Chapter 2. How Students Acquire Social and Academic Language
Some of the most pressing and frequent questions administrators, board members, and classroom teachers ask are “How long should it take a newcomer to learn English?” and “What kinds of programs help ELLs acquire English quickly?” In this chapter, we explore the answers to these questions, analyze the essential theories in second-language acquisition, and examine the differences between social and academic English.
As you read the statements below, decide whether you think they are true or false.
□ English language learners need one to three years to master social language in the classroom.
□ Students don't always acquire social language naturally in informal contexts. They may need to be taught how to communicate appropriately in social situations.
□ Although English language learners may speak English on the playground, this does not mean they have mastered the academic and cognitive language of the classroom.
□ Learning academic subjects in their native language helps ELLs learn English.
□ Parents of English language learners should be encouraged to speak their primary language at home.
□ Students who have strong literacy skills in their native language will learn English faster.
□ Students need more than two to three years in bilingual or ESL classes to succeed in school.
Social Language and the English Language Learner
True or False?English language learners need one to three years to master social language in the classroom.TRUE.
Social language is the language of the playground. Researcher Jim Cummins calls this language Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills or BICS (Cummins, 1981, 1996). Newcomers use BICS to function socially in hallways, classrooms, school buses, and playgrounds. Cummins's research shows that it takes one to three years for English language learners to reach the social language level of their peers.
The context of social language is embedded. For example, if a student wants a drink of water, he can ask for it by making a drinking motion and saying the word water. Newcomers have support for BICS because they can use gestures, objects, and pictures to help make the information comprehensible. English language learners who are in the beginning stages are able to handle the following tasks:
Produce survival vocabulary such as the words for water or bathroom.
Follow simple directions that are accompanied by gestures such as “Point to the door” or “Walk to the chair.”
Engage in one-to-one social conversation using gestures.
Answer low-level questions such as “Is an elephant large or small?” or “What color is the chair?”
Participate effectively in hands-on classes such as art and physical education.
Play uncomplicated games, particularly games that they play well in their native language, such as checkers, chess, or backgammon.
Produce simple drawings, charts, and graphs.
Context-Reduced Social Language Activities
As we learned in the previous section, social interactions are usually context embedded. These interactions occur in meaningful social settings and most likely they are not cognitively demanding. As your newcomers' listening and oral language skills start to develop, they will be able to add more challenging activities to their repertoire and the context and social cues for these interactions will be reduced. Some context-reduced social language activities include the following:
Holding predictable conversations with teachers and peers. For example, the student might tell the teacher during a math lesson, “I don't understand.” The teacher can demonstrate the math concept using manipulatives and drawings to help the student comprehend.
Decoding simple reading passages. ELLs will be able to sound out words, but they may not comprehend what they are reading.
Copying words and sentences from the board.
Reading a weekly school schedule or a homework assignment.
Listening to and understanding a simple story.
Responding to and writing answers for short informational questions. For example, for a history unit on the Pilgrims, a teacher can test literal comprehension by asking, “What was name of the Pilgrims' ship?
Executing answers to questions about a chart or map, such as “Find Mexico on the map and label it.”
Understanding and communicating knowledge about math facts. At this stage, however, students will not be ready to learn difficult math concepts.
Interacting socially with classmates. English language learners should be able to ask for help with their schoolwork or understand a teacher's instructions for a game.
Newcomers will be able to participate in context-reduced activities during their content-area classes as well. These activities include science experiments, content-related craft projects, and language arts assignments involving drawings, bookmarks, book covers, and dioramas.
How Do Students Acquire Social Language?
True or False?Students don't always acquire social language naturally in informal contexts. They may need to be taught how to communicate appropriately in social situations. TRUE.
Does social language need to be taught and practiced or do students pick it up automatically on the playground or in the lunchroom? English language learners may need to be specifically taught interpersonal skills such as how to greet people, give and receive compliments, apologize, and make polite requests. They also need to understand nonverbal language and the use of personal space. The goal of Standard 1 of the 2006 PreK–12 English language proficiency standards is for ELLs to learn to communicate in English for social and instructional purposes during the school day. This goal is important because many ELLs need to learn the appropriate voice tones, volume, and language for different school settings. For example, some ELLs speak to a teacher in the same way that they talk to a peer, such as Min Ki in the next example.
→ Min Ki is a beginning ELL from Korea. Although his English is quite limited, Min Ki is adept at picking up expressions on the playground. During recess one day he learned to say “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Whenever Ms. Chen, his classroom teacher, gave directions, Min Ki would reply, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” The teacher finally had to ask an adult volunteer to explain to him that this is inappropriate language for a child to use with an adult. In this setting, an adult had to teach Min Ki that there is a difference between language used with an adult and language used with friends on the playground.
Another example of improper language in the classroom is swearing. ELLs may pick up inappropriate language on the playground and may not realize why this language is not suitable in the classroom. In the next example, Vadim's teacher tries to convey the seriousness of his inappropriate language.
→ Vadim, a 4th grade student from Russia, used an X-rated expression in the classroom. The teacher was understandably distressed and made Vadim write an apology letter for homework. The teacher became even more upset when Vadim's parents did not take the infraction seriously. What the teacher did not know, however, was that Vadim's parents were not appalled because swearing does not have the same shock value in a person's second language as it does in a person's first language.
Many newcomers in middle school and high school say that they are learning academic language but have few opportunities to practice social language. Most of their social interactions are with students with the same native language background. In the next example, we look at Carmen and Diego and their social language skills.
→ Carmen is an English language learner from the Dominican Republic who attends a suburban middle school. She is a very good student who works hard and has quickly acquired academic English; however, she socializes only with classmates who speak Spanish. Her social language in English is slow and hesitant. She has difficulty initiating a conversation in English. Her Brazilian classmate Diego, on the other hand, is athletic and plays soccer with the boys from his class. Because Diego interacts with many English-speaking teammates, his social English is quite fluent.
Social language comes easier to students who have real reasons to speak with their classmates. Organized school activities such as sports teams, band, or chorus can expose ELLs to social English.
Role playing, teacher modeling, peer modeling, and videos are all good tools for teaching ELLs social skills. Teachers can encourage newcomers to observe their peers as models of correct behavior. Teachers should set expectations for these behaviors by using real incidents that come up in the class such as having students practice saying good morning and good-bye to their teachers and classmates. In the next example, Mrs. Arena teaches her students simple language for social interactions.
→ Mrs. Arena is a kindergarten teacher who stands at her classroom door at the end of the day. She shakes hands and says good-bye to students as they leave. She uses each child's name and intersperses her farewells with comments. A typical exchange might be:
“Good-bye, Juan. Have fun at the park,” Mrs. Arena says.
“Good-bye, Mrs. Arena,” replies Juan. “See you tomorrow.”
Mrs. Arena makes an everyday classroom routine a valuable lesson in social interaction and small talk. As students leave the playground after school, they say good-bye to each other using the same farewells modeled earlier by the teacher.
Evaluating the Silent Period
How does a teacher know when a child is ready to speak? When should an ELL be encouraged to participate in the standard social language of the classroom?
Mi Yeon is a Korean student who has been in the United States for 18 months. Although she is progressing in her academic work, she barely speaks to her teachers. Even when prompted, she will not say good morning or good-bye to them when she enters and leaves the classroom. One o