Academic Language and Academic Literacies: Mapping a Relationship

• In Event: New Approaches to Academic Literacies for Adolescent English Language Learners

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to define the construct of academic literacies as it applies to English Language Learners (ELLs) and situate the construct in relation to another construct that is often used in describing the academic success of ELLs: academic language. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of an academic literacies approach for the teaching and learning of ELLs.

The paper uses Lea and Street’s (2006) literacy framework to theorize a relationship between academic literacies and academic language through the lens of context. Scholarly work on academic language tends to view context in terms of differences among content areas. By contrast, an academic literacies model is rooted in a view of context as situated, negotiated, and overlapping social practices. This view of language use and language learning highlights contextual variation not by discipline or sub-discipline but by activity system, such as an individual classroom or peer group. A focus on the contested and negotiated nature of academic literacy practices supports discussions of larger forces that shape learning environments in schools as well as investigations of literacy development in classroom or after-school settings.

In describing the relationships between academic literacies and academic language, the paper draws on discussions among national scholars that took place during a three-day educational research conference. In the paper, I synthesize the key features of academic literacies identified in those discussions and describe each of the features in detail.
I then explore the implications of an academic literacies approach for the teaching and learning of ELLs. Some of the main implications include: (a) moving away from a deficit model of what students know and do; (b) emphasizing identity development; (c) constructing language proficiency as situated; (d) incorporating different modalities; and e) viewing language as a tool rather than an end.

The paper is significant because it provides a way of bridging two stubborn though counterproductive dichotomies in the literature on the teaching and learning of ELLs: language vs. content, and everyday vs. academic language. The academic literacies approach uses practice (Scribner & Cole, 1981) as the main unit of analysis. This focus on practices allows us to pay attention to the ways in which content and language interact as students engage in learning. Second, a focus on practices makes moot the question of whether students are using everyday or academic language to learn. Instead, it allows us to explore the multiple resources on which students draw as they make meaning in classrooms. These two shifts are important because they are consistent with current literature that stresses the intimate connection between content and language development and advocates for an assets-based approach to the knowledge and skills that ELLs bring to school.

References
Lea, M. R., & Street, B. V. (2006). The “academic literacies” model: Theory and applications. Theory Into Practice, 45(4), 368–377.
Scribner, S., & Cole, M. (1981). The psychology of literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Author

• Daniella Molle, University of Wisconsin