The Grammar of History: Enhancing Content-Based Instruction through a Functional Focus on Language

Abstract

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.

The Challenge of Academic Language

“…Research-based pedagogical approaches to teaching academic-language skills within specific disciplines or genres are starting to emerge (Lemke, 1990;Schleppegrell, Achugar, & Oteiza, 2004). For instance, content-based instruction (CBI) is a pedagogy for English as a Second Language that integrates language and content-area knowledge with the purpose of improving both dimensions within specific disciplines (Schleppegrell & de Oliveira, forthcoming).…”

The Quality of Writing Tasks and Students’ Use of Academic Language in Spanish

“…Although the use and prominence of certain linguistic features can vary by discipline (e.g., Achugar & Schleppegrell, 2005;Schleppegrell et al, 2004), many of the linguistic features that enable communication of complex information and abstract ideas are common across a range of academic texts in multiple disciplines.…”

Content-based language teaching: Convergent concerns across divergent contexts

“…To do so, they draw on Systemic Functional Linguistics, which has proven useful for studying academic language development through its emphasis on how linguistic features of disciplinary texts construe particular kinds of meanings (e.g. Schleppegrell et al, 2004). Their longitudinal study of texts written by the same group of students in history classes over a four-year period examined text coherence through detailed analyses of the structure of noun phrases and their recoverability via various referential elements.…”