any opportunity is valuable to build language: read/discuss short

passages, role play a concept’s meaning, think-pair-share, etc.

2.3 Provide daily opportunity for students to talk about

content in pairs and small groups

Provide regular, structured opportunities to develop

written language skills

As students move up through the grades they increasingly

need to respond to material through writing. The writing

expectations are progressively longer and more complex.

Recommendation 3:

3.1 Provide writing assignments that are anchored in content

and focus of building academic language as well as writing

skills

As well, consistently use a set of instructional routines that

support students as they plan and organize their ideas for

writing.

Routines should guide students through the process of

moving from notes/graphic organizers, to complete

sentences, to a paragraph, then to a complete composition

and editing/revising.

Explicitly teach and review transition and linking phrases

3.1 Provide writing assignments that are anchored in

content and focus of building academic language as

well as writing skills

Language based supports include graphic organizers and

sentence starters.

They facilitate students’ entry into, and continued

development of, writing. They provide specific help as

students begin their writing assignment, e.g., summarizing

and analyzing material for writing.

They provide sustained support to prevent students’ from

defaulting to more conversational topics, grammatical

structure and vocabulary

3.2 For all writing assignments, provide language-

base supports

Student collaboration and dialogue can focus on all aspects

of writing, from spelling and sentence structure to quick-

writes and larger research projects.

This approach allows students to engage in critical,

collaborative dialogue with peers.

3.3 Provide opportunities for small groups and pairs to

work and talk together on varied aspects of writing

Regular use of formative assessment of student work is a

productive way to determine instructional targets.

English learners may have many areas that need

improvement. Focus on giving feedback on the areas that

were the instructional objectives

Consider periodically employing a formal writing rubric

which assesses a broad range of skills including

transcription, knowledge of text structure, knowledge of

content, and accurate, flexible use of words and phrases.

3.4 Assess students’ writing to identify instructional

needs and provide positive, constructive feedback

Provide small group instructional intervention to

students struggling in areas of literacy and English

language development

Some students require instructional support beyond that

provided by typical classroom instruction. Small group

intervention in phonemic awareness, decoding skills,

listening and reading comprehension may be needed.

Recommendation 4:

All currently available assessment measures can provide

information about who needs additional support, including district

benchmarking assessments, progress monitoring English

language assessments and standardized tests.

While caution is strongly urged in the use of standardized tests

with English learners (except in the rare case where they are

reflected in the norming sample), some of these instruments can

provide informal information when skillfully used by an

experienced educator or clinician. Norms are often not applied.

4.1 Use available assessment information to identify

students who demonstrate persistent struggles with

aspects of language and literacy

English learners who struggle with foundational reading skills will

need intervention devoted to accurate decoding and fluent reading

of connected text. (These students may also need instruction in

English language development and comprehension strategies.)

Other English learners may have foundational reading skills but

struggle with comprehending grade level texts (and sometimes

passage fluency). They will need no decoding instruction, but a

srong emphasis on comprehension strategies, listening

comprehension and vocabulary

4.2 Design the content of small-group instruction to

target students’ needs

Divide instructional activities into small, manageable units,

especially for complex tasks like listening comprehension. Focus

on simpler tasks like recall and summarization before moving to

inference

Importance of modeling and thinkalouds so that students can see

the processes – a gradual release of responsibility fades the

scaffolding and promotes independence

Check for understanding frequently and provide immediate

corrective beedback

4.3 Provide frequent opportunities for students to practice and

review newly learned skills and concepts in various contexts

over several lessons to ensure retention

These recommendations

and the research that

supports them can be

found in the IES practice

guide shown here!

We accept applications from Oct. 15 to Jan. 15 for our

online Master’s program on

Reading, Writing and Oral Language Disabilities

For more information visit:

https://www.ualberta.ca/educational-psychology/graduate-

programs/special-education/masters-programs

Are you interested in graduate

studies?

https://www.ualberta.ca/educational-psychology/graduate-programs/special-education/masters-programs

Thank you!

[email protected]

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