Mayra Martinez

TCH LRN 339

Study Guide
Week 10 (Oct 30-Nov 4):

Chapter 1 Gottlieb:

This chapter talks about academic language and its application to schooling. The first chapter
starts off by talking about language and how it is the basis of learning and the authors go on to
talk about “registers” which is the language style we use according to setting, speakers, and the
goal of communication. There are different registers in school and one of these is “academic
language”. There should be fostering of academic thinking, this way this language can be
included in meaningful activities and not just when contextualized. Learning academic language
can especially be hard when it comes to ELL’s. Researchers have argued that teachers need to be
aware of and provide linguistic analysis of their curriculum in order to see challenges their
students are facing, especially ELL’s. There is a sociocultural perspective that is showing how
literary practices at home affect the student’s success in school. There is the social action
perspective where the teaching is action-based, this places the language forms and functions in
the back while focusing the role that language plays in doing things. Learning language is
developed over the course of the years. For ELL students this looks differently because they
might not start off speaking English. The authors talk about the difference between oral and
written language and how they are both important to use. In order to help students learn
academic language it is important that they have a language rich environment where they can
engage in this type of language. Oral language is also a bridge to literacy, teachers need to
include read alouds or group work. The use of multiliteracies needs to be included, there's
printed based literacy, digital literacy, visual literacy,and oral literacy. Teacher language
awareness is very important so that teachers can address the underlying struggles that students
face, especially ELL’s.
Chapter 2 Gottlieb:

Chapter two in Academic Language in Diverse Classrooms focuses on the dimensions of

academic language. Gottlieb describes how there is academic discourse being used in all content
areas including math, English language arts, science, and social studies. Oftentimes teachers and
instructors fail to realize that many students struggle with content because they lack to
understand the academic language that is being used in the text. As the chapter goes on,the
author talks about the importance of having students engage with informational texts because
many times these informational texts are the readings that are most filled with academic
language as opposed to literary texts such as fictional writing. The strategies and experiences that
are taught by using informational texts are beneficial for students' future college and career
experiences. Gottlieb talks about teaching sentence-level structures such as complex noun
phrases, parallel clauses etc so that students may understand the roots of academic language.
Language functions like cause and effect, extended vocabulary like word phrases and
expressions, and providing rich and varied language experiences are great tools to help students
grow and understand academic vocabulary and language. Gottlieb also explains that in order for
students to proficiently learn and be able to use academic language, teachers and instructors must
be aware of culture, home life etc. Academic language requires more than only linguistics.
Toward the end of the chapter the author describes that it is crucial for teachers to not only teach
students the academic register of language but to be inclusive of each student’s background. She
explains that teachers must use appropriate and correct academic language in order for ELL
students to learn the right words because when teachers use slang or terms that are not
considered standard then it can become very confusing for these learning students to understand
what is correct and what is not. Overall, the author explains the importance of learning to teach
students academic language and its different dimensions successfully so that they may grow to
comprehend complex issues and topics in content areas as well as in real world scenarios.

Gottlieb & Ernst- Slavit (2014). Ch. 3:

Chapter three in this textbook talks about content standards and how they are connected to
academic language use. Gottlieb explains how CCSS (college and career readiness) is part of
what began to shift many educators’ way of thinking about schooling and curriculum. In figure
3.1 of page 57 there is a chart that shows how academic language was affected before CCSS and
after CCSS was instituted. These new content standards really allowed teachers to see the
relevance of language and literacy across the curriculum. A few things that CCSS evoked in
ELA are stronger content area knowledge, increased sophistication of text, balance of the
informational and literature-based text, and evidence and justification for writing from text.
These standards also increased grade-level expectations. In order for students to reach these
standards teachers have to be aware of the features of academic language from discourse to
individual words and expressions.

Teachers should also be aware of the challenges

students will encounter along the way, especially ELL learners, and teachers should also be
aware of students' background and knowledge and how they are compatible with the texts that
they will be reading. Teachers must also be aware of content and language learning for ELL
students. For ELL students they are often subject to double the work because they are learning
social language as well as academic language at once. For this reason oral language is an
important component of literacy for ELL students because it helps to enhance their literacy
development. In order for all students to be successful in their academics teachers must
accommodate all students including those with different home lives and cultures. For this to
happen teachers should encourage students to use their personal linguistic and cultural
knowledge, have them engage in performance-based activities, interact with other students in
academic conversations to form partnerships for learning, access technology to learn through
different modalities, familiarize standards, and give students descriptive feedback. Overall,
academic language is what strings together the components of an educational system and they do
so with the help/through content and learning standards.

Week 11(Nov 4):

Perusall Webinar 2 “Academic Language”:
This webinar on academic language focused mainly on using academic language in the
classroom. The webinar begins by talking about the different dimensions of academic language
which include discourse level, sentence level, and word/expression level. Ernst-Slavit gives the
analogy of building a house as a representation of the different levels of academic language. She
explains how words/expression levels are like the blocks used to begin building, then the
sentence level is the structure (the blocks stacked together to make walls etc.), and the whole
house is the representation of discourse level. The author also talks about the curricular
framework and explains how academic language is embedded into all areas of content in the
classroom including language objectives, content objectives, language targets, content targets,
language development, and college and career readiness standards. Ernst-Slavit goes on to talk
about migrant and bilingual education and how important it is for these ELL students to
comprehend academic language in order for academic success. The comprehension of this
language allows students to not only understand the vocabulary, grammar, discourse, and the
topic of a subject. There are many examples included of what kinds of activities could be used to
help students learn academic language including texts by Edgar Allen Poe for 8th grade students
where students are asked to analyze text and answer questions about it, understand the
conventions and the language in order to write/speak/listen to it, and create their own writing etc.
It is also important that teachers are able to differentiate and be inclusive of other languages
which means that their lessons build on cultural and linguistic strengths of students like suffix
patterns in English and Spanish. Teachers can also structure academic conversations around texts
and topics of interest and they can give students sentence starters in order to help students
develop their oral academic language at sentence level. Students can engage in word-learning
strategies such as acting out words and concepts, and using cognates for ELL students so that
they can develop word/expression level of academic language. Content (what) and language
(how) objectives allow the students to know what they will be able to do and how listening,
speaking, reading, and writing will be incorporated into the lesson.

Zwiers. Content-Area variations of Academic Language (Ch. 4):

This chapter highlights academic language in the four content areas, math, language arts, history,
and science. In the language of language arts, students are asked to look at the deeper meaning of
the material they are reading, so teachers must help their students scaffold their reading in a way
that will help them understand. Teachers often have to model the thinking skill to help students
find the moral of stories like fables. Teachers guide students through persuasive thinking and
teaching them cause and effect in reading through characters and their experiences. The language
of history is used to describe the past and its relevance to present and future. Teachers use
language that helps students see the less obvious points of cause and effect in reading. Students
interpret clues and put pieces together to clarify stories, solve dilemmas and relate history to their
own lives. Science language tends to be more technical, this can describe what happens in the
natural and physical world. Students have to learn scientific inquiry. Students also have to
identify cause and effect in science through hypothesizing using this thinking to identify
variables that bring change to an experiment. Interpretation in science usually happens through
observations and data. Teachers can use comparison in science to help students better understand
and connect to what they are learning. The language of math can sometimes be more complex
and often teachers might not want to speak academic math but this is harmful for student
learning. Interpreting math is giving meaning to words and symbols. Explain problem solving is
used abstractly and complex in math. Students need a lot of explanation and modeling in order to
notice key information, restate using their own words, interpreting pictures and graphs, finding
clue words, making a plan etc..

Week 12 (Nov 13):

De Oliveira (2012). “What history teachers need to know ...”:

The text by De Oliveira focuses on academic language in the subject of History for English
Language Learners. The author focuses on three key academic language patterns that have
occurred throughout history including abstraction, agency, and cause. De Oliveira explains how
academic language in history can be hard for ELL students to grasp because the texts are most
often pulled from textbooks with difficult dense and abstract language. Some history teachers
may believe that it is best to have ELL students read less amounts of text or less complex text,
but in reality this does not help these students because the students still get asked to read
complex academic language down the road. Teachers need to prepare students for academic
language use and comprehension. A linguistic pattern that is often used in history discourses
includes abstraction which is a form of generalization of particular events in order to name
things, places, and ideas. Another pattern is agency which is what allows for explicit and implicit
human actors to be named in a way that is naturally unfolding. The third linguistic pattern is
cause, and cause is the construction of a chronology of events without clear marking through
connectors or other markers of cause and effect. Another important process is nominalization
which is the grammatical resource for the construction of nominal groups. A way for history
teachers to break down the academic language inside of a text is to select a few key passages
from the reading, some that are linked to the standards, so that students can truly understand the
meaning of the passage and the academic language patterns that have been used in it. For
teachers to really engage ELL and all students in deep historical content they must be able to
discuss these language patterns and their role in making historical meanings.

Short et al. “The Academic Language of History and Social Studies…”:

This reading tells us that oftentimes history, social studies and geographics can be subjects that
are neglected in school to focus on other subjects, but they are just as significant. When we read
news stories, background knowledge from social studies courses are needed to fully understand
it. Many students are not reaching the proficient levels in history, civics, or economics because
there is not enough instruction time given. Academic language is important for students to learn
so that they can interpret what they're reading. In order for students to learn this language, they
need to interact with classmates using this language. Academic language should be included in
vocabulary instruction so that ELL students can learn it. ELL students need to merge content
tasks with language. Language needs to be provided in lessons both through social science
specific and more general academic language. ELL students should be encouraged to participate
orally in classrooms so they are not simply listening to English, but they too are learning to use
and incorporating it into their vocabulary. The SIOP model refers to academic vocabulary as
having three elements, content words, process/function words, and words and word parts that
teach English structure. In order for students to learn academic language, they must learn the
three elements. There needs to be a variety of approaches and activities that will give ELL
students multiple opportunities to learn, practice, and apply academic language. There also needs
to be scaffolding provided by teachers like pre teaching terms before students begin reading or
by putting up posters that contain academic words. Research has also shown that there should be
a greater balance of student talk and teacher talk an example of this is open ended questions. Oral
language is very important so there should be room for class discussion and small group
discussion.

Week 13 (Nov 20):

Gottlieb & Ernst-Slavit (2013) chapter 1 (P. 1 – 44) from the book “Academic Language in
Diverse Classrooms: English Language Arts, Grades K-2: Promoting Content and Language
Learning”:

In the Academic language text (P. 1-44) author Gottlieb talks about academic language in ELA
for grades K-8. The author shares some examples of what academic language is at the
dimensional level for grades K-2. At the word/phrase level this would be things such as rhyming
words, text, titles etc., for sentence level this would include prepositional phrases, sequence
words and so on, and for discourse level this would include folktales, blogs, storyboards and
more. Discourse for other content areas could be things such as lab reports for science, speeches
for social studies etc. Oftentimes we believe that academic language/discourse is only used in
ELA, but on the contrary, academic language is used in every subject area. Therefore, in order
for students to succeed in other content areas then they must master structures, conventions, and
complexities that are unique to each discipline. The sentence level of academic language which
includes grammatical structures, language forms, and conventions are also very important for
students to understand because when students comprehend these structures then they are able to
develop their English language better. The word/phrase level is a dimension of academic
language which is also very important because students need to be able to understand the
discipline-specific terms and the general academic words in order to understand what the text is
talking about. The author also talks about how valuable and necessary it is for students to
connect their culture and home language to academic language. The knowledge and expertise in
a students first language while they are learning English can boost their acquisition of language
and literacy in English. Cognates can also be very helpful for ELLs because these words in the
language that they already know correspond in meaning and form to English and allows them to
build a quick connection. On page 19, Gottlieb includes a curricular framework for teaching
academic language after she explained in the text that it is very important for teachers to get to
know the students and their personalities. Gottlieb states that “students are the starting point and
central focus for curricular planning and educational decision making, and the chart in figure
1.11 is one that is structured to focus on the students while teaching.

"Todo tiene que ver con lo que se habla: It's all about the Talk" by Frey, Fisher, and Nelson; Phi
Delta Kappan Magazine:

The authors of this article talk about the White/Hispanic achievement gap and graduation rate
that exists and needs to be closed. Chula Vista elementary school has managed to make that gap
smaller considering the fact that 65% of their student population identifies as Hispanic. This
school has been able to achieve this through the focus on academic language across all content
areas. Teachers and school administrators have gotten together to create a framework that will
help students learn academic language. The framework used consists of focusing on lessons,
guided instruction, productive group work, and independent learning. They have also elevated
teacher talk so that teachers and students can spend more time talking about their thinking.
Teachers focused on modeling and thinking aloud rather than explaining. Teachers have created
questions that will allow their students to think and interact in large class discussion and
productive small groups. This instructional framework has helped the students at Chula Vista
meet the standards they need to.
Week 14 (Dec 4):

Snow (2010). “Academic language and the challenge of reading for learning about science”:
Ernst- Slavit & Slavit, “Mathematically speaking... “:

In this reading the author talks about academic language in science. The author describes that
there are many nominalizations used in science text so that phrases can be embedded into other
sentences. Oftentimes teachers are not well prepared to help their students understand the
linguistic puzzles found in scientific texts, although they do recognize that teaching vocabulary is
key but they only focus on the science terms and not the rest of the academic vocabulary that
students also need to know. Students need to not only learn about science and the terms for the
subject, but they also need to understand the words used to write and talk about science which
means that they understand the all-purpose academic words as well as the discipline specific
words. There are programs like “word generation” which is a website that uses academic
language in a way that is interesting and fun for students to learn and engage with. In order for
students to become independent learners of science, and other content areas, then they must be
able to read and comprehend texts that use features of academic language.

Ernst- Slavit & Slavit, “Mathematically speaking... “

Learning the language of math can be difficult, especially for ELL students as it can feel like
they are learning two new languages simultaneously. The author states that mathematics is far
from being a universal language as many say. The counting number system in English has a
discontinuity and it can be hard for students to follow the pattern. Math can look different in
other countries, for example in some places they use commas instead of decimals. This is why
teachers need to strategically plan to implement their lessons so that they can help their students
understand the language of math in English. The common core standards of mathematics
emphasize on three aspects, coherence, rigor, and focus. Ways to help students communicate
ideas precisely are avoiding words that might aid mathematical precision but might also hinder
comprehension, allows students to use native language to communicate, simple language is
allowed so students can communicate ideas, and help students develop metalinguistic awareness.
Some characteristics that are a part of the academic language of mathematics are conventions,
symbols, vocabulary, grammatical features, and discourse. The first step of planning for
instruction is to have students understand these characteristics of mathematics so that they are
able to understand and take part in it. The characteristics listed above can help create awareness.

Lee et al. (2013) “Science and Language for English Language Learners...”

Students need to learn academic vocabulary and how to process academic language in order to
become independent learners of science. Often students can read fluently but are not able to fully
comprehend the material they are reading. When reading academic language we often see
nominalizations that make the language and reading more concise but also more difficult to
understand. When teachers try to help with vocabulary or bolded words, often they are
explaining with general purpose academic words so students can still remain confused. In order
for students to learn the academic language of science, they need to learn how to write and talk
about science. Teachers need to work on presenting complicated ideas in efficient ways, this can
include focusing on grammatical embedding, sophisticated and abstract vocabulary, precision of
word choice, and use of nominalizations. Students need to be able to use all purpose academic
language in order to explain their own views and arguments as well as understanding and
evaluating others.

Gottlieb & Ernst-Slavit (2013) chapter 1 (P. 1 – 38) from the book “Academic Language in
Diverse Classrooms: mathematics, grades 3 – 5: Promoting Content and Language Learning:

This chapter starts off by explaining academic language and what it is. It talks about discourse
level, sentence level, and word/phrase level. The author explains that academic language is more
than just conventions, terms, and genres. Academic language is a way of being in the world, the
way of acting, thinking, believing,speaking etc. Language operates in a sociocultural context and
in school the classroom serves as this. In order for students to be successful in math, they need to
be able to understand and produce the register of math. Words in math are seen in common
English language with a different meaning like the word “mean” can have a different definition
in math than regular English, so it is important that students learn this. There can also be multiple
terms for one meaning, like add, plus, sum etc. these need to be identified and explained.
Academic language is woven through the framework that is taught. Getting to know students'
cultural and linguistic vantage points will help educators know the students' grade level academic
language that will also help teachers construct and entact a curriculum. There are language
proficiency/development standards in place that work with standards and are necessary for
students to meet so they can be successful. There are ways to accommodate and differentiate
instruction to help ELLs understand the language of math. The curricular framework is a guide
that helps with long term planning. This guide is intended for all students, it is adaptable, it
highlights acad,ic language, it is aligned and paired with content instruction, it welcomes
sociocultural perspectives, and it encourages reflection on teaching and learning.