Developing Academic Language and Literacy in Middle and High School Content Area Classrooms

• In Event: English Language Learners’ Development of Academic Literacy and Academic Language Across Contexts

Abstract

Academic language and literacy development is very challenging for adolescent English language learners (ELLs). Not only do they have to master increasingly complex course content in middle and high school, but they have fewer years than elementary students to master the English language. Moreover, adolescent ELLs are not in grades where explicit literacy instruction is usually provided and most secondary teachers are underprepared to teach components of literacy (Short & Fitzsimmons, 2007). Classroom instruction is guided by standards for subjects like mathematics, science, and social studies, but in many content classes, little or no accommodation is made for the specific language development needs of ELLs. This lack of accommodation raises a significant barrier to success, because ELLs are expected to achieve high academic standards in English, and many must pass end-of-course tests or exit exams to graduate.
For adolescent learners to become proficient in academic English and succeed in school, they need all their teachers to focus on academic language and literacy development in addition to content standards. One method teachers can use is the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) Model (Echevarria, Vogt & Short, 2008). SIOP teachers integrate content concepts with academic language to develop student skills in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. The concepts and language skills align to state standards, and teachers use techniques that make academic topics comprehensible to students and enable them to practice contextualized use of academic language by subject area.
This paper summarizes a study examining the effects of SIOP Model instruction in middle and high schools with English language learners. The quasi-experimental research was conducted in content and English as a second language classes in two districts in New Jersey over two years. The analysis presents findings from two focal areas: 1) how instructional practices changed in the math, science, and social studies classrooms when teachers planned academic language and literacy objectives in their lessons, and 2) how students performed on state-mandated language proficiency tests.
The results showed treatment teachers incorporated more student-student oral interaction, subject-specific models of language use, vocabulary development, and writing opportunities in their lessons. Further, there were statistically significant differences in the average mean scores in favor of the treatment students on Writing, Oral language, and Total English scores of the IDEA Language Proficiency Tests (IPT) with small to medium effect sizes. The IPT Reading scores showed smaller differences between comparison and treatment groups, but the trend favored the treatment schools.
The Writing, Oral language, and Total English results indicate that SIOP Model implementation had a positive impact on the development of English language proficiency among ELLs in classes with SIOP-trained teachers. The findings support the argument that language learning as well as content learning can be situated in content classes. This is a particularly important because ELLs need to learn academic English to access the core curricula. Rather than relying on ESL classes as the sole venue for language development, this study indicates academic language and literacy can be developed across the curriculum with SIOP instruction.

Author

• Deborah J. Short, ALRT