Delia Pompa: So it's a low stakes way before you get to the high stakes.
Dr. Robin Scarcella: Yes, absolutely. And for some students, you'll have to tell them again and again and again and again. You'll have to be teaching subject/verb agreement. But they will learn. And that's what teachers need to know. And it's, of course, very good if teachers develop a technique that they use for providing instructional feedback that the whole school site adheres to.
Whether or not it's just underlining those words that are used incorrectly or highlighting them or writing in the margin or giving students some rules or using what I like symbols.
Delia Pompa: Oh, so this is a strategy that I hadn't heard. So everyone in the school should use that same approach.
Dr. Robin Scarcella: Absolutely. We promote this in whole school districts. So that way when students go from one grade to the next, they don't have to learn new symbols. They know exactly what kind of feedback their teachers are going to give them. They know when the teacher's going to give them this feedback. They don't consider it at all punitive. They expect it.
Delia Pompa: You know, there are so many challenges teachers face. And this is an area that teachers are beginning to explore. They're beginning to explore academic language. They want to do the right thing. But they bump into these walls. And one of the walls seems to be states taking on alignment of curriculum ... of content actually and language. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Dr. Robin Scarcella: Yes. It's an enormous challenge. States have been trying to link content objectives and language objectives. I think it's very important that teachers know when they're teaching content that the English language learners also need to know language. And they need to have language objectives.
It's good for them to know what they're teaching. The difficult part arises when the teacher chooses text, stories, reading passages, textbook passages, to help them-help the students acquire the content standards. Because anytime they choose a reading passage, there'll be a number of different language objectives that could be taught.
And when they teach a different reading text or have the students do a different oral language assignment, they're going to need different language objectives. So it's not possible therefore just to take the language content and objectives and just align them without looking at what it is that children do with language in the classroom and what it is they're reading in the classroom.
Delia Pompa: So not losing that focus on language and deliberately teaching language.
Dr. Robin Scarcella: That's right.
Delia Pompa: You have said so much to us. Why don't you take a sip of water? Well, I want to talk about another issue. And that has to do…it relates to what you just talked about. English language learners often are taught by many different teachers. And I wonder who's responsible for teaching academic language?
Dr. Robin Scarcella: We are all responsible for teaching academic language. Teachers are responsible for teaching academic language. In the elementary school it's the primary instructor who has the responsibility for laying the foundational piece for teaching academic language, a strong English language proficiency, a language proficiency in phonology and spelling and the sounds of the language and grammar and vocabulary absolutely critical.
And in the upper grades, that individual is going to be responsible for teaching academic language of reading, writing, speaking and listening. However, in the-the individuals in elementary school should be working very, very closely with a reading specialist.
If students can't read, they can't develop academic language. And the elementary school teachers need to be working very closely with their ESL, ELD specialist, absolutely.
Delia Pompa: We get into sort of a classic question around that when you get to high school.
Dr. Robin Scarcella: Yes.
Delia Pompa: Let's take the example of the biology teacher.
Dr. Robin Scarcella: Oh, yes. Perfect example.
Delia Pompa: Biology teacher is teaching something that doesn't seem very language related to some people. So how does that biology teacher support academic language?
Dr. Robin Scarcella: The biology teacher has a critical role. The biology teacher, first of all, should be relieved to know that I don't make that person responsible for teaching reading. If the child cannot read, doesn't know how to decode words, that biology teacher doesn't have to become a reading specialist. We have a scarcity.
Delia Pompa: I know some biology teachers.
Dr. Robin Scarcella: Yes, they don't have to worry about that. Nor does a teacher have to worry if they've got somebody who's just beginning language, learning, just arrived in the United States. The teacher should know how to teach survival skills, yes.
But we really are required by law to make sure that that beginning language learner gets enough proficiency to access language. And a biology teacher will never be an English language specialist who can give that foundational piece.
The biology teacher, however, has the responsibility of teaching reading comprehension. And those biology texts are very, very difficult. And so the teacher needs to teach a variety of strategies, including using graphic organizers and note taking skills.
So that the students can access the reading. The biology teacher absolutely has the responsibility to scaffold discussions in biology using academic words and using the text. The biology teacher absolutely has the responsibility of teaching any kind of writing associated with the biology.
So that might mean, for example, teaching that lab report or teaching students how to conduct an experiment and write it up using inquiry.
Delia Pompa: I imagine there are also a lot of opportunities for teaching vocabulary in the content area.
Dr. Robin Scarcella: Oh, it is.
Delia Pompa: And should that be a specific strategy?
Dr. Robin Scarcella: Yes. And that's where content vocabulary should be taught. Content vocabulary in the high school should be taught in the content class and reinforced in other classes, such as the ESL class. The best place to teach the word photosynthesis is not in an ESL class. The best place to teach it is in a biology class.
Delia Pompa: In context.
Dr. Robin Scarcella: Absolutely. And so that the student really understands what photosynthesis is. Yes, you can teach photosynthesis in an ESL classroom. But you're just going to be teaching the bare basics, a very rudimentary knowledge. This is not academic language. So the content teacher plays a key role in teaching ESL, ELD, English learners.
Delia Pompa: One group that presents teachers, all teachers, a number of challenges are students who are newcomers. Who come to us at the secondary level. Often haven't had a lot of education in their own country in their own language. And they have a short period of time before they have to graduate from high school and get all the credits. What is the role of both language teachers and content teachers in getting them to a level of having some academic language?
Dr. Robin Scarcella: We have a responsibility to our students, to all of our students, no matter when they enter school, no matter what their educational backgrounds are, to teach academic language. We have some excellent approaches and especially some good curricula materials available to provide students with the intensive English language instruction that they need at the secondary levels.
Students who arrive late in our system do need more instruction. We far underestimated the amount of instruction in English that they acquired-that they need to acquire academic language. So they might need to be in a three hour or four hour intensive language classroom and then take some other classes in addition to that.
And it might be the case that they need to take summer school. They might need to go before school, after school. If they need an extra year afterwards, our goal is to make sure that they have acquired enough academic language so that they can go on and be successful in the United States. And so I would say, yes. Give them more. Absolutely.
Delia Pompa: It seems to me that we often as educators of English language learners focus on that group of students who just came in, the newcomers. But there's also another group of students who are long-term ELLs, who have been in this country a long, long time, who have some of the same gaps in language, in academic language.
I know on a day-to-day basis, you work with college students, you work with older students. What are some of the challenges there? And what are some of the strategies? What can educators do at that point?
Dr. Robin Scarcella: Oh, thank you. This is the largest growing population that we have in the United States. Our newcomers, especially at the secondary level, is rather small compared to this huge group of students that we have. Instruction, instruction, instruction. Practice. But knowing that it's practice perfect makes good practice, not just practicing. Students tend to acquire the language of those with whom they associate. We all do.
And so our students, such as my student whose letter you read, came into the United States and acquired the language of the friends with whom she associated. And she speaks a wonderful variety of informal English. But as you noted, it won't do her very much in terms of getting her ahead in academic settings.
So what we need to do is make sure that we get-that she attends to the language by using dictation exercises, for example. By using both oral close, a sentence completion activity. Or a written close activity where students fill in the blanks as we dictate a passage.
They need to summarize. We tell passages they need to write a lot with intensive feedback. And yes, we know that they can achieve high levels of success. They