Integrating Academic Language and

ELL Instructional Needs into Opportunity To Learn

Measures

Christy Kim Boscardin & Barbara Jones

Zenaida Aguirre-Muñoz

CRESST Conference 2005

UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information StudiesCenter for the Study of Evaluation

National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing

Background

Focus on Academic Language

• Analysis of student writing

• Background on academic language

• Functional Linguistic Approach

Functional Linguistics

Serving dual purposes

• Building teacher capacity

• Impact on student writing

Defining academic language within Functional Linguistics Framework

• Provides general framework for examining language

• Examines discourse patterns associated with the context and genre of writing

ELL Sensitive Instruction

Sheltered Content Instruction

Scaffolded Instruction

Instructional Conversations

Extended Discourse

Teacher Expertise & Experience

1. Preparation and Training

2. Years teaching

3. Knowledge of content & associated academic language

Content Exposure

1. Content & Language Objectives

2. Content Coverage (e.g., literary analysis)

3. Academic Language (e.g., field, tenor, mode)

Access & Development1. Delivery Format

2. ELL Process Strategies (e.g., scaffolded, direct, an individualized instruction)

3. Second Language Acquisition (e.g., modified input, rate of speech)

4. Feedback & Assessment

ELL OTL Indicators

Current Study

What is the impact of academic language and other OTL indicators on ELL and non-ELL language arts performance?

Teacher Training:

• 4 day workshop

• 2 day follow-up training

Sample:

• 32 teachers – 21 trained

• 1,606 middle school students – about 50% ELLs

Method

Instruments

LAPA

Survey

Classroom Observations

Teacher Interviews

Capturing OTL in Classrooms

Content Coverage: Academic Language• Teachers with knowledge of academic language structures,

specifically functional grammar, were better able to identify and articulate areas of instructional need and more likely to provide detailed instructional plans to address these needs.

Content Coverage: Literary Analysis & Writing Process• A great majority of teachers conducted instruction on literary

analysis after reading text, and utilized a process oriented approach to writing.

Capturing OTL in Classrooms

Access & Development: Delivery Format • Direct instruction appeared to be the preferred method

of delivery with whole group instruction as the most frequently used process strategy.

Access & Development: ELL Process Strategies

• Most teachers indicated that they scaffolded instruction using techniques such as think alouds and procedural scaffolding thru explicit teaching, graphic displays (organizers and visuals), and modeling.

Capturing OTL in Classrooms

Access & Development: Second Language Acquisition

• Few teachers indicated the use of second language acquisition strategies, though modified speech was the most regularly observed.

Access & Development: Feedback & Assessment (operationalized as instruction during the LAPA)

• Non-trained teachers mainly indicated instructing students on surface qualities of writing.

• Approximately two thirds of the trained teachers provided more systematic and in-depth support, especially regarding functional grammar.

OTL and Student Performance

Positive effect of functional grammar implementation

Gender difference

Proportion of ELL negatively associated with outcome

No achievement gap between ELL & EO

Conclusions

Academic Language (ELL content coverage)

General Process Strategies

ELL Process Strategies

Assessment Practices & Preparation

Discussion

Academic Language in other content areas

Triangulation

Development of ELL sensitive OTL measures

Performance Assessment Prompt

In a work of literature, a heroic character is often someone with extraordinary courage or ability who performs noble deeds or makes sacrifices. However, an ordinary person who faces extraordinary challenges can also be a heroic character.

Select a heroic character from a literary work you have read in class this year. Using specific details from the text, explain why you think this character is heroic. Some of the things you can write about are the character’s:

• physical and personality traits

• impact on the story

• thoughts and motivations

• actions and relationships with other characters

INSTRUMENTS

Teacher OTL Survey

teacher content expertise

standard content coverage

ELL content coverage

ELL process strategies,

classroom assessment practices

INSTRUMENTS

Building Background

Comprehensible Input

Strategies

Interaction

Practice/application

Lesson Delivery

Classroom Observation

INSTRUMENTS

Interview Protocol

Teacher background

Implementations status of academic language

ELL specific processes

INSTRUMENTS

Functional Grammar Implementation

Insert graph here

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

0 1 2 3

Functional Grammar Implementation

Prob

OTL & STDT PERF