Academic Language Mastery: Culture in Context

Noma LeMoine, Ivannia Soto

• Publisher: Corwin
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781506337159
• eBook ISBN: 9781506337876
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

By now it's a given: if we're to help our ELLs and SELs access the rigorous demands of today's content standards, we must cultivate the "code" that drives school success: academic language. Look no further for assistance than this much-anticipated series from Ivannia Soto, in which she invites field authorities Jeff Zwiers, David and Yvonne Freeman, Margarita Calderon, and Noma LeMoine to share every teacher's need-to-know strategies on the four essential components of academic language.

The subject of this volume is culture. Here, Noma LeMoine makes clear once and for all how culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy validates, facilitates, liberates, and empowers ethnically diverse students. With this volume as your roadmap, you'll learn how to:

• Implement instructional strategies designed to meet the  linguistic and cultural needs of ELLs and  SELs
  
• Use language variation as an asset in the classroom
  
• Recognize and honor prior knowledge, home languages, and cultures

The culture and language every student brings to the classroom have vast implications for how to best structure the learning environment. This guidebook will help you get started as early as tomorrow. Better yet, read all four volumes in the series as an all-in-one instructional plan for closing the achievement gap.

Chapter One Introduction to the Book Series

According to the Migration Policy Institute (2013), close to 5 million U.S. students, which represent 9 percent of public school enrollment, are English language learners (ELLs). Three-quarters of these 5 million students were born in the United States and are either the children or grandchildren of immigrants. In some large urban school districts such as Los Angeles, ELLs already comprise around 30 percent of the student population. These demographic trends, along with the rigorous content expectations of new content and language standards (e.g., CCSS, WIDA, ELPA21, etc.), require that educational systems become skilled at simultaneously scaffolding academic language and content for this growing group of students. For ELLs, academic language mastery is the key to accessing rigorous content. Now is a pivotal time in educational history to address both academic language and content simultaneously so that ELLs do not fall further behind in both areas while also becoming bored by methods that are cognitively banal and lead to disengagement.

Another group of students who have academic language needs, but are not formally identified as such, are standard English learners (SELs). SELs are students who speak languages that do not correspond to standard American English language structure and grammar but incorporate English vocabulary. They include African American students who speak African American language (AAL), sometimes referred to as African American English, and Mexican American–non-new-immigrant students who speak Mexican American Language (MxAL) or what is commonly referred to as “Chicano English.” Both ELLs and SELs need instructional assistance in the academic language necessary to be successful in school, college, and beyond. For both groups of students, academic language represents the pathway to full access in meeting the rigorous demands of the new standards.

Purpose of This Academic Language Development Book Series

The purpose of this series is to assist educators in developing expertise in, and practical strategies for, addressing four key dimensions of academic language when working with ELLs and SELs. To systemically address the needs of ELLs and SELs, we educators must share a common understanding of academic language development (ALD). Wong-Fillmore (2013) defines academic language as “the language of texts. The forms of speech and written discourse that are linguistic resources educated people in our society can draw on. This is language that is capable of supporting complex thought, argumentation, literacy, successful learning; it is the language used in written and spoken communication in college and beyond” (p. 15). Given that we are preparing ELLs and SELs for college, career, and beyond, they should receive ample opportunities to learn and use academic language, both in spoken and written form (Soto, 2014). ELLs and SELs also must be provided with scaffolded access to cognitively and linguistically demanding content, which allows them to cultivate their complex thinking and argumentation.

All students can benefit from academic language development modeling, scaffolding, and practice, but ELLs and SELs need it to survive and thrive in school. ELLs have plenty of language assets in their primary language that we must leverage to grow their academic English, yet there is often a very clear language and literacy gap that must be closed as soon as ELLs enter school. Similarly, SELs come to school with a language variation that, to be built upon in the classroom setting, must first be understood. In reviewing the wide range of literature by experts in this field, most agree that the key elements of academic English language for ELLs and SELs include these four dimensions: academic vocabulary, syntax and grammar, discourse, and culturally responsive teaching.

We have therefore organized this book series around these four dimensions of academic English:

• Conversational Discourse—developing students’ conversational skills as an avenue for fostering academic language and thinking in a discipline
• Academic Vocabulary—teaching high-frequency academic words and discipline-specific vocabulary across content areas
• Syntax and Grammar—teaching sophisticated and complex syntactical and grammatical structures in context
• Culturally Responsive Teaching—incorporating culture while addressing and teaching language, and honoring students’ home cultures and communities

The focus on these four dimensions in this book series makes this a unique offering for educators. By building upon the cultural and linguistic similarities of ELLs and SELs, we embed strategies and instructional approaches about academic vocabulary, discourse, and grammar and syntax within culturally responsive teaching practices, to make them all accessible to teachers of diverse students. As the American poet and great thinker of modern Hispanic literature, Sabine Ulibarrí, noted, “Language is culture; it carries with it traditions, customs, the very life of a people. You cannot separate one from the other. To love one is to love the other; to hate one is to hate the other. If one wants to destroy a people, take away their language and their culture will soon disappear.” Therefore, the heart of this book series is to integrate language and culture in a manner that has not been addressed with other books or book series on ALD.

Academic Language Development Dimensions Defined and Connections to the Book Series

ALD is a pathway to equity. With new rigorous state standards and expectations, ALD is the scaffold that provides access for ELLs and SELs so that high academic expectations can be maintained and reached. The following matrix defines each dimension of ALD and demonstrates the intersection of ALD dimensions across the book series. For full proficiency in ALD, it is integral that each dimension be addressed across disciplines—the dimensions should not be taught as either/or skills. Instead, each of the dimensions should be addressed throughout a course of study or unit. In that way, it is important to read the book series in its entirety, as an ongoing professional development growth tool (more on that later). The matrix also demonstrates the connections made between ALD dimensions, which will prove helpful as readers complete continue their study across the ALD book series.

(Definitions adapted from Academic Language Development Network (n.d.) unless otherwise noted)

Format for Each Book

At the beginning of each book is an introduction to the purpose of the book series and the need for ALD across content areas. Additionally, connections between current ALD research and the specific dimension of ALD are included in an abbreviated literature review as well as connections to specific ICLRT Design Principles. In the middle of each book, the voice of the expert in the particular ALD dimension is incorporated. These chapters include how to move from theory to practice, classroom examples at elementary and secondary levels, and ways to assess the dimension. At the end of each book, a summary of major points and how to overcome related challenges along with the rationale for use of the Institute for Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching (ICLRT) Design Principles as a bridge between ALD and content.

Additionally, each book in the series is organized in a similar manner for ease of use by the reader. Chapter 1 is the introduction to the series of books and not an introduction for each individual book. Instead, Chapter 2 introduces each dimension of ALD with the specific research base for that book. The heart of each book in the series is in Chapter 3, where practical application to theory and classroom examples can be found. Chapter 4 addresses how each ALD dimension fosters literacy development. In Chapter 5, how to assess the specific ALD dimension is discussed with checklists and rubrics to assist with formative assessment in this area. Last, Chapter 6 connects each volume with the others in the series and details how the book series can best be used in a professional development setting. The epilogue revisits the vision for the series and provides a description of the relationship to the underlying principles of ICLRT.

• Chapter 1—Introduction to the Book Series
• Chapter 2—Abbreviated Literature Review: The Case for Culturally Relevant and Linguistically Responsive Pedagogy
• Chapter 3—Practical Application: Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Instructional Strategies That Advance Learning in EL and SEL Populations
• Chapter 4—Fostering Literacy With CLRP
• Chapter 5—Assessing for Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Indicators
• Chapter 6—Conclusions, Challenges, and Connections
• Epilogue: The Vision

How to Use the Book Series

While each book can stand alone, the book series was designed to be read together with colleagues and over time. As such, it is a professional development tool for educational communities, which can also be used for extended learning on ALD. Educators may choose to begin with any of the four key dimensions of ALD that interests them the most or with which they need the most assistance.

How to Use Reflect and Apply Queries

Embedded throughout this book series you will find queries that will ask you to reflect and apply new learning to your own practice. Please note that you may choose to use the queries in a variety of settings either with a book study buddy during PLC, grade-level, or department meetings. Each of the queries can be answered in a separate journal while one is reading the text, or as a group you may choose to reflect on only a few queries throughout a chapter. Please feel free to use as many or as few queries as are helpful to you, but we do encourage you to at least try a couple out for reflection as you read the book series.

Try it out by responding to the first query here.

Reflect and Apply

What does the Sabine Ulibarrí quote below mean to you? How does it connect to your students?

“Language is culture; it carries with it traditions, customs, the very life of a people. You cannot separate one from the other. To love one is to love the other; to hate one is to hate the other. If one wants to destroy a people, take away their language and their culture will soon disappear.”

Book Series Connection to Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching

Culturally and linguistically responsive teaching is an essential dimension of ALD. Often, however, educators may be reluctant to make space for culturally and/or linguistically responsive teaching as that is not the way that they were taught. In an increasingly pluralistic society, it is essential that we teach the student in front of us and not the student that we might have been. By teaching in a culturally and linguistically responsive manner, we are allowing students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds to see themselves represented in school, which will be both motivating and engaging for them. It is definitely worth the effort to invest in getting to know the cultural and linguistic histories of the students that we teach, as the payoff in the end can be dramatic.

Some educators may struggle with how to meet the cultural and linguistic needs of their students, as they may have many more questions than solutions. Investing in book studies and professional development on teaching diverse populations of students will prove helpful, as it may not be a natural skill to provide instruction from that lens. Having a support team or group of teachers who also value, or are in the process of acquiring, cultural and linguistic teaching skills can be helpful as together you can jointly take instructional risks.

Still other educators may struggle with having what Glenn Singleton calls “courageous conversations about race.” Perhaps you have felt uncomfortable with discussing culture as you do not want to inadvertently hurt someone or demonstrate inexperience about the topic. It is important to note that whether we are educators of color or not, we all must be in process when it comes to having difficult or courageous conversations about race, culture, or language and how these apply to the students we are teaching. Everybody comes to teaching with their own values and biases, which are framed from personal experiences, and can grow in the area of culturally and linguistically responsive teaching. Educators of color may realize that socioeconomically and linguistically, they are now much different than the students they teach, and they may need to remind themselves of the financial and language struggle once again. This book in the series is an opportunity for educators to do just that: take the risk to m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Publisher Note
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter One Introduction to the Book Series
• Chapter Two Abbreviated Literature Review The Case for Culturally Relevant and Linguistically Responsive Pedagogy
• Chapter Three Practical Application Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Instructional Strategies That Advance Learning in EL and SEL Populations
• Chapter Four Fostering Literacy With CLRP
• Chapter Five Assessing for Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Indicators
• Chapter Six Conclusions, Challenges, and Connections
• Epilogue: The Vision
• References
• Index
• Publisher Note