Academic Language function

Seek
Information: observe and explore, acquire information; inquire

Inform: identify, report, or describe information

Compare: describe similarities and differences in objects or ideas

Order: sequence objects, ideas, or events

Classify: group objects or ideas according to their characteristics

Analyze: separate whole into parts; identify relationships and patterns

Describe parts, feature or main ideas of information presented

Describing organizing principles, explain why A is an example but B is not

Describe/make a timeline continuum, cycle, or narrative sequence

Use who, what, when, where, and how to gather information

Recount information presented by teacher or text, retell a story or personal

Make/explain a graphic organizer to show difference and similarity

Language function and form

Oral language: giving instructions, making requests, defending an argument

Language function: refers to what students do with language as they engage with content and interact with others.

Language form: deals with the internal grammatical structure of words and phrases as well as the word themselves.

Academic writing: describing processes, comparing or contrasting things or ideas, classifying objects or ideas

also includes cross curricular academic vocabulary-words or phrases

Language functions examples

expressing needs or like

describing people, places, and things

describing actions

making claims

comparing/contrasting

persuading/defending/analyzing

defining/explaining

describing cause and effect/ hypothesizing and speculating

Language form examples

indirect/direct objects, subject/verb

nouns, pronouns, adjectives

prepositional phrases

verbs and verb phrases in questions

adjectives and conjunctions

verb forms

comparative adjectives

Teaching grammar for communicative competence

Communicative grammar lesson: gives students the opportunity to practice the target grammar item through specific communicative tasks and activities

Communicative task: should provide students the opportunity to use language to communicate

In a large class, a teacher might not be able to do an entire communicative lesson but might be able to do one or two interactive activities

focuses on speaking activities but writing activities plays an important and valid way to practice

games, role plays, and discussion activities

English clubs may help

this may help with communicative practice which involves poetry contests or singing competitions

Sentence level grammar: refers to parts of speech, tenses, phrases, clauses, and word order. While grammar instruction might start with sentence level instruction, it should also incorporate grammar in context

When teaching grammar in context, its important to consider students proficiency levels as well as their previous experience with the target grammar item

Consciousness-raising means making students aware of the properties of a certain grammatical feature by highlighting them or helping students to notice them in some way

Infer: make inferences; predict implications; hypothesis

Justify and persuade: give reasons for an action, decision, point of view, be convincing

Solve problems: define and represen a problem; determine solution

Synthesize: combine or integrate ideas to form a new whole

Evaluate: assess and verify the worth of an object, idea, or decision

bringing a focuses on grammar

Explicit versus Implicit

explicitly teaching grammar forms can help lead to better acquisition of the forms

Salience

Language learners will focus on the pieces of language that provide meaning (lexis) before they will focus on the grammatical aspects of words or sentences

refers to how noticeable something is in the input.

Noticing

This theory is related to the idea of salience, in that Schmidt posited that in order for a learner to acquire a new language form, the learner must first notice that form in the input

t is wise to begin by helping learners to notice the forms

Input Flood

helping students notice a language feature is to raise the number of times the feature appears in the learner’s input

When we manipulate a text that our students are reading or the oral input that we are giving our students so that a targeted form appears more frequently, this is called an input flood

Noticing and Awareness Activities

Input enhancement or textual enhancement is an instructional strategy in which a teacher bolds, highlights, or changes the text of the targeted form in some way to make it more noticeable

can also enhance input given orally by adding stress to or pauses around a targeted feature

Practice

it is important to include activities that ask students to practice producing the form. Practice activities should become more complex and communicative as you move through the unit

Fitting It In

If the grammar form you are working on is focused mostly on complexity—that is, forms that help students build longer, more precise sentences such as participial phrases, embedded clauses, or complex sentences joined with a subordinating conjunction—these are likely forms that all students in the class could benefit from examining

Revisit, Review, and Reenter

Learners need multiple encounters with words and forms before they internalize them