13 Sep Fillmore and Snow identify five functions that teachers perform for which they need to know about language. Are these functions relevant only for teachers of ELLs, or
Question 1.
Fillmore and Snow identify five functions that teachers perform for which they need to know about language. Are these functions relevant only for teachers of ELLs, or are they important for all teachers? Of the teachers you know, how many do you think have the kind of knowledge Fillmore and Snow deem essential? In what ways might the lack of such knowledge affect instruction?
Chapter 2 Language
Wright, W. E. (2019). Foundations for teaching English language learners: Research, theory, policy, and practice (3rd ed.). Philadelphia: Caslon Publishing.
What do teachers need to know about language, and why do they need to know it?
How can knowledge of language help teachers to “think linguistically” about their students, curriculum, and classroom instruction?
What does it mean to “know a language”?
What do teachers need to know about language for academic or disciplinary purposes?
Guiding Questions
David Crystal’s (2001) definition of language
The systematic, conventional use of sounds, signs, or written symbols in a human society for communication and self-expression
Linguists study
The underlying system of language
Language use
Different aspects of communication
What is Language?
Five functions that teachers perform
All classrooms are language environments
Language is at the heart of teaching and learning
Teachers need to “think linguistically”
Why Teachers Need to Know about Language
Teacher
Communicator
Agent of socialization
Educated human being
Educator
Evaluator
The recognition of the importance of language reflected in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)
Conventions of standard English
Knowledge of language
Vocabulary acquisition and use
Raising the bar of language for all students as well as ELLs
Language Standards for All Students
Conventions of Standard English
1. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
2. Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.
Knowledge of Language
3. Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening.
CCSS: College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language
Vocabulary Acquisition and Use
4. Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases by using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials, as appropriate.
5. Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.
6. Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when encountering an unknown term important to comprehension or expression.
CCSS: College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Language
What Teachers Need to Know about Language
Phonology
Morphology
Syntax
Semantics
Pragmatics
Lexicon
Spelling
The study of the sound systems of languages
Segmental phonology: phonemes
Suprasegmental phonology: intonation, stress, etc.
Phoneme
Smallest unit of sound in a language (e.g., bit/bet)
Change in phoneme causes a change in meaning
Syllable structure and sequence of sounds in a word
E.g., CCV (spy), CVVC (quit); not CCCCC (ntrgn)
Helps teachers understand
Issues of pronunciation
Accents
Regional varieties
What Teachers Need to Know about Language Phonology
The study of the structure of words
Inflectional morphology (e.g., fast/fast·er/fast·est)
Derivational morphology (e.g., represent/misrepresentation)
Morpheme
Smallest unit that has meaning or a grammatical function
E.g., Books book (free morpheme) + -s (bound morpheme)
Creation of new vocabulary words
Compounding, borrowing from other languages, shortening, blending, acronyms, and initialism
Teachers can help students
Develop their morphological awareness
Use morphemes to create new words
What Teachers Need to Know about Language Morphology
The study of the rules governing the way words are combined to form sentences and the rules governing the arrangement of sentences in sequences (grammar)
Syntax is about the relationship between words and is necessary to comprehend the meaning.
“Dad gave my book to mom.” “Mom gave my book to Dad.”
Helps teachers understand students’ grammatical errors caused by syntactic differences across languages
What Teachers Need to Know about Language Syntax
The study of the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences
The relationships between words
Synonym, antonym, homophone, homonym, hyponym, converseness, polysemy, part/whole relationship
Modality
Command, statement, permission, and probability
Helps teachers
Develop vocabulary lessons based on lists of semantically related words
Teach cognates (and partial/false cognates)
What Teachers Need to Know about Language Semantics
The study of language from the point of view of the users and “invisible” meaning
Speech acts
Request, command, question, statement
How to use language to
Start, maintain, and end conversations, take turns, express opinions, agree and disagree, negotiate social status in relationships, save face, and make excuses
Teachers can help students learn the underlying rules of interaction needed for successful communication
What Teachers Need to Know about Language Pragmatics
The vocabulary of a language
To use a word from the lexicon, a speaker needs to know
Its sounds and their sequencing (phonology)
Its meanings (semantics)
Its category and how to use it in a sentence (syntax)
How related words such as the plural (for nouns) and past tense (for verbs) are formed (morphology)
Average English-speaking children
2nd grade: 6,000 words
Age 1-17: Add 13 words a day
Age 17: 80,000 words
What Teachers Need to Know about Language Lexicon
ELLs need
2,000 words to maintain conversations
5,000 words to read authentic texts
10,000 words to comprehend challenging academic materials
Teachers can help ELLs acquire new words in instructional and natural, noninstructional ways.
Vocabulary acquisition happens most easily in context and related to topics that the students care about.
What Teachers Need to Know about Language Lexicon
Knowledge of the history of the English language can help teachers teach the English spelling system
Modern American English is more logical and systematic than it may seem
The spelling system reflects sound, meaning, and origin
Know – acknowledge, sign – signify
Croissant (French), tamale (Spanish), jaguar (Guarani)
What Teachers Need to Know about Language Spelling
Earlier approaches to second language learning viewed knowing a language as mastering discrete skills.
Reading, writing, listening, speaking, vocabulary, and grammar
Such a narrow view has proved insufficient to understand how ELLs develop the English they need to participate and achieve across content areas at school and in society.
What Does It Mean to “Know” a Language?
Knowing a language means being able to use it to communicate effectively and appropriately
What Does It Mean to “Know” a Language? Communicative Competence
Communicative competence
Discourse competence
Sociolinguistic competence
Strategic competence
Intercultural communicative competence
Grammatical competence
Grammatical competence
Recognize the lexical, morphological, syntactic, and phonological features of a language and use them to interpret and form words and sentences
Discourse competence
Connect a series of utterances, written words, or phrases to form a meaningful whole
Sociolinguistic competence
Understand the social context in which language is used, including the roles of the participants
Strategic competence
Use coping strategies in unfamiliar contexts when imperfect knowledge of rules (or factors that limit their application), may lead to a breakdown in communication
What Does It Mean to “Know” a Language? Communicative Competence
Intercultural communicative competence
Cross-cultural differences are found in the ways people use oral and written language in different speech communities
Cross-cultural differences can lead to miscommunication, stereotyping, and discrimination.
Even those who quickly learn vocabulary and grammar may continue to struggle with pragmatic and sociolinguistic issues.
Teachers should be able to make the invisible visible for students.
What Does It Mean to “Know” a Language? Communicative Competence
Register
The variations in language, including the choice of words and grammar that reflect the social setting in which it is used
Writing style for an academic paper ≠ a text message
Genre
Halliday’s theory of systemic functional linguistics (SFL)
A goal-directed activity, such as the creation of a particular kind of text to achieve a particular cultural purpose
Teachers can identify and make explicit the lexical and grammatical features of particular genres
What Does It Mean to “Know” a Language? Register and Genre
©2019 Caslon, Inc. All rights reserved.
discourse vs. Discourse (Gee, 1996)
discourse (little d): Language in use or connected stretches of language that make sense
Discourse (Big D): How people “get their acts together” to get recognized as a given kind of person at a specific context
A teacher draws on Discourses of schooling in teacher-student interactions, which constructs teacher-student identities and meaningfulness of their relationship
Language ideologies (Schieffelin et al., 1998)
Beliefs about languages and speakers of languages that are reflected in what people say, enacted in everyday activities, and structured by power relations
What Does It Mean to “Know” a Language? Social Practice and Discourse
Educators can challenge and potentially transform meaning relations in ways that are more equitable for linguistically and culturally diverse learners.
What Does It Mean to “Know” a Language? Social Practice and Discourse
Local language ideologies
Discourses of schooling
How ELLs see
Themselves
Home languages
Educational opportunities
Standard American English
The variety of English spoken by members of the dominant society in the U.S.
Taught and assessed in school
Many students speak regional or nonstandard varieties of English in their homes and communities
Not “bad” English; legitimate varieties of English
African American Vernacular English (Ebonics)
Teachers need to learn pedagogically sound and culturally sensitive methods for standard English language learners (SELLs) without delegitimizing the variety of their homes and communities.
What Does It Mean to “Know” a Language? Language Variation
Two conceptualizations of bilingualism (Valdés, 2014)
Use of two languages perfectly in all situations
Some level of competence in more than one language
Translanguaging (García, 2009)
The ways in which bilinguals use their complex semiotic repertoire to act, know, and to be
Bilingual students’ linguistic repertoire are not separate and compartmentalized
Teachers can use translanguaging approaches to leverage complex and fluid language practices of bilingual students
What Does It Mean to “Know” a Language? Bilingualism and Translanguaging
Cummins (2008)
Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS)
Takes 1-2 years for ELLs to develop
Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP)
Takes 5 years or longer for ELLs to develop
Criticism of Cummins’ framework
Oversimplification of complex construct of language proficiency (Valdés, Poza & Brooks, 2015)
Focus should be on specific school-based literacy practices rather than on achieving a general English proficiency that is not specific to any particular context (Wiley & Rolstad, 2014)
Language for Academic Purposes
Language experts struggle to define and describe academic language with any precision or consistency
Academic language functions (Chamot, 2009)
Teachers can structure classes to help ELLs learn to use English for these academic purposes
No different from the social language functions
Language for Academic Purposes Language for Academic Success in Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies
| Seek information | Inform | Compare | Order |
| Classify | Analyze | Infer | Justify |
| Persuade | Solve problems | Synthesize | Evaluate |
Academic word lists
Advocates argue for direct instruction of tier 2 words
Less common in everyday conversations and more characteristic of written texts
Likely to appear in a variety of texts across content areas
Lower-level ELLs need supports to learn tier 1
More advanced ELLs need supports to master tier 3
Language for Academic Purposes Language for Academic Success in Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies
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Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
Basic words (e.g., block, baby)
More sophisticated words that are of high utility for literate language users (e.g., absurd, industrious)
Words that apply to specific content areas and domains and words that are very rare (e.g., isotope)
WIDA English language development standards
Goes beyond simple lists of vocabulary words
Emphasize ELLs’ abilities to
Communicate for social, intercultural, and instructional purposes within the school setting
Communicate information, ideas, and concepts necessary for academic success in language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies
Reflect a more current view of language
Delineate the different kinds of language demands associated with the different academic content areas
Language for Academic Purposes Language for Academic Success in Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies
Standard 1: English language learners communicate for social (intercultural) and instructional purposes within the school setting.
Standard 2: English language learners communicate information, ideas, and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of language arts.
Standard 3: English language learners communicate information, ideas, and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of mathematics.
Standard 4: English language learners communicate information, ideas, and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of science.
Standard 5: English language learners communicate information, ideas, and concepts necessary for academic success in the content area of social studies.
WIDA’s English Language Development Standards and TESOL’s English Language Proficiency Standards
Schools need to help students learn many registers or Discourses for academic and social success in school
The focus should be on how language and literacy are actually used in the classroom for teaching and learning specific academic subjects, and on finding ways to help ELLs learn and use these correctly and appropriately in academic settings
Language for Academic Purposes Language for Academic Success in Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies
Second Language Instructional Competence (SLIC) (MacSwan & Rolstad, 2003)
An alternative to academic language
Children have developed SLIC once they have learned English well enough to understand school subject matter instruction in the majority language
Acknowledges that ELLs need time and learning experience before being placed in mainstream classes.
Language for Academic Purposes Academic and Language Demands
Second Language Instructional Competence (SLIC) (MacSwan & Rolstad, 2003)
Teachers can focus on a specific subject matter or task and ask themselves:
What is the amount and type of linguistic proficiency that is required for that student to engage the subject matter at hand?
What level of oral and written language is required for students to understand the language of instruction sufficiently well at that moment, in that context, to participate in that lesson and learn from it?
Language for Academic Purposes Academic and Language Demands
CCSSO ELP Development Framework
Provides guidance to states on how to use the expectations of the CCSS and NGSS as tools for the creation and evaluation of ELP standards
Outlines the underlying English language practices embedded in the CCSS and NGSS so that teachers can clearly articulate the language that ELLs need to accomplish related academic tasks
Implicitly demands that students acquire ever-increasing command of language to acquire and perform the knowledge and skills articulated in the standards
Language for Academic Purposes Academic and Language Demands
CCSSO ELP Development Framework
CCSS and NGSS spell out sophisticated language competencies needed across academic subjects
Close reading and constructing effective arguments to support their conclusions
Identifying a speaker’s key points and elaborating on these ideas in group settings
Constructing and testing models and predictions
Strategically choosing and efficiently implementing procedures to solve problems
Language for Academic Purposes Academic and Language Demands
Knowledge of language is relevant to the many roles teachers play as communicators, educators, evaluators, educated human beings, and agents of socialization.
Teachers need to know about phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, lexicon, language variation, and bilingualism, and recognize and value nonstandard English as well as other languages.
Summary
When teachers understand what it means to “know” a language, they can help their students develop the communicative competence needed for social and academic purposes in school and beyond.
Thinking linguistically, teachers can identify the specific language demands of different academic tasks and determine how best to help each student meet these demands.
Summary
Fillmore and Snow identify five functions that teachers perform for which they need to know about language. Are these functions relevant only for teachers of ELLs, or are they important for all teachers? Of the teachers you know, how many do you think have the kind of knowledge Fillmore and Snow deem essential? In what ways might the lack of such knowledge affect instruction?
Discussion Questions
Go back to the situations at the beginning of this chapter. For each one, discuss what misunderstanding the teacher may have, and discuss how an understanding of language can help the teacher pinpoint the issues and address them in an appropriate manner. What other examples have you run across where misunderstandings about language led to problems?
Discussion Questions
Think linguistically about the following academic tasks to identify the specific language skills and levels of English proficiency (or amount of second language instructional competence) that students would need to successfully engage in them: (a) listen and take notes during a high school class lecture on U.S. history, (b) solve 50 2-digit addition and subtraction problems, (c) read a chapter in a 5th grade science book and answer the questions at the end, (d) sing along and do movements to a song, (e) listen to a book read aloud by a 1st grade teacher and draw a picture of your favorite part, (f) practice for an 8th grade reading comprehension test (reading text passages and answering multiple-choice questions), (g) work cooperatively with a group of peers to carry out a science experiment, and (h) write a persuasive essay.
Discussion Questions
View the video of professors David and Yvonne Freeman, authors of many books on teaching ELLs, discussing the notion of “academic language.” According to the Freemans, how is academic language much more than simply learning new vocabulary? How does the Freeman's view of academic language correspond with scholars who argue that there is no such thing as a single, unified construct of academic English?
Discussion Questions
Review the document “ Key Takeaways from the K-12 Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts." What are the specific language areas and skills being targeted for all students in the standards? What opportunities and challenges may these standards pose for ELLs?
Discussion Questions
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