In K‐12 contexts, the teaching of English language learners (ELLs) has been greatly influenced by the theory and practice of content‐based instruction (CBI). A focus on content can help students achieve grade‐level standards in school subjects while they develop English proficiency, but CBI practices have focused primarily on vocabulary and the use of graphic organizers along with cooperative learning activities. This article reports the results of a project intended to enhance CBI through activities that focus on the role of language in constructing knowledge. The strategies we present are based on identification and analysis of the challenges presented by grade‐level textbooks in middle school history classrooms. By engaging in functional linguistic analysis, ELLs and their teachers can deconstruct the language of their textbooks, enabling students to develop academic language by focusing on the meaning‐making potential of the historian's language choices.
This article examines how local norms for Spanish use in a multilingual Southwest Texas border setting respond to and contest dominant monolingual ideologies. The analysis focuses on notions of what languages are legitimate for use in the public sphere in this community and on the benefits of engaging in particular communicative practices. The corpus analyzed comes from interviews with key members of the university (president, program director, professor) and from newspaper articles published in the local newspaper. The article shows how institutional actors from the media and education contest dominant monolingual language ideologies by situating these views historically and connecting them to key conceptual metaphors that encapsulate language ideologies. In doing so, these institutional actors challenge national ideologies that construct monolingualism and standard 'English' as the natural and only option connected to social and economic success, offering Spanish and bilingualism as legitimate alternatives.
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