Progressing Students′ Language Day by Day

Alison L. Bailey, Margaret Heritage

• Publisher: Corwin
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781506358833
• eBook ISBN: 9781506358840
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

Because content and language learning go hand in hand

New content standards integrate content and language in ways prior standards have never done. That's why it's so critically important that teachers attend to both content and language development when introducing new subject matter, especially for English learners. Here's your opportunity to get started tomorrow and every day thereafter: Alison Bailey and Margaret Heritage's all-new Progressing Students' Language Day by Day.

What's so utterly ground-breaking about this book is Bailey and Heritage's Dynamic Language Learning Progression (DLLP) process: research-based tools for obtaining much deeper insight into a student's language progress, then for identifying the most appropriate instructional steps to elevate language proficiency and content knowledge. Step by step, Bailey and Heritage describe how to

• Engage with students to advance their development of sophisticated, high-leverage language features for explaining content 
• Use the DLLP approach to formative assessment, then plan  your teaching in response to assessment evidence
• Examine words, sentences, and discourse --the three dimensions of language that are part of the DLLP process for cultivating language development
• Discover how leadership support and communities of practice (CoPs) can facilitate a successful and sustainable implementation of the DLLP process

Listen more closely and uncover new ways to advance content learning with Progressing Students' Language Day by Day directly by your side.

"Alison Bailey and Margaret Heritage open our eyes to the often invisible and context-specific language demands embedded in content learning. Understanding the ubiq¬uitous and highly influential role of language in learning takes time and effort but leads to transformative practice. Progressing Students' Language Learning Day by Day offers an insightful and concrete framework to begin this transformation."

— Paola Uccelli, Professor of Education, 
Harvard University

Part I Laying the Groundwork

Part I addresses foundational aspects of the Dynamic Language Learning Progression (DLLP) approach. In three chapters, we provide basic definitions, the context of the DLLP approach and creation, the rationale for its use, and a description of formative assessment. In Chapter 1, we present our theory of action that guides the implementation of the DLLP approach. In Chapters 2 and 3, we give a detailed picture of the DLLP approach to formative assessment and how teachers can implement it to progress language learning in the content areas in their classrooms.

Chapter 1 Definitions and Contexts

I didn’t have this level of knowledge [about language]—definitely not. I’ve always been told that language development is important—I remember learning that throughout my teacher education program that I went through, but it was not explicitly taught like this. I gained a much deeper understanding of that progression and all the different elements to look at.

—Kindergarten teacher

To learn is to progress. Whatever students are learning—soccer, chess, physics, piano, Jenga, history—with instruction, practice, and experience, they can progress from an emerging understanding or skill through increasing levels of expertise over time. This book is about how language progresses. Specifically, it focuses on explanation, a language function used to “convey understanding; a mutual declaration of the meaning of words spoken, actions, motives, etc., with a view to adjusting a misunderstanding or reconciling differences” (Random House, 2016). In other words, as a form of expository language, explanations convey information about how and why things happen. An explanation can be of actions, events, processes, motives, theories, or claims. Other uses of language may be embedded within explanations, or explanations may be embedded within them. These other uses of language fulfill the purpose of argument, justification, and description, among others.

The purpose of the book is captured in the quote from the kindergarten teacher on the facing page: to increase teachers’ knowledge of language development—specifically, explanation skills—so they can better support language learning in their classrooms en route to college and career readiness.

Why a Focus on Explanation?

There are three main reasons for our focus. First, explanation is an important crosscutting language practice of the academic disciplines, used by students to clarify their thinking and consolidate their understanding. For example, explanation is important in students’ acquisition of new content knowledge in (a) English language arts (Goldman & Wylie, 2011), specifically to promote conceptual knowledge and their English language proficiency skills; (b) in mathematics (Hill et al., 2008), to support the learning of mathematical concepts, procedures, and reasoning; (c) in science (Sandoval & Çam, 2011), to conduct scientific inquiry and procedures and to support the understanding of phenomena; and (d) in history/social studies (Leinhardt, 1997), to describe the causes of events and to support the analysis and interpretation of sources.

What Experts Say

Arguments are essential to the process of justifying the validity of any explanation as there are often multiple explanations for any given phenomenon.

—Osborne and Patterson (2011, p. 629)

Second, assessments of college- and career-ready standards (CCRS), such as the Common Core State Standards for reading and mathematics (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers [CCSSO], 2010) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013), require students to provide explanations of their knowledge (see examples in box below). Third, student explanations can provide teachers with insights about their students’ content-area understanding as it develops during a lesson, as well as about their language use.

Examples of What the Standards Say

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.5.3

Summarize the points a speaker makes and explain how each claim is supported by reasons and evidence.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.2.1.C

Ask for clarification and further explanation as needed about the topics and texts under discussion.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.2

Determine the main idea of a text and explain how it is supported by key details

CCSS Standards for Mathematical Practice

Mathematically proficient students are also able to compare the effectiveness of two plausible arguments, distinguish correct logic or reasoning from that which is flawed, and—if there is a flaw in an argument—explain what it is.

Next Generation Science Standards. Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions

Asking students to demonstrate their own understanding of the implications of a scientific idea by developing their own explanations of phenomena . . . engages them in an essential part of the process by which conceptual change can occur.

Sources: National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers (2010); NGSS Lead States (2013).

Given the heavy reliance of the CCRS on students’ explanations of their content learning, there is some concern about the pedagogical value of explanations if the content and conceptual understanding of what students are explaining are inaccurate or incomplete (Rittle-Johnson & Loehr, 2017). We believe that explanations are of value when they are given under the guidance of a teacher. For example, they can provide feedback to both the teacher and the student and an opportunity for making adjustments or modifications on the part of the student, often with teacher support.

This book is for teachers—all K–6 teachers. No matter the subject, the grade level, or the students teachers teach, explanation will be part of their students’ learning and part of their teaching. The book is primarily about oral language, although we do include references to written language along the way to illustrate how students were able to transfer their oral language skills into their writing and how teachers intentionally capitalized on this to reinforce language learning in both oral and written areas. In this chapter, we address how students can develop explanation skills, the importance of integrating language and content learning, and implications for students who are acquiring English as an additional language. We will elaborate on these ideas in subsequent chapters.

Explanation Skills Can Be Learned

Most students do not arrive in school with fully formed explanation skills. But they certainly should not leave school without them! We know from studies of child development that explanations are important for revealing “underlying causal relations and properties” to young children (Legare, 2012, p. 183). Explanatory talk between parents and their children has been linked to the development of cognition, literacy, and later discourse skills (e.g., Snow, 1991).

Students need to develop the vocabulary, sentence structures, and organization of language that can “convey understanding” and must work with other students to create a “mutual declaration,” for example, of the new knowledge they may be building together.

Figure 1.1 The DLLP Approach to Language and Content Learning

In Figure 1.1, we show the components that contribute to the development of students’ explanation skills. Explanation skills are at the intersection of language knowledge (with its three interrelated levels of word, sentence, and discourse; see Chapters 4, 5, and 6 for details about these language dimensions), the academic content that is the target of the explanation (e.g., mathematics, science), and the learning cycle. Explanation skills are the result of learning that has occurred from the interaction among experience, instruction, and practice in the learning cycle.

Key Terminology

Sociocultural Theory

Sociocultural theory is a view of learning stemming from Vygotsky’s (1934/1962) integration of cognitive (i.e., mental processes), behavioral, and environmental perspectives.

Learning is socially mediated by the context in which it occurs, including by the actions of others toward the learner that may facilitate or hinder a learner’s progress (i.e., internalization of new knowledge and skills).

One way that education researchers have operationalized Vygotsky’s ideas about mediation has been to describe the graduated assistance (i.e., scaffolding) and routines that are set up for novice learners by more accomplished experts (i.e., teacher, peer, sibling, parent) (Wood, Bruner, Ross, 1976).

Vygotsky’s theory proposes that learning takes place within the zone of proximal developme...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Acknowledgements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• About the Contributors
• Part I Laying the Groundwork
• Chapter 1 Definitions and Contexts
• Chapter 2 What Is the DLLP Approach?
• Chapter 3 Formative Assessment
• Part II Features of the DLLP Approach
• Chapter 4 Word Features of the DLLP Approach
• Chapter 5 Sentence Features of the DLLP Approach
• Chapter 6 Discourse Features of the DLLP Approach
• Part III Leading Language and Content Learning
• Chapter 7 Leadership and Communities of Practice to Support DLLP Implementation
• Index
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