Abstract
We present a case study of a 10th grade teacher with extensive Teacher Language Awareness (TLA) training as she guides students through a unit on density. The setting for the study is a Newcomer High School whose student body is made up of a range of English learners (ELs) from different countries, whose levels of English language proficiency range from low-beginner to intermediate. The aim of the case study is to examine the way in which the teacher and students develop scientific language and make intertextual linkages across activities as they engage in a process of appropriation of scientific knowledge and discourse. We further examine the relationship between the teacher’s strategies and the EL students’ subsequent abilities to provide explanations, a type of discourse practice that relies heavily on the ability to employ scientific discourse. Our findings suggest that a focus on teachers’ awareness of language in conjunction with their understanding of academic content are key to supporting the academic development of ELs in content area classrooms.
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Notes
- 1.
Solis (Chapter “Adaptation and the Language of Learning Science in a Bilingual Classroom”) draws attention to how 3rd grade bilingual students engage familiar intertextual link as they discuss academic science topics like reptile organisms.
- 2.
See Barwell (Chapter “Mathematical Texts, Alterity and the Expropriation of Mathematical Discourse in Second Language Mathematics Classrooms”) for further discussion of meanings ‘populated by intentions,’ a key concept related to intertextuality.
- 3.
A contrasting outcome, also explored in the literature is that such focused attention to disciplinary literacy may lead to rote learning and/or plagiarism without understanding of concepts, that is, intertextuality without appropriation, (See for example Davis and Morley 2015; Plakans and Gebril 2012; Polio and Shi 2012 on intertextuality and second language writing). See also Solis (Chapter “Adaptation and the Language of Learning Science in a Bilingual Classroom”) and his discussion of adaptations, and Ginsberg (Chapter “Learner Agency and Academic Discourse in a Sheltered-Immersion Mathematics Class”) on agency versus rote, routinized activities.
- 4.
The name of the school, teachers and students are pseudonyms.
- 5.
Newcomer schools are the sites of special academic programs designed for recent late-arrival immigrants in U.S. secondary schools with the primary aim of facilitating their transition to American public school and reducing underachievement (Boyson and Short 2012).
- 6.
See Lindahl et al. (2013) for an elaboration of types of information associated with the three domains and approaches to mastering them in content-based instruction settings. Note that the PD was provided by a team of researchers that did not include the authors of this paper. We are withholding the name of the research team in order to protect the anonymity of the school, teachers, and students.
- 7.
Note: If the density of aluminum is greater than the water it displaces, it will sink. However, if the density of aluminum is less than the water it displaces it will float. So, the question centers on the nature of the aluminum in terms of its mass and volume that together will determine its density. In simpler terms, a ball of aluminum is more likely to sink, while a sheet is more likely to float. In the simulation, they are looking at material in block form.
- 8.
Solis (Chapter “Adaptation and the Language of Learning Science in a Bilingual Classroom”) discusses how practices of repetition in learning activity are ways to understand socialization of cultural and linguistic norms citing Moore (2011).
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Ms. Earl and all of her students at the Newcomer School of America for allowing us into their classroom to observe and learn. We are also grateful for the helpful comments on an earlier draft of the paper from the WLW group.
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Hansen-Thomas, H., Langman, J. (2017). Developing Oral Science Explanations: Secondary School ELs’ Experimentation with Intertextual Linkages. In: Langman, J., Hansen-Thomas, H. (eds) Discourse Analytic Perspectives on STEM Education. Educational Linguistics, vol 32. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55116-6_9
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