‘You can…’: An examination of language-minoritized learners’ development of metalanguage and agency as users of academic language within a multivocal instructional approach

Abstract

In this study, we examine the possibility of using student-generated metalanguage as a primary instructional resource for building knowledge of academic language (AL) and for fostering students’ agency as AL users. We conducted this study over three academic years in a linguistically diverse 11th-grade English classroom in a high school in the Northeastern United States. Three cohorts of students were participants in a newly-designed instructional unit focused on supporting AL learning as a core component of fostering access to school literacy practices. In our analysis of classroom talk and focus group interviews, we examine the language students employed to discuss academic registers across the unit. Specifically, we investigate how they extend and expand their academic metalanguage resources and sense of agency as academic language users over the course of this short curricular unit. Results suggest the promise of using approaches that view student metalanguage as an instructional resource, and, in so doing, honor the lived experiences of students as language users.