Academic Language in the edTPA
Abridged from Academic Language
101 by Melanie Hundley
 How do you define academic
language?
Task
2 Questions
 How do you learn the “academic
language” of your classes?
Student
Voices
Secret Language
 School is where you go to
learn a secret language but
they don’t tell you that it’s
there. You have to figure it
out on your own. It’s like
an initiation to a secret
club. Maya, 8 grade.
th
Student
Voices
Secret Language
 I knew I was gone fail that
test when I got to the third
question and I didn’t even
know what they was asking
me. Karah, 11 grade
th
Student
Voices
Making Academic
Language Visible
 I can do the work for a class as long as I
know what the teacher means by what
she says and what she asks. When a
teacher makes things clear for me, I
think I am a good student. Leah, 12 grade
th
Student
Voices
Making Academic
Language Visible
 Most of the time I don’t even know how to start
or what to do. It’s more than just sometimes
not knowing the words in the directions. It’s
knowing what I am supposed to use when I talk
in the class or when I write something for class.
Matt, 12th grade
Social
Purposes
for
Language
 Exchanging greetings
 Making jokes
 Indicating agreement/disagreement
 Retelling stories
 Participating in personal conversations
 Persuading
 Seek Information - use who, what, when, where, how
 Inform - recount information or retell
Academic
Language
Purposes
 Compare & Contrast – identify similarities & differences
Chamot and
O’Malley, 1974
 Classify - describe organizing principles
 Order - describe timeline, continuum or cycle
 Analyze - describe features or main idea
 Infer - generate hypotheses to suggest cause/outcomes
 Justify & Persuade - give evidence why “A” is important
 Solve Problems - describe problem-solving procedures
 Synthesize - summarize information cohesively
 Evaluate - identify criteria, explain priorities, etc.
 Teachers and students use language in specific ways
to participate in learning and assessment tasks:
Instructional
Language
Language to
participate
another facet of
academic language
 discussing ideas and asking questions
 summarizing instructional and disciplinary texts
 following and giving instructions
 listening to or presenting a mini-lesson
 explaining something
 giving reasons for a point of view
 writing essays to display knowledge on tests
 communicating behavioral expectations (“raise your
hands”)
9
9
 If we accept that teachers & students use
language in specific ways to participate in
learning and assessment tasks, what are some
ways to express the following?
 Discussing ideas and asking questions
 Summarizing instructional and content texts
 Giving instructions
 Listening to or presenting a mini-lesson
 Explaining something
 Giving reasons for a point of view
 Communicating behavioral expectations
Task
Choose one of the
classroom practices
from the list.
Create an example
from your content
area.
What are the key
structures (words,
phrases,
punctuation, etc.)
that are part of this?
 List command terms that you might use in
your classroom that could cause students
problems.
 Annotate
 In English—you add notes and/or commentary
to text, usually explaining something or going
deeper into the specific meaning, make
connections, identify and/or explore key
literary elements
 In Science—add brief notes to a diagram or
graph
Task
Think about when
you were in middle
and high school.
What words in the
directions caused
you problems?
Think about your
content area. What
words could cause
student problems?
 Academic Language
edTPA
Terms
Academic Language
Discourse
Language Demand
Language Functions
Syntax
 Oral and written language used for
academic purposes
 Discourse
edTPA
Terms
Academic Language
Discourse
Language Demand
Language Functions
Syntax
 Structures of written and oral language
 How members of the discipline talk,
write, and participate in knowledge
construction
 Discipline-specific
 Distinctive about features/way of structuring
language (text structures)
 Language Demands
edTPA
Terms
Academic Language
Discourse
Language Demand
Language Functions
Syntax
 Specific ways that academic language
is used by students to participate in
learning tasks
 reading
 writing
 listening and/or speaking
 demonstrate/perform
 Are the language demands high
or low?
Language Demands
 High = lecture, writing a
paragraph, reading from a
content text or primary source
document.
 Low = dramatization, illustration,
filling in a graphic organizer or
labeling with a word bank
Scaffolds
 If the language demand is high,
you will need to state specifically
how you are going to provide
scaffolding and support for
students who need it.
 For example:
 Re-write text or condense text
 Provide sentence frames or stems
 Provide graphic organizers
 Provide a template or model for
students to imitate
 CLOZE note-taking guide for
lecture
 What are some other ideas?
Sample Objectives
 In order to demonstrate their
understanding of terms that
can be used to describe
geographical features, the
learners will write a paragraph
summarizing the geography of
Italy, using both words from
the vocabulary worksheet and
a list of adjectives they will
have generated.
 Language Functions
edTPA
Terms
Academic Language
Discourse
Language Demand
Language Functions
Syntax
 content and focus of the learning task
 Represented by action verb within the
learning outcome (describing,
comparing, summarizing, etc.)
 Syntax
edTPA
Terms
Academic Language
Discourse
Language Demand
Language Functions
Syntax
 Set of conventions for organizing
symbols, words and phrases together
into structures (e.g., sentences,
graphs, tables)
Purpose: Compare/Contrast
Content-Specific vocabulary
Have lungs
Vertebrates
Have gills
Live births
Excellent
swimmers
Hatch from eggs
Warm blooded
Mothers
produce milk
Marine Mammals
Live in
groups
Cold blooded
Do not produce
milk
Ocean Fish
Linguistic Features sentence frames
 Providing sentence frames will allow students
to express compare/contrast.
 ________ have __________,
whereas________ have _____________.
 Marine mammals have lungs, whereas ocean
fish have gills.
 Comparatives:
 6 is greater than 4
 María earns six times as much as Peter
 Lin is as old as Roberto
Mathematics
 Prepositions:
 (divided) into, divided by,
 2 multiplied by 6 and X exceeds 2 by 7
 Passive voice:
 X is defined as a number greater than 7.
 Reversals: The number a is five less than b.
 Logical connectors: if…then
 If a is positive then -a is negative.
 Vocabulary
 Text, character, plot, theme, thesis,
characteristics, genre, metaphor, simile,
gerund
English Language Arts
 Narrative Structures
 Quotatives
 Descriptors
 Inferential language in metaphors
 The use of “like” or “as” in similes
 Literary Response
 Generating/Justifying an opinion
 Citing evidence
Teacher
Candidate
Rephrase
English/
Language Arts
Terms & Phrases
 What are the key words and phrases my
students will need to understand, read and use
in the learning activity?
 Which of these words/phrases will be new to my
students?
 Which of these words/phrases have different
meanings in other contexts? Which might be
confusing for students?
 Is there a non-jargon, student-friendly way to explain
this to students?
Handout
Teacher
Candidate
Rephrase
Terms
Phrases
Using Language
 How (i.e., for what purpose) will students be
using language in the learning activity?
 What key words/phrases will students need
to understand in order to follow the
directions in the learning activity?
 What key words/phrases will students need to
understand in order to work with texts in the
learning activity?
 What key words/phrases will students need to
understand in order to
 talk about the texts?
 write about the texts?
 create similar texts?
Math
Example
(Emily)
Mathematical
Vocabulary &
Representations
 What are the key mathematical words and
phrases my students will need to understand
and use in the learning activity?
 Which of these words/phrases will be new to my
students?
 Which of these words/phrases have different
meanings in informal/non-mathematical
conversations?
 What are “kid-friendly” ways of describing each of
these?
Handout
Emily’s Notes
Math
Example
(Emily)
Mathematical
Vocabulary &
Representations
 Which new mathematical representations
(including notation) will students need to learn
to “read” and use in the learning activity?
 What “non-mathematical” words or phrases will
my students need to understand in order to
make sense of the task scenarios in the learning
activity?
Math
Example
(Emily)
Genre (i.e.,
Purpose) and
Linguistic Features
 How (i.e., for what purpose) will students
be using language in the activity?
 Which key words/phrases will my students need to
understand in order to follow directions during the
learning task, and which of these will be new to my
students?
 Write some sentences (to develop into sentence
frames) that capture how you expect students to be
using academic language to achieve a particular
purpose during the learning segment.
 What are “kid-friendly” ways of describing each of
these?
Academic
Language
Tools
Sentence Frames
Sentence Stems
Phrases
 Sentence Frames are tools that can help give
students the words and the structures to use as
they are initially developing fluency.
 Since the square root of __ is __, then __
squared must be ___. (Math)
 The __ is an important symbol for __ because
__. (ELA)
 In the experiment, the __ acted on the __ and
caused a __ . (Science)
 The war was caused by __ , __ , and __
because __ .(Social Studies)
 Identifying Cause/Effect in Language Arts
Sentence
Frames
Textual tools
 I think the character did that ________ because
________.
 Even though many people thought that the cause was
________, I believe it was ________.
 Each ________ played a key role. First, ________ did
________. Then, ________ did ________.
 Teacher candidates must reflect on how
language is used for a range of purposes in their
lessons.
Premises
Restated
 Teacher candidates need to identify the
essential academic language purpose/genre
required of students in order for them to access
texts and express their developing
understanding of the newly learned content.
 Students must be provided with opportunities
to use and practice the new language in order
to develop fluency.
Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity
Focus of
edTPA
Assessment
 A meaningful chunk of instruction around a big
idea or essential question for the students in the
class
 Support for both content and academic
language development
 Strategies and materials tailored to the students
in the class
 Pre-Service Teachers are asked to:
Academic
Language—
edTPA
 Select one key language function essential for students to
learn within the central focus.
 Identify a key learning task from plans that provide students
opportunities to practice using the language function.
 Language Demands (consider language function & task)
describe the language demands (written or oral) students
need to understand and/or use.
 Vocabulary
 Syntax
 Discourse
 Language Supports: Describe instructional supports that will
help students understand and use language function &
additional language demands.
 Assessments: What formal and informal assessments will
provide evidence of students’ understanding and fluency?
TPA Glossary: Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity
Discourse—
Elementary
Mathematics
 Discourse: Structures or ways of organizing oral or
written language to serve a particular function
within each subject area.
 In mathematics, language forms include
 symbolic representations such as numbers, equations,
and two-column proofs (which can be translated into
words),
 tables and graphs (which are shorthand language for
summarizing complex sets of data),
 and narrative (e.g., explanations of problem
solutions).
 If the function is to compare, then appropriate language
forms could include Venn diagrams or pattern sentences
like “The _____ is longer/larger/heavier than the ______.”
 If the function is to explain, then students might use
sentence starters like “First, I…”, “Then I…” to structure the
explanation, and use “Finally I…” to signal the conclusion.
TPA Glossary: Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity
 Language Functions: The function is the purpose the
language is intended to achieve in the learning task.
Language
Functions—
Math
 Functions are associated with verbs found in learning
outcome statements.
 Common language functions in mathematics include










describing mathematical phenomena,
predicting from models and data,
comparing based on common attributes,
summarizing mathematical information,
justifying conclusions,
evaluating data and mathematical representations,
classifying based on attributes,
explaining phenomena and processes,
drawing conclusions based on data,
representing mathematical information and mathematical
models, etc.
TPA Glossary: Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity
Discourse—
English
 Discourse: Structures or ways of organizing oral or
written language serve a particular function within
each subject area.
 In English-language arts, language forms include
 expository, narrative, poetic, theatric, journalistic,
film, and graphic print materials;
 video and live presentations.
 Language forms can be at the sentence level,
paragraph or genre level. If the function is to
interpret character development, then appropriate
language forms could include literacy essays or a set
of sentence frames like “The author used (action,
dialogue, and/or description) to introduce (main
character). One example of (action, dialogue, and/or
description) was ________, which suggested that the
character was __________.”
TPA Glossary: Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity
 Language Functions: The function is the purpose the
language is intended to achieve in the learning task.
Language
Functions—
English
 Functions are associated with verbs found in learning
outcome statements.
 Common language functions in the language arts include:




reading/listening for main ideas and details;
analyzing and interpreting characters and plots;
writing narrative, informational, or poetic text;
using presentation skills to present a play, a speech, or do a
dramatic reading;
 evaluating and interpreting an author’s purpose, message,
and use of language choice, setting, mood, tone, and other
literary strategies;
 comparing ideas within and between texts,
 making sense of unfamiliar vocabulary through pictures,
word parts, and contextual clues.
TPA Glossary: Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity