Book’s Blog 4

Chapter 1   Understanding Who Needs Academic Language

                               

This chapter starts with 3 abbreviations; ELLS which stands for English Language learners, ESL which stands for English as a Second Language, and LEP which stands for Limited English Proficient.  Then, it talks about Cummins’s BICS which stands for Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills, communicative competence in English, and Cummins’s CALP which stands for Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency, academic English competence. 

I like how the book distinguishes between academic English. This terms lead to talk about problems in the American schools and growing poverty. Then, it discusses the concerns about many students who struggle academically & fail high-stakes standardized tests. These demographic trends help to identify types of learners who need academic language instruction.

This chapter focuses on the types of students who need help with academic language and encourages teachers to honor what they bring to the classroom and learn more about their interests. The Freemans describe three types of learners: a) newly arrived with adequate formal schooling, b) newly arrived with limited or interrupted formal schooling, and c) long-term English Learners.  The schools need to identify these types. It is a surprise that ELLs are “economically, ethnically, and linguistically isolated from mainstream students” (p. 3) and some English speakers are struggling learners too, particularly whose dialects are not nonstandard and whose home languages differ in structure and form from standard academic English.  

I like how the Freemans represent these learners by examples, two examples for Long-term English learner (LTELs) and another two for limited formal schooling (LFS). They analyze and show what they have and what they need. Then, they use the Ogbu’s classification of minority students into ‘’immigrant minorities,” who are not influenced by the mainstream society and measure their success by the standard of their homeland, & “involuntary minorities,” who are influenced by majority-group attitude and values and measure success by mainstream standards.  There is a detailed description of both minorities (pp.10-12). For Standard English learners (SELs), there are two examples and the same for adequate formal schooling.

From their analysis, LFS who are in schools for an extended time may also be referred to as  LTELs who are students who have been in the U.S. for a long time, but who have not become proficient in English. They often face different sets of obstacles and issues than more recent newcomers. To meet the needs of LTELs, teachers may require a somewhat different approach. LTEL's face challenges because as they began to acquire English, they have lost proficiency in their native language. Although LTELs typically have developed conversational skills, because of the "social distance" between immigrant communities and mainstream communities, many have had minimal exposure to the English in their communities and little reason to learn or use it.

All in all, these analyses, descriptions, and examples are to show the differences, needs, backgrounds, …etc between these types of learners.  I like how they compare these types and show their advantages & disadvantages. Moreover, they use figures and tables to demonstrate their arguments. The learners are certainly not all alike, and they have different experiences. Many SELs and ELLs with limited formal schooling and LTELs struggle to develop academic language proficiency. There are differences and need different kinds of support although they face a challenge.

The Freemans end the chapter by including some reading tasks to prepare the students such as:

-        Retrieving information.

-        Developing an interpretation.

-        Reflecting on the content and structure of texts.

 

Book’s Blog 3

Introduction

The Freemans introduce a powerful poem written by a very experienced intermediate school teacher, Rusty DeRuiter, who had just begun teaching developmental reading to struggling high school students at the time of writing this poem. He wrote this poem late one night as he tried to understand both his students and his own frustration with teaching them. Rusty was asked to teach these students because of his success with intermediate school students in his rural, agricultural district and because district officials did not know what to do with the growing numbers of students who were dropping out of school. Most of Rusty’s students were of Mexican descent.

The Poem

I Don’t Know What to Do

Rusty DeRuiter

I don’t know what to do.

So many angry faces

Who have heard all the teacher

Promises before.

For too many years

They have been put down.

Too many teachers

Who have given up.

Who have not understood.

And now it is big time.

High School.

Time to show and shine,

To be cool with compañeros,

To be tough.

It’s tough to start school,

Especially when you are

Angry with life.

Having to ask for money

From parents who don’t have it,

Wanting the right shoes,

And shirts and pants.

Needing to make your mark early.

I will complete this poem later, in comment, to show that he understood his students’ need for being able to understand, read, and write the academic language of school. It is interesting and illustrates that teachers, across the country, are faced with classrooms filled with large numbers of students who struggle with the academic demands of school. Like Rusty, other teachers want to know how to help these students. With the current nationwide emphasis on standardized tests, exit exams, and other high-stakes assessments, attention has been given to students who lack the language of school. Many of these students are English language learners (ELLs) and struggling readers. Reports from educational agencies and literacy educators have begun to focus on the need for helping these students develop academic language, and academic language has become a kind of buzzword at conferences and in-service presentations.

The Freemans offer teachers an effective framework based on research to teach both language and content. They provide a resource to improve reading and writing skills while supplying the academic vocabulary necessary in the content area. They explain that the focus of the book is to take the reader into the world of the classroom using the information “from researchers, teacher educators, linguists, and practitioners in order to clarify some of the confusions about academic language and provide suggestions for how to help ELLs and struggling readers succeed in school.” (p. xvi). The seven chapters in the book deliver critical components for teaching academic language, the nuts and bolts about who needs it, “what it is, when and where it is used, the problems that textbooks cause, different aspects of academic language, how to write objectives to teach academic language, and how to engage students in effective instruction to build academic language proficiency” (p. xvi).

Book’s Blog 2

The authors

                                

Let me introduce the Author. Yvonne S. Freeman is a professor of bilingual education in the Department of Language, Literacy, and Intercultural Studies of the College of Education at the University of Texas - Brownsville. David E. Freeman is a professor of ESL and literacy in the Department of Language, Literacy, and Intercultural Studies at the University of Texas at Brownsville. Yvonne and David Freeman are Heinemann Professional Development Providers. They are the coauthors or coeditors of ten Heinemann books 

Forward

I use some interesting points & sentences by Robert J. Marzan. Marzano describes the challenges teachers face in the classroom, particularly in secondary education that demands high levels of competency. I agree that teachers are “not trained to teach the basic reading and writing skills many of their students need” (p.ix). Marzano points to the fact that few “professional books in the marketplace provide strategies for simultaneously teaching secondary-level content area knowledge and developing the literacy skills of students who aren’t well prepared for academics” (p. ix–x).

It is important here to show that the Freemans distinguish among three types of English language learners (ELLs):

1)     Some are newly arrived in the United States but were well prepared in the schools of their homelands. They often succeed in school but face the challenge of learning English quickly enough to pass standardized exams.

2)     Others come with limited academic knowledge and limited literacy in their native language. These students must learn to read and write in English and develop content-area knowledge in it.

3)     Still others, the long-term English learners, have been in the United States for some time. Consequently, their conversational English is often quite good but they lack academic English.

 

In addition to the three types of ELLs, some struggling secondary students speak nonstandard English. For many of them, reading content-area textbooks and composing academic papers present big problems. Indeed, these students, referred to as standard English learners (SELs), show many of the very same characteristics as long-term English learners. With their classification system for students as a backdrop, the Freemans discuss what each type of student needs in order to read and write effectively in the different content areas.

The Freemans make an important distinction between two types of language: conversational language and academic language. A wide gulf often separates conversational and academic English. The differences, which extend well beyond mere vocabulary and into syntax, text organization, and register, help explain why an adolescent can speak English very well but might have trouble composing academic texts. 

This book breaks academic language down into smaller and more discrete levels of organization, beginning with the text level and proceeding through the paragraph, the sentence, and finally to the word. Shedding light on the structure of academic genres, the text level, the Freemans show how genres commonly required in the different content areas can be made more accessible. The genres are then examined at the paragraph and sentence levels, to see how students can be given a chance to appropriate academic language in richer and richer ways.

Because reading and writing for school is difficult and because many students lack academic vocabulary, the Freemans:

-         provide a thorough discussion of the nature and function of academic vocabulary leading to specific suggestions for increasing it through a combination of extensive reading, learning strategies, and the direct teaching of key content-area words.

-        outline specific supports that can give English learners and struggling students ways to overcome the obstacles encountered with content-area textbooks.

-        provide useful suggestions for supplementing textbooks, creating new avenues for students to take toward deeper subject-area understanding.

-        provide classroom examples that demonstrate the kinds of instructional activities that motivate students and engage them in content-area reading & writing.

Book's Blog 1

                                  
I choose to blog on this book “Academic Language for English Language Learners and Struggling Readers: How to Help Students Succeed Across Content Areas” for two main reasons. Firstly, I like the title of the book which I need it to help Saudi students in my home context. Secondly, it is one of the only two that are available in the liberaries in Saudi Arabia.

                            

This book has forward, introduction, and seven chapters. I will center each blog on these nine parts before adding a final review or summary.

I like the book description that is written on the book cover as the following:

Teaching secondary students in the content areas is hard enough under the best of circumstances. When students are not well prepared academically and also lack academic literacy skills, the challenge can seem overwhelming. Fortunately, the Freemans help secondary content-area teachers provide these students with the academic support they very desperately need. This is by Robert J. Marzano, a coauthor of Building Academic Vocabulary.

Many middle school and high school students are recent immigrants or long-term English language learners who struggle with the academic language needed to read content-area textbooks and write papers for their classes. Likewise, many native speakers of English find content-area classes a challenge. Secondary teachers have little time to teach academic reading and writing skills because they must cover a great deal of content in their social studies, science, math, or language arts classes.

Academic Language for English Language Learners and Struggling Readers provides the information busy secondary teachers need to work effectively with English learners and struggling readers. It reports current research to answer key questions:

·        Who are our older English language learners and struggling readers?

·        What is academic language?

·        How can middle and high school teachers help students develop academic language in the different content areas?

This comprehensive and readable text by Yvonne and David Freeman (authors of Essential Linguistics) synthesizes recent demographic data on the kinds of English language learners and struggling readers who attend middle and high schools in increasing numbers. They flesh out the statistics with stories of students from different backgrounds. Then the Freemans examine academic language at different levels: the text level, the paragraph level, the sentence level, and the word level. For each, they provide examples of academic language and specific strategies teachers can use as they teach language arts, science, math, and social studies. They also analyze content-area textbooks, pointing out the difficulties they pose for students and suggesting ways to make texts more accessible to ELLs and struggling readers.

Providing classroom examples, the Freemans explain how teachers can motivate and engage their students. They describe how teachers can teach language and content simultaneously by developing both language and content objectives. Academic Language for English Language Learners gives teachers the information and strategies they need to help all their students develop academic language.

My Education

2011 - ongoing 2008

PhD in Educational Linguistics University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, USA Master in Teaching English as a Second Language         Flinders University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia

7/2007        2 – 5 / 2005        6  – 7 / 2004        1996 - 1999

Advanced  EFL  course University of Sussex , Sussex Language Institute, Brighton, UK. A course of (( Office Automation )) Jeddah Computer Institute, Taif, Saudi Arabia. Teaching and Learning English Course University of Edinburgh,  Institute for Applied Language Studies, Edinburgh, Uk Bachelor of English Language with a minor degree in Education Om AL-Qura University, College of Education, Taif, Saudi Arabia.

links

Some interesting links about teaching and learnering English. It includes many ideas & strategies for kids and adults in ESL and EFL.

 http://www.mondosworld.blogspot.com/

http://www.inspirationlane.blogspot.com/

http://jeffreyhill.typepad.com/english/

http://englishdesk.blogspot.com/

http://teach-esl-to-kids.com/blog/

MY BOOK

I am not sure which book I will choose. It depends on what is available in the libraries here. It is not easy to use the online purchase because the postal services are very bad and take a lot of time. I am currently making some calls and I hope I could get one of the last 2 books in the list.

Academic Language for English Language Learners and Struggling Readers: How to Help Students Succeed Across the Content Areas.

By Yvone S. Freeman and David E. Freeman
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Academic+Language+for+English+Language+Learners+and+Struggling+Readers%3A++How+to+Help+Students+Succeed+Across+the+Content+Areas&x=5&y=25
 

English Learners, Academic Literacy, and Thinking: Learning in the Challenge Zone by Pauline Gibbons (Paperback - April 16, 2009)

http://www.amazon.com/English-Learners-Academic-Literacy-Thinking/dp/0325012032/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242668242&sr=1-2

This is my first BLOG. Now, I have an electionic friend.