ACE Capstone Experience Original Contribution Academic Language Activity for Middle School/High School ELLs

American College of Education (ACE)

Dr. Landa

December 10, 2018

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the situation about academic language and what it is.  Then it describes the whole project step by step.  Finally the inception of the project is described dating back to 2015.  Finally the appendices are the written descriptions and the actual activities and the power points presentations with the cartoons, questions and activities.

Keywords: Academic language, BICS, CALP, cartoons, comics, accountable talk stems

Introduction

What is academic language?  Academic language is a modern education term to classify certain words, regardless of the content area, needed in school throughout middle school and high school no matter the students’ English levels.  This kind of language is “situation specific” (Reiss 2008) and used specifically in a classroom situation.  However, academic language is not particular vocabulary pertaining to a specific subject, for example: atoms for science, peninsula for geography.  Academic language is a large list of words that if you know a handful of the words on the list, if one can use them in daily conversation, not only will it make you sound educated but it will also mean that the student has moved from the basic interpersonal communication skills or BICS (Cummins 2000) to cognitively academic language proficiency or CALP.  If these words are learned, studied and used, the students will have the tools for academic discussions, understanding teacher talk and be ready for college.  But for ELLs using academic language is not going to be easy.  Cummins (1980) tells us it will take 5-7 years for ELLs to fully develop academic language and Thomas and Collier (1995) say 10 years depending on their schooling and development of their first language.  Snow (2010) tells us there is no single list of academic language just as there is “no single variety of educated American English.”  Non-academic language often “resembles oral language forms.”  (Klinger, Boardman & Eppolito 2012)  There are numerous lists of academic words all over the internet, books and academic journals however there is no way to systematically introduce these words into students’ lexicon that is both fun and systematic, until now. 

Who needs academic language?

All students need academic language.  A massive list of academic terms used by teachers in schools is vitally important if students are to succeed in high school and college.  Often- times researchers lament about ELLs not knowing enough academic language and therefore taking many years to gain parity with students in their grades.  But all students need academic language.  Even if the meaning and definitions are known by the students, the activities in this project would allow the students to practice the terms and proper use in class.  They also would change according to the dates used and therefore would create new and fresh word learning for all students.  In particular, ELL (English Language Learners) are in desperate need to know academic language throughout their middle school and high school academic life.  With a lack of pull out classes in some school or a lack of identification of ELLs in some schools, how would these students identify the words they need to know and then use them in a real life situation in classes?  For schools who have good identifications regimes and enough pull outs for those ELL students, academic language is equally if not more important.  Teachers can use this in any class since the words are universal and not bound to a specific discipline. 

Figure 1 Example of a comic that goes with the academic language "abbreviate."  Notice the obvious school setting and creative and funny way to use the word abbreviate.

Explanation of the Project

With this paper and project, the author created a daily worksheet separated into five words per week with activities on each day.  (See Appendix 1 for the first two weeks. See Appendix 2 for the rest of the month, still under development.)  Each day there is also a comic that uses the academic language in context and the students use the same daily questions to answer questions about the comic.  The bottom half of the worksheet has different daily activities.  The last day (Friday) student’s will review the 5 words studied that week.  The next week introduces five more words with different activities and winds up on the second Friday with a review of all 10 words they’ve learned.  The activities range from online headline lookups to synonyms and creating their own sentences.  Each day there are built in “accountable talk” stems for the class to use the academic language in a real world context.  All the teacher has to do is take the day’s paper and make copies for each student or scan the PDF for a digital assignment.  The assignment can range from 10-20 minutes if all parts are used including the top activities, bottom activities and accountable talk stems.

The academic language aspect has been explained above but why the cartoon or comic?  One 

important aspect to use the cartoon in the activity is to engage the students and make the content 

more interesting.  The funny drawings all have to do with school and/or relationships between teachers and students.  (See Figure 1)  Sometimes the attitude conveyed in the cartoon is somewhat contrary to what attitudes students should have and therefore a great way to discuss ideas and topics using the academic language about how students should behave.  (See Figure 2)  The first question of the day is always to identify the academic language.  Essentially students will choose the word in the cartoon they might not fully understand or comprehend.  At first the students might need assistance as they might choose the wrong word as the academic language.  But after a while the students will become quite adept at choosing the words in question.  The second question is asking students to identify what kind of word the academic language is.  This is essentially asking if the word is a verb, adjective, adverb etc.  This is a simple and straightforward activity but will be useful to know later how to use the word in context.  Finally the activities are the most interesting and diverse of part of the assignment.  Some have the kids use their imagination, some have students use their search skills and some have the students use their background knowledge.  These simple skills and interesting activities allow the students to use the academic language in context and therefore embed the word deeper into their daily spoken language. In the end, if there is time, the teachers will use the academic language stems question.  These questions are specifically used to create a class discussion revolving around the word in question.  The academic language is either used in the question itself or the academic language would naturally come out as a result of asking this question.  Either way the students who finish the assignment on paper or digitally will be ready to use the academic language in context.  

Figure 2 Another example of the comic included in the activity. This time for the academic language of ANTICIPATE. As a result, student know clearly what the meaning of the word is.

 Step by step use of project.

Step 1. Rip today’s paper off the top stack (see Appendix 4 for the original full page PDF).  Go to copier and make copies according to the number of students in class. (5 minutes)

Step 2. Class begins. Do now activity. Students laugh at comic, fill in blanks. (3 minutes)

Step 3. Teacher roams around helping students. Particularly ELLs. Students who finish first can assist others. (5 minutes)

Step 4. Students wrap up the work and if not done, students can do the rest for homework.

Step 5. Accountable talk discussion using this word.  Students who logically use the new academic language properly in the accountable talk, teacher writes down later gets a praise point.  (5-10 minutes)

Origin of the project.

Back in 2015, two years before starting my education at ACE (American College of Education) I had a number of ELL students who I felt could not participate well in academic discussions that my school just started using.  Their English levels were not low but at the same time going over simple vocabulary was not that useful.  Therefore, I developed an idea about Academic Language that became the inception of this project.  For four years in the making, this project was tested with students, shared with colleagues and reviewed by a department chair.  All gave valuable insight and recommendations to make the project better and more useful for students.  I originally started with a half sheet, with the same image on the top and bottom. After copying a couple copies I would cut them in half.  Distributed to the students I could see the annoyance that it was a paper they had use pen or pencil to write something.  But when they saw the comics their guard went down.  I tried to make the comics funny and sometimes brash and borderline inappropriate to interest the students.  (Inappropriate means saying “shut up.”  Nothing more.)  We shared our answers and then I collected them.  The students often asked if I had drawn the pictures but I never divulged that information to them.  Skip a year later when our school introduced Accountable talk stems.  This was an ingenious way to get students to talk with each other and not talk over each other.  (Examples: “I agree with _____ because…” or “I would like to piggy back on what ________ said and say…”)  If you walk into a room and you hear accountable talk, you would be shocked and pleasantly surprised that students patiently wait for others to talk and then mention their names when discussing the ideas further.  I decided in preparation for rolling this idea out that I would add accountable talk stems that use the academic language or demand students use the academic language in their answer.  This would add additional time to the lesson or part of the lesson, but teachers can easily adapt when they do the accountable talk and since academic language goes well with so many topics and subjects they can do the accountable talk anytime or just use the academic language in whatever accountable talk they have that day in class.  There is still room for improvement and this is what I was working on for a long time and wanting to develop.  Even at the beginning of this journey with ACE during the very first Capstone project piece, I made this project as one of my goals.  Here is the quote from the personal education philosophy profile specifically mentioning this project:

Goal statement two

I will complete and compile the work I started of the complete list of academic vocabulary comics.  Using my artistic talents and a list of academic vocabulary compiled, defined and sourced by Jim Burke (2014) I will illustrate funny and engaging comics using those words in context for teachers to use and students to learn by the beginning of 2019.  The two-fold purpose is to further my career as an educational comic artist and assist teachers to use academic language with my ELLs and other students.  (Larsen 2017)

Figure 3 Email to my ELA Department Chair about this project in October 2018

Conclusion.

The idea of creating an original project without prior supervision or guidance through the whole process was liberating and daunting at the same time.  It was liberating because I could literally choose to do anything, daunting because with an imagination like mine, the possibilities were endless.  Thankfully there was a project that I had from 2015 that I dusted off and developed over the last two years.  It culminated when I talked with my English language arts department chair who gave me some very good feedback and direction for the project. (See Figure 3)  This is my addition and contribution to my ELLs academic development.  Doing this in any of their core classes will not only make their native speaking classmates improve but also the ELLs will greatly improve their academic speaking, writing, listening and reading abilities. 

Sources.

Burke, J. (2014, February 14). Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List. Retrieved March 31, 2015, from https://www.vocabulary.com/lists/388513

Cummins, James (1981) The role of primary language development in promoting educational success for language minority students. In California department of Education Schooling and language minority students: a theoretical framework (pp. 3-49) Los Angeles: Evaluation, Dissemination and Assessment Center, California State University

Klingner, J. K., Boardman, A. G. & Eppolito, A. M. (2012). Supporting adolescent English language learners' reading in the content areas. Learning Disabilities: A Contemporary Journal, 10(1), 35-64.

Larsen, Clifford (2017)  Individual Student Profile Philosophy of Learning. ACE paper for Foundations of ESL and Bilingual Education.

Reiss, Jodi (2008) 102 Content Strategies for English Language Learners: Teaching for Academic Success in Grades 3-12. Merrill Prentice Hall Teaching Strategies Series. Florida International University

Snow, C.E. (2010) Academic language and the challenge of reading for learning about science. Science 328, 450-452. April 23, 2010.

Thomas, W.P, and Collier, V.P. (1995) Language minority student achievement and program effectiveness. California Association for Bilingual Education Newsletter, 17(5) 19, 24 

Appendix 1: Activity list for bottom half of sheet for the first two weeks of the activity.

Appendix 2: Two more weeks of words and activities in a planning stage.  The words are included and the notes are there for a basic idea of the activity and the accountable stem is there but the ideas have not yet been developed as of yet.  

Appendix 3: Examples of the first 2 weeks of the project as it would be displayed on the smart board in class.  These were taken from the Power Point and can easily be projected onto a smart board as students prepare for the accountable talk.  

Appendix 4: The following pages are the actually PDF of the project.  Each page can be printed out for however many students you have in class.