Harrell Section II, Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Teaching Strategy...Academic Language Scaffolding: Supportint Student Use of Language in Academic Settings. "Academic language scaffolding supports students' successful participation in content-are instcution." (Harrell 50) Academic language scaffolding supports students in Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). Cognitive Academic Language is the language that is necessary for the student to actively particpate in classroom learning experiences.

Teachers use a serious of scaffolding stratedgies in the classroom, which accomodate to students to be successful in academic lessons. These strategies include, modeling academic language; contextualizing academic language using visuals, gestures, and desmonstration/ and supporting students in the use of academic language through active learning activities.

Academic Language scaffolding lesson consist of the following steps: Identify academic vocabulary and language structures, design and teach an introductory activity, practice in pairs or small groups, guide and monitor the practice, review the vocabulary and language structures, and add technology.

Identifying academic vocabulary and language structures in the lesson being taught is a necessary function for students to successfully participate in the lesson. Theachers select vocabulary from the reading assignment and give explanations as a part of the lesson. The language function is how the student will participate verbally.

It is essential to design and teach an introductory activity that allows the scaffolding of both the academic vocabulary and language functions in a way that keeps the students from becoming stressed. Use things such as visuals to accompany the teacher explanation and model the use of language in ways tht the students will be expected to participate. If the academic language in the lesson is complex and the teacher is focusing on spelling, the teacher may want to leave the words posted the room for the students to use.

Pairs or small groups provide a great opportunity for students to interact verbally and practice their academic language in an authentic way.

Guide and monitor the students' practice by actively moving around the room and encouraging the student's use of academic language. Scaffolding techniques such as commenting on student's work, modeling the use of academic vocabulary, and describing ways that students are solving problems or working with the materials. Asking questions enables students to demonstrate their knowledge either physically or linguistically. Modeling academic language while students demonstrate is a great way to emphasize academic language.

Review the vocabulary and language structures used at the conclusion of the lesson. Provide an opportunity for the small groups to share their newly acquired academic language with the whole group.

Technology is a great way to enhance students' comprehension of materials.

For example, implementing academic language scaffolding into a lesson being taught on things that are hot and cold might look something like this: Introduce the lesson by reading the book, Hot and Cold. After reading the book make a T-chart on the board and organize the items in the book into "Things that are hot" or "Things that are cold".
Next, introduce the question, "Is it hot or cold?" As you hold up different pictures of items, have the students answer, "hot" or "cold". Model the academic language by confirming the students answer with a sentence. Write the sentence on the board, "The snow is cold." Continue doing this until the students seem to be catching on to the vocabulary.
For practice on the newly learned academic language, break the students into groups and give each group a felt board with cut outs of different items and have them arrange the items into the alotted columns labeled hot or cold and rows labed food, weather, etc... When the groups finished bring them all back together and discuss where they put the items and why.
Conclude by reviewing the newly learned academic language.

This strategy would be especially good for English Language Learners because of the repitition of language and the support provided through visual aid and scaffolding. I think that this is a great strategy to use at all age groups. As the academic content continues to broaden and become more complex academic language scaffolding is going to continue to be important to reinforce academic language in learning.