Features Of Academic Language Research Articles

Pre-service teachers’ ability to identify academic language features: the role of language-related opportunities to learn, and professional beliefs about linguistically responsive teaching

In order to reduce language-related disparities in educational attainment, teaching standards in many (Western) countries nowadays request teachers of all subjects and grades to focus on their students’ academic language development: Especially second language learners and socioeconomically disadvantaged students need continuous and systematic language support (linguistically responsive teaching) in order not to be left behind. To be able to act accordingly, (prospective) teachers need to acquire pedagogical language knowledge and develop positive beliefs about linguistically responsive teaching practices. Our cross-sectional survey among German pre-service teachers (n = 115) shows that – despite positive beliefs towards linguistically responsive teaching – hardly any of the participants had acquired a solid knowledge base in the area of educational linguistics: The majority could not identify a substantial amount of academic language features (known to be challenging especially for second language learners) in a content-specific explanatory text. This ability, however, is the basis for planning and carrying out linguistically responsive lessons. Although latent profile analyses show differences among the participants, many of them did not have opportunities to learn in the area of linguistic diversity during their studies. The results give rise to the question whether and how pedagogical language knowledge could become compulsory in teacher training.

Language and Words: How Vocabulary Teaching Indexes Teacher Histories and Beliefs about Language

AbstractTo support emergent bilinguals in the content area classroom, applied linguists suggest teachers add metalinguistic conversations to their pedagogical repertoire. However, such language‐centered pedagogies may become difficult to enact when a teacher sees language at the word level. This comparative teacher case study explores how teacher Pedagogical Language Knowledge was observed in two upper elementary teachers working with emergent bilinguals in the social studies classroom. Through a novel discourse analytic scheme that traces a teacher’s linguistic dispositions, I examine the relationship between beliefs about language and instructional practice that reveal teachers place a disproportionate emphasis on vocabulary study. Findings endorse professional support initiatives that allow teachers to explore their histories as language learners while offering sustained exposure to how non‐lexical features of academic language may be embedded into disciplinary instruction.

Bilingual Gifted and Talented Students’ Expository Writing: Exploring Academic Language Features in English and Spanish

Bilingual students are underrepresented in gifted and talented (GT) programs, and language/literacy research on these students is scarce. This study examined academic language in expository writing of 65 GT students, including 32 bilinguals, in Grades 4–8. Outcomes at the word, phrase, sentence, and text levels were compared for bilinguals’ versus monolinguals’ English writing, and bilinguals’ English versus Spanish writing. In addition, two students’ texts were explored qualitatively. In English, bilinguals and monolinguals did not significantly differ on any measure. Bilinguals scored higher in English than Spanish on most traditional word- and sentence-level measures, were equal in lexical diversity, and varied at the phrase level. English and Spanish writing was similar in content and structure, suggesting transfer of text-level skills. The qualitative assessment highlighted diverse attempts at information condensing and author distance with varying success, again with similar outcomes at the text level.

Academic language learning: A conversation with Emily Phillips Galloway

In an interview with Kappan, Emily Phillips Galloway explains why it is important to provide specific instruction in academic language to help students better understand the texts they are likely to encounter in 4th grade and beyond. To understand these texts, students need a set of core skills, such as the ability to discern an author’s viewpoint or to keep track of people and ideas. Helping students to notice and talk about the features of academic language will enable them to better understand and use such language.

Adolescents’ use of academic language in informational writing

Academic language is a kind of social language for the purpose of schooling. It is central to disciplinary learning, thinking, and communication. This study examined adolescents’ use of academic language in informational writing, a genre highly valued in school, workplace, and society. Ninety-three seventh and ninth grade students from a U.S. public school were asked to write a science report based on a “wordless” picture book about a familiar class of animals called crocodylia. The student writing corpus was coded for presence of a constellation of academic language features. Statistical analyses of these data showed that (a) the adolescents made limited use of academic language features in their writing, (b) there were no significant differences between the two grade levels in academic language use, (c) there was a significant relationship between reading ability and academic language use, and (d) academic language use was a significant predictor of writing quality. These findings highlight both the importance of and the need for more explicit attention to academic language in secondary literacy instruction.

When a silent reading fluency test measures more than reading fluency: academic language features predict the test performance of students with a non-German home language

Silent reading is the primary mode of reading for proficient readers, and therefore, silent reading fluency is often assessed in research and practice. However, little is known about the validity of the tests administered to students with different language backgrounds. Given that academic language is assumed to be especially challenging for students with a non-German home language, one might wonder if effects of academic language proficiencies can be found on these tests. In the present study, we explored whether, owing to academic language demands, students with a non-German home language (N = 748) would be found to be at a greater disadvantage than their monolingual-home peers (N = 1669) on the most frequently used silent reading fluency test in Germany. Using differential item functioning (DIF) analyses, we found specific item difficulties to the disadvantage of the students with a non-German home language. This DIF was linked to the academic language features of the sentences.

Examining the Effectiveness of an Academic Language Planning Organizer as a Tool for Planning Science Academic Language Instruction and Supports

To engage in the practices of science, students must have a strong command of science academic language. However, content area teachers often make academic language an incidental part of their lesson planning, which leads to missed opportunities to enhance students’ language development. To support pre-service elementary science teachers (PSTs) in making language planning an explicit part of their science lessons, we created the Academic Language Planning Organizer (ALPO). The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the ALPO on two levels: first, by examining participants’ interactions with the ALPO as they identified academic language features, objectives and supports; and second, by exploring the ways that participants translated identified language supports to planned science activities. Findings indicated that, when using the ALPO, PSTs identified clear language functions and relevant vocabulary terms, and also frequently developed clear, observable and measurable language objectives. When lesson planning, PSTs were largely successful in translating previously identified language supports to their lesson plans, and often planned additional language supports beyond what was required. We also found, however, that the ALPO did not meet its intended use in supporting PSTs in identifying discourse and syntax demands associated with specific academic language functions, suggesting that revisions to the ALPO could better support PSTs in identifying these academic language demands. Implications for supporting PSTs’ planning for and scaffolding of science academic language use are presented.

Academic discourse practices in action: Invoking discursive norms in mathematics and language lessons

Previous empirical research has mainly focused on the analysis of lexical and grammatical features of academic language and has inferred underlying language norms. The present study, in contrast, addresses the normative aspect of academic language as a topic of reconstructive research and investigates “norms-in-interaction”. Based on a corpus of videotaped language and mathematics lessons in grade five, the analysis illuminates how teachers and students display their orientation to discursive norms in actual instances of classroom interaction. Inspired by conversation analysis and genre-oriented approaches, the study reconstructs the sequential contexts and the interactive procedures of invoking norms. Varying procedures are described that differ in their degree of explicitness. Findings indicate that the ability both to interpret the often subtle displays of orientation to norms and to contextualize switches to the metalevel of communication is essential for mastering academic discourse.

Linguistic simplification of mathematics items: effects for language minority students in Germany

In large-scale assessment studies, language minority students typically obtain lower test scores in mathematics than native speakers. Although this performance difference was related to the linguistic complexity of test items in some studies, other studies did not find linguistically demanding math items to be disproportionally more difficult for language minority students than for native speakers. Furthermore, previous studies investigating the effectiveness of linguistic simplification of test items have yielded inconsistent results. We tested the impact of linguistic simplifications of mathematics test items in Germany with a specific focus on the role of academic language features included in the items. Specifically, we carried out a large-scale linguistic simplification study to test whether the performance gap between language minority students and German monolinguals is smaller when students are assessed with linguistically simplified items. We additionally determined whether students' socioeconomic status (SES) or their language proficiency moderate the effect of linguistic simplification. The study uses data from 17,738 fourth graders, 17 % of whom sometimes or always spoke a language other than German at home. Although differences between language minority students and German monolinguals in mathematics achievement were related to differences in their language proficiency and SES, we found no significant main effects of linguistic simplification. Differential effects for language minority students emerged, however, when we took the moderator effects of SES and language

The Role of Academic‐Language Features for Reading Comprehension of Language‐Minority Students and Students From Low‐SES Families

AbstractAcademic language is frequently assumed to be especially challenging for students from families of low socioeconomic status (SES) and even more so for language‐minority students. Due to their often especially disadvantaged position regarding socioeconomic background and exposure to the language of instruction, language minority students are considered to suffer from a double disadvantage when processing complex academic language. To test this assumption, the present study investigated the relationships between various academic language features and differential item functioning (DIF) in a reading comprehension test for language‐minority students on the one hand and German monolingual students from low‐SES families on the other hand. The analyses are based on data of 19,108 fourth‐grade students who took part in the reading comprehension test of the German National Assessment Study in elementary school. Our findings indicate that both lexical and grammatical features of academic language correlate with DIF disfavoring language‐minority students, with especially pronounced effects for long and complex words and average sentence length. For German monolingual students from low‐SES families, fewer features were associated with DIF, and the correlations were generally smaller than for language‐minority students. Findings are discussed in relation to the assumed double disadvantage of language‐minority students in the comprehension of academic language.

Second language learners' performance in mathematics: Disentangling the effects of academic language features

Several studies have shown that the linguistic complexity of items in achievement tests may cause performance disadvantages for second language learners. However, the relative contributions of specific features of linguistic complexity to this disadvantage are largely unclear. Based on the theoretical concept of academic language, we used data from a state-wide test in mathematics for third graders in Berlin, Germany, to determine the interrelationships among several academic language features of test items and their relative effects on differential item functioning (DIF) against second language learners. Academic language features were significantly correlated with each other and with DIF. While we found text length, general academic vocabulary, and number of noun phrases to be unique predictors of DIF, substantial proportions of the variance in DIF were explained by confounded combinations of several academic language features. Specialised mathematical vocabulary was neither related to DIF nor to the other academic language features.

The Quality of Writing Tasks and Students’ Use of Academic Language in Spanish

This study investigates the quality of the writing tasks assigned to native Spanish speakers in bilingual (Spanish-English) contexts, and the relationship between task quality and students’ use of an academic register in their native language. Fifty-six language arts tasks were collected from 26 grade 4 and 5 teachers, and four student writing samples were collected in response to each task (N = 224). Multilevel modeling revealed that variation in students’ use of key features of academic language in their writing was associated with the cognitive demand of writing tasks. Findings suggest that students’ opportunities to respond to challenging tasks when writing in their native language are rare and that the rigor of writing tasks may relate to students’ production and development of academic language.

Characteristics of Academic Language Register Occurring in Caretaker‐Child Interaction: Development and Validation of a Coding Scheme

This article aims at validating a coding scheme designed to investigate the precursors of academic language occurring in early caretaker‐child interactions. Exposure to the academic dimensions of language is an important asset for children to be successful in academic settings. The proposed analytical framework, based on systemic functional linguistics and usage‐based theories and informed by research on the language of school, is useful for assessing caretaker‐child interaction in different languages at home and in schools. The coding scheme is validated by providing interactional data of 15 Turkish mother‐child dyads. A large variation was found in the extent to which academic language features are present in the input, partly related to the socioeconomic status and literacy levels of the mothers. A book reading setting fosters the academic level of maternal input.

A systemic functional approach to teaching Spanish for heritage speakers in the United States

Heritage language speakers constitute a unique cultural and linguistic resource in the United States while also presenting particular challenges for language educators and language programs. This paper examines the potential of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) in a curriculum for Spanish second language learners/heritage speakers, with particular emphasis on the meaning-making of language in the construal of discourse. Following SFL pedagogy, descriptive language teaching refers to ways of treating language in functional terms; productive language teaching involves students in using the resource of their language in powerful ways in light of the demands of particular social contexts. Many heritage speakers have developed their heritage language (Spanish) in the family context but want to be able to use it in the professional areas. SFL with its explicit focus on language allows for the development of advanced literacy in a heritage language in the educational context. Accordingly, the paper discusses explicit instruction of genre/register theory as a way of promoting students’ awareness of discourse-semantics and lexicogrammatical features of academic language in courses for heritage speakers. Students’ success in developing academic registers in Spanish is evident in their use of lexicogrammatical features (such as grammatical metaphor) that index academic writing.

Academic writing of adolescent English learners: Learning to use “although”

Increasing calls for equity and accountability in U.S. secondary schools have led to intensified scrutiny of the academic literacy development of English learning (EL) adolescents. This paper discusses some of the challenges that EL secondary students face in achieving the language and literacy skills that will enable them to succeed in their mainstream classes, graduate from high school, and continue their academic careers into college. It presents an instructional approach used to work with students on academic language development and describes the language resources that students were able to take up following instruction. This paper suggests ways that secondary teachers can teach their EL students to use linguistic analysis in order to recognize the expectations of academic writing and produce texts that increasingly incorporate the linguistic features of academic language.

Home literacy as a special language environment to prepare children for school

The present study examined the relationship between language and literacy activities at home and the emergence of so called academic language in a sample of 68 four-year-old Dutch children. The focus was on children’s understanding and production of narrative texts, seen as a common age-appropriate pre-academic text genre. Home language and literacy was measured with a short questionnaire, administered in personal interviews with the mothers. Other measures were the family’s socioeconomic status (SES), children’s receptive vocabulary and working memory. Children’s productive language in narrative text (re)telling already revealed many features of academic language. Furthermore, moderate to strong correlations were found between children’s emergent academic language and the language and literacy activities at home. Multiple regression analyses indicated that, in addition to working memory, home talking and reading predicted children’s vocabulary, and especially children’s text comprehension and text (re)telling. Finally, main and interaction-effects of working memory and home language and literacy on emergent academic language were examined. Although the results were not conclusive regarding the expected moderator effect of working memory, they revealed that children with both low working memory capacity and low academic language input were most disadvantaged.