Teaching the Language of Thinking

Vocabulary instruction is a fundamental building block of comprehension, allowing learners to grasp ideas and expand their knowledge of the world.  Each academic discipline has words specific to its particular field that students must learn. Chemistry classes speak of atoms and covalent bonds, while social studies discussions may involve civic responsibility and primary sources. There is, however, a set of vocabulary that weaves between all subject matter and that applies to every grade level: academic language.

Academic Language Defined

Basic vocabulary words, such as nouns and adjectives, are like bricks that build the house of a concept. Academic language, on the other hand, can be thought of as the mortar that holds those bricks, or concepts, together (Dutro & Moran, 2003). For instance, take a simple statement like “Compare the black cat and the white dog.” The words “cat” and “dog” are bricks, as are the words “white” and “black.” They are concrete images that can be visualized. In contrast, the word “compare” is the mortar. It is not a concrete image, but rather a way of thinking.

Because words like “compare” don’t pop up too often on the playground or in other everyday kid conversations, children come to the classroom with less exposure to this type of language. In the classroom, it is used all the time, on tests, in textbooks, and in the tasks teachers ask their kids to perfororm. This makes it all the more critical that teachers take time to instruct their students in this type of vocabulary.

Breaking Concepts Down for Learners

I tried to introduce one or two new academic vocabulary words every week in my classroom. At the beginning of the year, I made a list of the academic language that my students would need to know, based largely on terms that I pulled from our California state standards, such as “analyze” and “interpret.” For each word, I asked myself, “What does this mean in kid language?” I wrote down the simplified definition, and then asked, “What is an everyday situation where students would use this skill?” I always tried to introduce complex ideas, like analyzing, using simple situations. That way, students only had one cognitively demanding task to learn, lowering their affective filter.

For example, with the word “infer,” I wrote that it meant to make a guess based on a fact. I then found a series of pictures I had taken of a field in the forest, each one progessively zooming in closer on the contents of the field, which eventually revealed itself as a patch of wild strawberries. Using these pictures, I created a PowerPoint presentation, putting the term “infer” and my kid-friendly definition on the first slide. Above each picture slide, I wrote a sentence frame for students to use, such as, “Because I see _________, I infer that ____________.” In small group rotations, students took turns working with me at a center to view the PowerPoint and practice their inference skills.

Activities like this helped introduce abstract concepts in a friendly, non-threatening way. Then, throughout the weeks and months ahead, we would intermittently practice this skill. As students confidence and understanding grew, we could make inferences about more and more complex subjects.

Unlock the Gate  

The more words students understand, the more likely they are to grasp new ideas and concepts. In this sense, vocabulary is a type of gatekeeper, granting access to some while denying it to others. Fortunately, this particular gate has a simple key that lies in the hand of every teacher–explicit and intentional instruction. Below are a few other resources to assist in bringing academic language instruction into your classroom.


http://www.sdkrashen.com/articles/Krashen_Brown_ALP.pdf
For those seeking a more thorough understanding of how students become proficient in academic language, this article by Stephen Krashen and Clara Lee Brown offers a more in-depth discussion on this topic. Learn about the distinction between academic language and academic content, and about the strategies that enable learning to occur.

http://iteslj.org/Articles/Bradley-Scaffolding/
Scaffolding is the act of intentionally assisting students to get where you want them to go. This document walks you through of a variety of different techniques for scaffolding academic language learning for students.

http://www.csun.edu/science/ref/language/index.html
This resource focuses on building academic language skills in science, providing a word list of the most frequently used academic vocabulary in science. It also gives further ideas for the instruction of academic vocabulary, including a list of different games students can engage in to learn through playing.