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.