It is important to have a good understanding of the difference between social and academic oral language because it will help the educator in preparing students for academic and professional success, particularly in the era of rigorous college- and career-ready standards that require an increased use of academic language in and across all disciplines. It will also help in planning our lessons, assessments and assignments so that we do not have unconscious bias, in regards to what we think the ELL is or should be capable of because of their BICS.

For example, for each subject area, there are specific vocabulary words, and terminology that are required. I always model- orally and in written form- for the students: how each answer should be structured, using proper vocabulary with words represented in written and pictorial representations that can be found in the classroom on a word wall. Furthermore, in the classroom, I have on display, answer or sentence starters to prompting questions, in math, science, social studies and language. This allows the students (not just the ELL’s) to go up to my bulletin board, or sit at their desks, and see how proper answers should start to specific prompting questions. This is teaching the students proper academic oral skills, but also written skills as well, across subject areas. As an extension for my ELL’s, we can create a PICTURE Dicitonary, of new words that we are learning and expected to use in our unit or subject strand.

 

In my grade 3 classroom, specifically in our math class, I use a lot of hands-on, problem based cooperative learning. I always provide the class with a math challenge that is an open-ended rich task that has many entry points, and different possible solutions. I provide all students with the problem on the IWB, and also provide my learners with a print copy so that they can have it beside them. We orally read the challenge together out loud, as a class and then using a deck of playing cards, students randomly pull a card, and whoever pulled the same number will work together in a group or in pairs. This allows students to work with different partners, and get the students to work on their academic and social oral communication with other students because as they get older, they will learn teamwork skills, and communication is very important in the workplace and in society.

In their partners, the students will have to work together to solve the problem, and after they will have to share their answers and justify their solutions using mathematical terminology in a sharing circle for consolidation of their learning. This task, allows all students to learn from each other, and model proper academic (CALP) “talk” in the classroom but also helps all learners build upon their social language (BICS) skills as well.

 

 

Resources: http://www.edugains.ca/resourcesELL/WebCasts_WebClips/Video/Webcasts/mp4/DrJimCumminsonLanguageLiteracy.mp4 

 

Breiseth, L. http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/academic-language-and-ells-what-teachers-need-know (Accessed: December 10, 2017)