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Making the Invisible, Visible One of the mystifying aspects of school for some students is the
“unwritten” and largely “unspoken” code of education. For many of us, we
assume that students know the language or protocol of school. It comes
out in a myriad of small choices throughout the day. Knowing when
blurting out is okay versus formally raising your hand. Knowing how-- or
when-- to just think aloud and free associate thoughts. Knowing how-- or
when-- to re-state a teacher’s ideas or how to expand and develop ideas.
This code is largely socialized into some students, but we can’t assume
that everyone has had that same experience.
Building academic language
is a way of making some of those unwritten codes more visible. Let’s
start with a good definition of academic language. As Jeffrey Zwier writes,
academic language is “the set of words, grammar, and discourse strategies
used to describe complex ideas, higher-order thinking processes, and abstract
concepts.” It’s important to note that academic language is more than
just words (or vocabulary). It also includes the way we say things
within a classroom-- from the structure of our sentences, to the organization
of our ideas. It also has to deal with how we think and analyze abstract
and complex ideas. One common mistake of teachers from the dominant
culture is that students without academic language also lack the ability to think or solve complex problems
or ideas. However, this is dangerous for a few reasons. First, teachers
in this position tend to water down and simplify the curriculum, believing that
students are incapable of higher order thinking, when their true struggle is
communicating those ideas in conventional school language. Consequently,
students do not get adequately challenged and are relegated to low-skill, drain
and train lessons.
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The first step to all of this is becoming more aware.
Question the assumptions that you make about students, their performance
in class, and why they might be struggling. Question what assumptions you
make every time you introduce an assignment or hold a discussion or develop an
activity. Even question the phrases you use. Do you tend to speak
in metaphor or cliche? Do you tell them to “jot down” some ideas versus
“write out” some ideas? Do I use synonyms to describe the same term, and thus
create some confusion over what I am actually talking about. For example,
I might interchange the term “narrative” for “story” in a sentence, and thereby
confuse students. Do I overuse unclear pronouns like “this” and “that”,
when I should be more explicit what “this” or “that” actually means?
These
are the types of questions we should be asking of ourselves and how we
communicate with students. In addition to this, we have a responsibility to help students build their toolbox of academic language.
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In
the end, building academic language requires some study of the systems we have
in place with the hope that we can acknowledge how we might be unintentionally
excluding groups of students with the way we communicate and teach.
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In the
end, building academic language requires some study of the systems we have in
place with the hope that we can acknowledge how we might be unintentionally
excluding groups of students with the way we communicate and teach.
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