Читать книгу Language Power - Margo Gottlieb - Страница 23

As we mention throughout this prelude, there are countless ways of using language. The fact that many children come to our schools from minority backgrounds—racial, cultural, social, and linguistic—often means that they may have had different experiences and perspectives (Gutiérrez, 2007; Tate & Rousseau, 2007). With these experiences come different assets and strengths that students bring to school; however, these positive qualities and talents often become invisible when students walk in the door. Taking on the mission for educational equity means finding ways to make students’ resources visible, relevant, and connected to teaching and learning in meaningful ways (Rigby & Tredway, 2015; U.S. Department of Education, 2013).

In brief, educators’ direct access to academic language development is an avenue that contributes to educational equity. Key uses of academic language facilitates educators’ and students’ recognition, use, and expansion of linguistic resources. We DARE—discuss, argue, recount, and explain—teachers and school leaders to focus on the value of language, along with content for each discipline.

Take the DARE

Some resources or activities that take place in schools facilitate students’ academic language learning. Identify which of the following occurs in your school, and discuss with colleagues:

 ☐ Teams of educators identify the presence of academic language in your state’s academic content standards.How has it been made known to all teachers?How are these language demands distributed across units of instruction throughout a school year to ensure their coverage?

 ☐ Grade-level or instructional teams state language goals, language targets, or objectives for their units of instruction.How are these communicated to students and families?How are students involved in determining specific language objectives?

 ☐ Educators design activities that provide opportunities for students to develop their oral and written language during instruction.How are these lesson-based activities related to the larger language goals and/or language targets for units of instruction?How do these activities help determine whether a language goal and/or target has been met?

 ☐ Assessments contain language that is grade-level relevant yet accessible to students.How do assessments elicit language from students?How are students expected to use language in assessment?

 ☐ Educators monitor students’ language development, especially for ELLs and ELLs with disabilities.How are language data recorded or shared among educators?How is language development reported to families?

 ☐ Educators analyze the relationship between students’ language development and their academic achievement with careful attention to ELLs and ELLs with disabilities.How are language data analyzed and interpreted?How do language data impact content area instruction?

Whether you complete this DARE on your own or as part of a team, identification of language use is only the beginning. An extension activity would include determining plausible next steps, coupled with existing resources.