Chapter 5: Understanding Academic Language - 1

Making It Happen in the Classroom

This is the nuts and bolts chapter, with more concrete ideas about how to teach Academic Language in the classroom.

A high school teacher may take pride in her ability to teach science but unless she knows how to teach science to students who are at varying stages of acquiring academic English, her science teaching skills may amount to very little.
Her role definition must change from being an effective science teacher of the "generic"...student to being an effective teacher of science and English academic skills to the new culturally and linguistically diverse mainstream student.

Cummins has developed a framework incorporating both identity negotiation and cognitive challenge intersecting with "patterns of societal power" which were the topics of the previous chapters. This then focuses on three areas: the meaning/comprehension of the content matter, demystifying / "harvesting" language so students can use it, and opportunities for students to express themselves. I will be presenting these topics over several blog posts to keep them shorter, relating them to my own experience, and to becoming "an effective teacher of math and English academic skills."

A Framework for Academic Language Learning

The Development of Academic Expertise

Focus on Meaning

Making input comprehensible
Developing critical Literacy

Focus on Language

Awareness of language forms & uses
Critical analysis of language forms & uses

Focus on Use

Use language to:
Generate new knowledge
Create literature & art
Act on social realities

(Figure, Cummins, p 125)

With this framework, Cummins centers on what he calls the Interpersonal Space of Cognitive Engagement and Identity Investment, which is what all the previous chapters have been about. It is in this zone of proximal development (Cummins, Chapter 1, note 14) that learning occurs. However

these [teacher student] are never neutral; they either challenge the operation of coercive relations of power in the wider society or they reinforce [them.]
(Cummins, p 125)

Cummins asserts that students' engagement in the cognitive work of the class must be maximized, and this can only happen with the affirmation and respect of the teacher.

The best way to do this is by activating prior knowledge, perhaps through brainstorming in small groups, so that students are aware that the knowledge they gained in their L1 in their life outside school or in their home country is valid knowledge. In this way their identity is strengthened, because it is affirmed by the teacher. Sometimes they get the idea that they have had their slate wiped clean when they moved here. It is important that they realize that their background is still of value to them.

The teacher can use the results of the brainstorming to find out how much the different students know about the subject, so she can provide background knowledge or supplement where there are holes.

If a student has little or no prior knowledge on a subject, then the teacher can work with her to build background knowledge, possibly using her L1, so that she can be on a level with her fellow students. This could be done by giving the student a text with background knowledge in her L1 prior to the class where the knowledge is needed. In that way, although the student hasn't discussed the topic in English before, the content is already embedded and thus more comprehensible, so she just has to work with the language of the topic. She is able to make intelligent guesses about the meaning, since she knows it is related to the prior or freshly built knowledge of the subject.

She also knows that the teacher acknowledges her knowledge, or lack thereof, and respects her enough to help her use or build that knowledge. The rest of the class can also respect her prior knowledge of the subject as just as valid as their own.

The teacher has to present material to the students in a way that targets Quadrant B: context-embedded and cognitively demanding (See Blog on Chapter 3.) If the material isn't demanding (Quadrant C), for example rote worksheets, or is not context-embedded (Quadrant D) where the student has too many unknowns that are not sufficient comprensible material and thus learns nothing. We have to remember that just because a student is not fluent in English, or even just because the student has an inadequate school background, does not mean that he cannot learn cognitavely challenging subjects. They just have to be presented to him at a level he can work with. This is also showing respect from the teacher, meeting the student where he is, but expecting that he will go far. As Cummins reminds us,

second language learners ... may be trying to find their way in the borderland between cultures. They frequently don't have either the means or the desire to go back to their original culture, but don't have the language skills or cultural understanding to participate fully in their new culture.
(Cummins, p. 132)

This concept was well-described in my blog entry A culture shift isn't always what you expected either. Our students need to feel our respect and affirmation to keep going.

[This] implies that teachers must see their role as creating instructional context in which second language learners can become active partners in the learning process; seocond, ...that teachers must view themselves as learners - in order to teach effectively they must learn from their students about students' culture, background and experience.
(Cummins, p. 133)

Part of the requirements for my teaching credential from Claremont Graduate University is the Ethnography thesis, where we first study ourselves ethnographically, then 5 or more of our students, their community and the school. This will be a challenging but certainly rewarding part of my first year of teaching.

I will discuss the three foci of meaning, language and use in the next entries.