Structured Academic Talk for English Language Learners

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Structured Academic Talk for English Language
Learners

• Office of English Language Acquisitions
  Celebrate Our Rising Stars Summit V

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Structured Academic Talk for English Learners

• English Learners in grades 4-12 need daily
  opportunities to engage in formal academic
  discussion where vocabulary and grammar are
  explicitly taught.

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The Need to Increase Student Engagement

• Only 2 of an English Learners day is spent in
  academic talk.
• Vanessa Girard
• Project ELLA (2005)

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What is Academic Talk?

• Academic Talk is verbal interaction about
  lesson content using relevant lesson vocabulary,
  framed in complete sentences with appropriate
  syntax and grammar.
• Kate Kinsella

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Conversational English Versus Academic English

• What are the impacts of a fast food diet?
• A typical students conversational response
• Its bad for you and your skin breaks out.
  It does bad stuff to your body.
• Formal Written Academic response
• Research from the American Dietetics
  Association clearly indicates that many people
  eat a fast food diet on a regular basis. This
  can have negative impacts on their health both
  mentally and physically, such as excessive weight
  gain and skin problems.

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Ways to Support Accountable Listening

• Acknowledging Ideas of Classmates
• Casual Conversational English
• My idea is like _______s idea.
• My idea is the same as _____s.
• Formal Spoken Written English
• My idea is similar to/related to _____s
  idea.
• My idea builds upon _____s idea.
• I agree with _____s perspective. I
  also think that

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Ways to Contribute During Academic Discussions

• Reporting Other Peoples Ideas
• Casual Conversation
• _____said that
• _____told me that
• Formal Spoken Written English
• My partner indicated that..
• _____pointed out that
• _____concluded that
• _____emphasized that

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Strategies to Structure Academic Interaction

• State a task and explain the requirements.
• Model a response pointing out the vocabulary,
  content, and grammar necessary.
• Offer assistance as needed.
• Have partners rehearse/share.
• Randomly call on students before allowing
  students to volunteer answers.
• Affirm or redirect responses.

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Strategies that Engage All Students

• How would you feel if someone said something
  about you that wasnt accurate?
• Provide and model a sentence starter. Ask a
  question that all students can respond to.
• One time a teacher said something about
  me that was inaccurate and it made me upset.
• Have students rehearse their answers with a
  partner.
• Call on students randomly before asking for
  volunteers to respond.

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Academic Language Goal

• Academic language should be taught with explicit,
  structured practice using vital words and the
  necessary syntax and grammar.

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Additional Resources

• Celebrate Our Rising Stars Summit V
• National Clearinghouse for English Language
  Acquisitions website www.ncela.gwu.edu
• Kate Kinsella, Ed. D.
• San Francisco State University
• katek_at_sfsu.edu

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