“But how do we say that?”: Reconceptualizing academic language in linguistically diverse mainstream classrooms

Abstract

Students in multilingual societies often attend schools that require them to use a language they do not speak at home both to learn the curriculum and to demonstrate what they have learned. Because language minority students often struggle academically even after they are able to carry out conversations in English, scholars have suggested that differences exist between language used for school purposes and for everyday communication. However, no consensus exists as to the nature of academic language, and shortcomings with existing perspectives limit their usefulness.

This dissertation explores the language used by 7^th grade students designated as “Limited English Proficient” and their mainstream classmates as they completed social studies group activities and made class presentations in one California middle school. Instead of using a priori definitions of academic language, I investigated the ways in which students utilized the linguistic resources at their disposal to engage in academic tasks during 15 groupwork sessions and presentations.

Results show that students engaged in a number of transactions related to different aspects of the academic tasks. In one type of transaction ( answering discussion questions), students at times used “language of ideas” to focus primarily on social studies content and at other times attended more to “language of display” to address the teacher and the class. Students therefore demonstrated that they could talk about academic content using language that did not match most definitions of academic language while also preparing language more suitable for presentation to others. During their presentations, students also addressed multiple audiences while negotiating various participant structures. In order to do so, students made strategic choices, including how to structure their presentations, whether to present a more scripted or extemporaneous answer, what kind of a stance to take, and what vocabulary to use.

This study concludes that current conceptions of academic language would have masked many of the important ways in which students at Gerona used language to complete their activities and make presentations. I argue that definitions of academic language must be expanded to incorporate a more genuine and comprehensive view of the language students use to engage in academic tasks.