Creating an Environment Where Language Flourishes
- A Resource for Elementary Classroom Teachers
Supporting Academic Language Development
How do you help students access the linguistic and academic demands of a lesson?
WHAT DOES THE RESEARCH SAY?
EXPLICIT TEACHING IN A NUTSHELL
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Be clear about what you want your students to know and be able to do by the end of each lesson
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Tell children what they need to know and show them how to do what they need to do
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Give your students time to practice what they have learned
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MODELING
"Modeling is not simply showing; it is accompanied by spoken language to provide a narrative for the learner to follow."
This narrative should answer:
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What is it? (name strategy, skill, task)
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How do I use it?
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How do I know I used it correctly?
Better Learning Through Structured Teaching: A Framework for the Gradual Release of Responsibility, 2nd Edition. Douglas Fisher & Nancy Frey. (p.27)
Because so much complex language is happening and needs to happen in a lesson, strategic, planned, and intentional modeling is a must.
Common Core Standards in Diverse Classrooms: Essential Practices for Developing Academic Language and Disciplinary Literacy (p.35)
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ACADEMIC LANGUAGE is...
-Intricately linked to high-order thinking processes.
-Developed by extensive modeling and scaffolding of classroom talk.
-Accelerated by weaving direct teaching of its features while teaching
content concepts.
MUCH MORE COMPLEX AND IMPORTANT THAN MOST EDUCATORS REALIZE.
Academic Conversations
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COLLABORATIVE LEARNING:
Consolidating Thinking with Peers
[...]All collaborative learning has three important features in common:
it involves sustained interaction with at least one peer, students use accountable talk in these interactions [...],and the discourse of the interaction is rooted in the lesson's academic language."
Better Learning Through Structured Teaching: A Framework for the Gradual Release of Responsibility, 2nd Edition. Douglas Fisher & Nancy Frey.(p.72)
WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?
This article describes instructional steps and teaching behaviors for explicit primary-grade, small-group writing instruction in a supportive, guided context. Each section includes examples of teacher-student interaction during guided writing lessons. The article also describes two specific assessment procedures that support guided writing instruction.
"In guided writing lessons, students rehearse new ways of talking about topics of interest using literate and increasingly complex forms of language. Discussion immediately prior to and during individual writing expands students' language base and prepares them to write well. Rehearsal of language structures should be explicit and well connected to the type of text and topic about which students are currently writing."
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SCAFFOLDING
Learn more ways to make language accessible to students and help them move on to the next stage of their language development.
Scaffolding a lesson and differentiating instruction are two different things. Scaffolding is breaking up the learning into chunks and then providing a tool, or structure, with each chunk. When scaffolding reading, for example, you might preview the text and discuss key vocabulary, or chunk the text and then read and discuss as you go. With differentiation, you might give a child an entirely different piece of text to read, or shorten the text or alter it, and/or modify the writing assignment that follows. Read more...
Ask yourself these questions to help make sure you are supporting academic language:
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Is my curriculum and classroom environment rich in print, literature, and language?
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Do I provide time for children to look, listen, and talk about books?
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Do I integrate writing, speaking, listening, and reading into all content areas?
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Do I encourage students to talk and write about personal experiences and ideas?
This entry is excerpted from the Keys to Literacy Blog
How explicit is your teaching?
Pause to Ponder:
Do you provide examples and model the kind of language you expect in your classroom?
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Model common issues in communication and how to avoid them.
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Model how language works, how you think about the use of language in the text you read and write.
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Model how you evaluate, give opinions, clarify, take sides...and the language you use to do so.
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Model prompts and responses of good conversations skills.
Common Core Standards in Diverse Classrooms: Essential Practices for Developing Academic Language and Disciplinary Literacy (p.46)
Create exemplars to show your class the kind of work/language you’d like for them to produce, or you might draw models from student work (either from a previous class or from your current class).