A Language-Based Approach to Content Instruction (LACI): The Six Cs of Scaffolding in First Grade

• In Event: 25.060 - Scaffolds and English Learners' Participation in Academic Discussions: Too Much or Just Right?

Abstract

Objectives
We examine how a first grade teacher – Ms. Cabana - implemented a language-based approach to content instruction (LACI) (Author, 2016), a teacher preparation model developed over the past 10 years of research in content area classrooms with English learners (ELs) and based on recent scholarship on the language demands of schooling (e.g. Author & Colleague 2, 2014; Brisk, 2015; Fang & Schleppegrell, 2008). We investigate how Ms. Cabana used six Cs of scaffolding with her ELs to support their development of academic language.

Framework
Subject matter in schools is constructed in academic language that differs in key ways from the language we use to interact with each other in daily life (Schleppegrell, 2004). A language-based approach to content instruction (LACI) places emphasis on language learning in the content classroom. LACI, with a focus on content through language rather than on language through content, can be a means through which instruction for ELLs can be accomplished in meaningful ways in a mainstream classroom. LACI draws on systemic functional linguistics, allowing for a simultaneous focus on the meanings that are made (the “content”) and the language through which the meanings are expressed. LACI builds on six principles that have identified specific elements of instructional activities for culturally and linguistically diverse students (see Figure 1).

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Methods
This study was conducted in a first grade classroom in Florida. Participants were Ms. Cabana, a first grade teacher, and her students. Data included fieldnotes of school activities; fieldnotes and audio-recorded observations of classroom instruction; interviews; and documents, lesson plans, and photos of classroom displays. Data analysis focused on classroom instruction guided by LACI six Cs of support.

Findings
Ms. Cabana used LACI’s six Cs of support for scaffolding in her classroom. She connects to students’ backgrounds and experiences to help them recall what they know. She connects language and culture through her teaching of content and language by means of reviewing prior knowledge and connecting it to new information. Ms. Cabana uses different participant structures to focus on community and collaboration, from teacher-led discussion to individual work. Language and other modes of learning are integral parts of code-breaking and are provided through a variety of visual, aural, tactile supports to construct a high challenge, high support environment. Ms. Cabana uses various resources to provide both challenge and support for ELLs. She uses classroom conversations with various elements of interactional scaffolding to support ELLs by linking to prior experience, pointing to new experiences, and recapping.

Author

• Luciana C. de Oliveira, University of Miami