Abstract Summary
We present the functional language awareness approach as an analytical lens to examine language learners achievement in secondary content-based classrooms. Drawing data from US classrooms, we present STEM teachers’ language and content integration practices and their on student learning. The talk contributes to integrated content and language instruction discussions.
Abstract :
Recent research in content-based instruction (CBI) focuses on integration of language learners into content area classrooms, moving them specifically beyond access to active participation in classroom interaction and content learning. Sociocultural perspectives further suggest that learning can best be understood through focused analyses of language and interaction embedded in a layered socio-cultural context that starts with the classroom and extends to the cultural communities learners inhabit. The requirements for sophisticated use of language linked to discipline-specific content area learning are particularly demanding at the secondary level, given the increased demand for activities that involve explanations and justifications of arguments. Yes, focused attention on language as a tool for teaching and learning is often absent from secondary teachers’ preparation.
One approach to examining how language is used as a tool for learning is the functional language awareness, an approach which begins with analyzing functions of the language employed during teaching, as well as becoming aware of the language features differentially used to accomplish these functions (Hansen-Thomas & Langman, forthcoming). Language awareness can be a fruitful tool to help teachers become “conscious of and sensitive to language issues at school ... to help more of their students fulfill their academic potential” (Breidbach, Elsner, & Young, 2011, p. 12) by making explicit connections between the aims of a given activity in a lesson, and the language required to participate in that activity.
This paper provides a discourse analytic analysis of data from two secondary science classrooms to explore teachers orient to language learners in their classroom through the explicit outline of linkages between oral and written texts needed to support learners. Classroom interaction, coupled textbook, teacher, and student-produced written materials form the data for an analysis of how teachers help learners uncover the language tools needed to express developing knowledge in science.
