Secondary Teachers' Reflections From a Year of Professional Learning Related to Academic Language

Abstract

This article explores the changing beliefs and practices of 25 secondary teachers participating in a yearlong professional learning (PL) partnership. To demonstrate differences in teachers' approaches to and understandings resulting from that PL, the authors looked more closely at three teachers and found that their ideas about academic language instruction and their related pedagogy progressed in ways that were consistent with the stated PL objectives. However, the teachers varied in the way they situated the learning within their practice. The cases presented highlight the aspects of PL that resonated most with the teachers participating in the yearlong initiative.

Preparing secondary teacher candidates to teach academic English

“…As Carter et al (2016) and Townsend (2015) found, the ability to identify features of AE does not necessarily lead to teaching AE. Based on the descriptions of the planning and teaching processes of these four TCs, it became clear that the training session had some impact on TCs' ability to identify features of AE but did not necessarily lead to the TCs actually teaching features of AE in their content area lesson.…”

“…Studies in which in-service and pre-service teachers have been trained to look at, rather than through, language (deJong & Harper, 2005) and identify the features of AE that are present have found some evidence that participants can be taught to analyze the language of the classroom and discipline. Carter et al (2016) designed a year-long professional learning opportunity in which 25 secondary teachers engaged in learning to identify and teach features of AE in their own content-specific materials and lessons. Exit surveys and classroom observations showed that teachers seemed to gain knowledge about the concept of AE, broadening their definitions to include both content-specific and general language features, and that participants planned more targeted instruction in academic vocabulary in their content area lessons (Carter et al, 2016).…”

“…Carter et al (2016) designed a year-long professional learning opportunity in which 25 secondary teachers engaged in learning to identify and teach features of AE in their own content-specific materials and lessons. Exit surveys and classroom observations showed that teachers seemed to gain knowledge about the concept of AE, broadening their definitions to include both content-specific and general language features, and that participants planned more targeted instruction in academic vocabulary in their content area lessons (Carter et al, 2016). However, knowledge of AE goes beyond learning content-specific vocabulary (Jensen & Thompson, 2020).…”

Exploring teacher and student knowledge of sentence‐level language features

“…However, teachers rarely have the time to engage in the PL necessary to build knowledge of academic language, including academic sentence‐level features (Wong Fillmore & Snow, 2018). When given the time and opportunities to develop their own metalinguistic awareness, teachers can better support students' language and literacy development (Carter et al, 2016; McCutchen et al, 2002; Moats, 2009).…”

Word Sorts to Encourage Mathematics Discussions

“…Her research interests include at-risk student populations, culturally responsive pedagogy, content area literacy instruction, disciplinary literacy instruction, and multisensory teaching of literacy skills. vocabulary (Carter et al 2016;Larson and Rumsey 2018;Makar and Allmond 2018;Joseph Picot 2017).…”