KEYS to Teaching Success: Academic Language for Teachers

Who Are the Teachers?

      Before we dig into this section, let's first clarify what we mean by the term teachers. You, the reader, might be enrolled as a student in an undergraduate or graduate teacher preparation program. Or you might be enrolled in an alternative preparation program. Because you're not yet certified as a teacher, you might consider yourself a student, and you would be correct. However, when the sections of KEYS to Teaching Success refer to students, they're referring to those young people enrolled in K-12 schools, the ones you're training to teach.

     You, in the perspective of this resource, would be considered a teacher or a teacher candidate.

      Teacher candidates operate in a transitional space. They're expected to demonstrate professional behaviors and have professional knowledge, but because they are still training to be teachers, they're also students. So their academic language expectations are more advanced than the language they teach their K-12 students. Teacher candidates must demonstrate--in spoken, written and nonverbal forms--three different types of academic language.

The Language of Learning

      Beck, McKeown & Kucan (2013) classify this kind of language as Tier 2 terms, or the terms that refer to learning in general.  In "Academic Language for K-12 Students," we listed some examples, such as summary, plagiarism, analysis and multiple choice. Teacher candidates, of course, must also know those terms, but they must also demonstrate mastery of the discourse of learning. For instance, they must be able to discuss differences between quoting and paraphrasing in such a way to help students understand that changing one or two words from a quotation is not the same thing as paraphrasing. Or they must be able to answer questions about small-group work and how studying in groups is not the same thing as cheating on a test. Teacher candidates, then, must be able to use language in such a way to teach those language uses, a kind of knowledge Lee Shulman (1986) refers to as pedagogical content knowledge.

The Language of Your Discipline 

      Also known as Tier 3 terms (Beck, McKeown & Kucan, 2013), these terms reflect expertise in specific content areas. In mathematics, that language would include integers, functions, exponents and parabola. In social sciences, that language would include words like gross domestic product, free enterprise, bicameral government and Spanish Inquisition. Teachers in elementary and middle grades often use Tier 3 terms from multiple disciplines. The language of the discipline, though, means more than the definitions of words. It means knowing the discourse of your discipline, that specialized use of language that reveals not only your expertise in your subject matter, but also your membership in a community of similar experts.

      For example, in a classroom a student might ask the teacher, "Is there a text in this class," and the student might mean, "Have you required me to use a specific textbook in this class?" But if one English teacher asked the same question to another English teacher, they  might be referring to an important research publication written by reader-response theorist Stanley Fish (1982). Those nuances of language are discourse. As teachers develop their mastery of discourse, they also refine their pedagogical content knowledge. Competence in using the discourse of your discipline makes you more effective in teaching that subject matter to students.

The Language of the Profession 

      This language exists in a tier of its own, and this is the language we'll focus on in this chapter. Students don't need to know these words or this discourse, but teachers do (and so do teacher candidates). This specific language reveals our knowledge of planning, curriculum design, instruction, assessment and professional development. As with the previous two types of language, teachers need to know the important terms of the profession, but they must also know how to explain them, question them, discuss them with other teachers and reflect on them to enhance their knowledge of their field. In short, they  must know the discourse.

      Here's an example of how you would use--and adjust--your academic language, depending on your context. Let's say at least twice a week you end the class by asking students to complete an exit ticket. You have a student named Stan who questions the purpose of those quick formative assessments. Here are some examples of how you might answer his questions as well as those from his parents and your colleagues:

      Stan and his father are less familiar with your professional discourse. If you had answered Stan's question with details about student learning data, summative assessments and remediation, he might have shaken his head silently and walked away. Stan's father might have understood those terms a little better, but because he isn't familiar with educational theory, he seems to equate learning with grades (as parents often do). His question indicates that he didn't fully understand the rationale for designing curriculum the way you did, so it makes sense to answer his questions with fewer technical terms. The department chair, however, is part of the teacher community. She understands the discourse of instruction, the discourse of student learning. You could use those technical terms in a teacher-teacher conversation and feel confident that you would be understood.

      Because you are straddling the boundary between student and teacher, you are expected to practice your professional language, reflect on it, and continue practicing it. Just as your students will develop the discourse of learning and their subject matter, you will develop your discourse of the teaching profession. For now, though, Georgia standards for teacher performance require that you demonstrate your use of that language.

     Your administrators or supervisors will assess your mastery of academic language. In a classroom setting, you’ll use your Tier 2 and Tier 3 languages as you instruct students. Between classes and during planning periods and professional development meetings, you’ll use your professional discourse in conversations with supervisors and other school personnel. Your administrators or supervisors, on the other hand, might have to document your use of the discourse. You can show that mastery in two primary ways:

Lesson Plans

      Different teacher-education programs use different lesson plan templates, but they're usually designed in such a way for you to show alignment across standards, objectives, activities and assessments. They might require you to identify where you incorporate differentiated instruction or assessments. They likely include space for you to explain how you are accommodating students with disabilities or English language learners. In short, lesson plan forms are designed in such a way for you to use your professional and academic language.

      For instance, many teachers (and teacher candidates) abbreviate in their lesson plans, using the acronym SWBAT (often pronounced swuh-BAHT) to mean students will be able to. If Stan’s father read your lesson plan, he might think you don’t know how to spell! But that acronym is a small example of how teacherly language has its own system (also known as syntax). More significantly, your lesson plan might include phrases such as 504 plans or IEPs. In addition to using those individual terms, your lesson plans must use them correctly, precisely, to indicate that you “get” the customs of the profession. 

• When your objectives emphasize observable, demonstrable verbs, you reveal not only that you understand what students should be able to do, but also that the learning goal can be assessed.
• When your procedures include students' work with identifying examples and then later evaluating samples, you reveal that students should be working at lower and higher thinking levels. In fact, your lesson plan might refer to specific thinking levels of Bloom's Taxonomy or Depth of Knowledge Scale.
• When your plan explains how you have organized students into small groups (by skill level or by topic choice) you indicate your understanding of flexible grouping.

In these ways and others, your teaching documents, such as lesson plans, have the teaching discourse inherent within them. And while the ultimate purpose of a lesson plan is to guide you (and an evaluator) through your instruction, your plan is also a way to demonstrate the discourse of your profession. Your supervisors (and school administrators) can tell much about your understanding of your field based on how well you have used the language. 

Reflections

      Georgia standards for teacher effectiveness also require that teachers engage in reflective activity and that they participate in professional growth opportunities. Written and spoken reflections enable you to use your communications skills while also allowing you to engage in those valuable self-assessment and professional growth activities. Through your reflections, then, you are double dipping into the ways you meet teacher standards.

     When you meet with your supervisors, or submit written reflections to them, they probably give you feedback on your work. That feedback, then, rolls out a chain of interactions that helps you elaborate on your instructional choices, identify and explain your instructional strengths and point out areas where your instruction needs improvement. As Grant Wiggins (2006) says, “No one ever mastered a complicated idea or skill the first–or fifth–time. To reach any genuine standard, we need lots of trials and errors and adjustments based on feedback.” Your teaching reflections provide those opportunities while at the same time providing opportunities to practice your use of teacher discourse.

     As we strengthen our use of professional discourse, we also strengthen our use of Tier 2 and Tier 3 discourse. Of course, good teaching heavily relies on skilled communication. Our strong language skills enable us to ask clearer questions, offer clearer guidance, create more effective instructional materials, and design valid assessments. Moreover, as we strengthen our use of professional discourse, we become better at advocating for ourselves, for our colleagues and for our students.

     Our academic language skills, then, do more than demonstrate that we know the right words and concepts. They enable us to leverage our strengths to make schools more effective.

     According to John Dewey (2011), we organize, make meaning of and express our thoughts through language. Whether in speaking or in writing, our reflections are our uses of language to practice and make sense of our professional discourse. Our teaching plans and instructional materials are our uses of language to show students how they can also practice and make sense of the learning context. Just as you show your students how to use language to show (and sharpen) their critical thinking, you will use your language to show (and sharpen) your own.