Mastering Content and Developing Language in Heterogeneous Classrooms

• In Event: Differentiated Instruction and Complex Instruction: Intersections and Differences to Teaching and Learning in Heterogeneous Classrooms

Abstract

Academically, linguistically, socially, and culturally heterogeneous classrooms are a global phenomenon. Youngsters in these classrooms have varying levels of academic readiness, preparation and achievement, and a range of oral and written proficiency in the language of instruction. They have learned different ways of interacting with adults and with peers. Consequently, these youngsters bring to the classroom profoundly different strategies for making sense of the world. Such classrooms present a pedagogical challenge: providing equitable learning opportunities, intellectually deep curriculum, and equal outcomes for all students.

Developed at Stanford, Complex Instruction is a pedagogical approach designed to create and support equitable classrooms for diverse student populations. Complex Instruction emphasizes equal-status interactions among students and specifies the conditions under which teachers can establish such interactions. Teachers build equitable classrooms by crafting group-worthy learning tasks, organizing the classroom for productive collaboration, developing the student’s facility with the academic discourse of the discipline, assessing and providing feedback to groups and individuals and, most importantly, by addressing status problems that arise in small working groups.

Scholars and educators have described the theoretical underpinnings and the empirical evidence documenting student success in heterogeneous classrooms in over 25 doctoral dissertations and several Masters theses, as well as in numerous articles in academic journals and book chapters.

The Study:

The goal of the study reported here was to improve the education of English learners at the secondary level. It describes the classroom conditions that support development of English as well as mastery of social studies content in mainstream, heterogeneous, middle school classrooms.

We collected data in three different strands: 1) classroom observations and audio recordings of students’ work in groups, student achievement data, writing samples, and student responses on a sociometric questionnaire; 2) administration of a Measure of Academic Oral Proficiency, a protocol designed to document the growth in academic language of English learners; and 3) detailed documentation of school and after school experiences of six youngsters.

We found that the language designations attributed to transitional students by the schools vastly underestimated their linguistic and academic capacities as indicated by their performances in the classroom. Students from different language proficiency levels benefited similarly from the intellectually rigorous curriculum and from the quality of interactions with peers during groupwork. We suggest that schools rethink linguistic segregation and ensure access to challenging curricula and instruction for all students.

Our findings make theoretical, methodological, and practical contributions to the field of teaching and learning in heterogeneous classrooms. Theoretically, the emphasis on the linguistically rich and academically rigorous social context that leads youngsters to use English to interact in the classroom and to demonstrate subject matter knowledge adds to our understanding of language use and development. Methodologically, we have demonstrated ways in which both the quality and quantity of interaction at the group level can be measured and related to second language growth and mastery of content by individual students. Practically, we are able to present to teachers a model of research-based practice that expands their repertoire of effective strategies for heterogeneous classrooms.

Author

• Rachel A. Lotan, Stanford University