Language and school

The language used in classrooms and by teachers has special characteristics that are not found in everyday speech. Effective teachers learn to observe the classroom language environment and make changes in it to provide the best curriculum learning and language learning environment for their students.

Interaction between students is a powerful source of language learning. Teachers can organise the interactions in their classes to provide favourable conditions for bilingual Pasifika students. This includes maximising opportunities for them to use their Pasifika languages in their learning.

You may have heard of BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills) and CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) or ALP. The researcher Jim Cummins devised these terms to describe the differences between ordinary conversational ability (BICS) and the language of educational achievement – Academic Language Proficiency (ALP) . Academic language is the new language all students have to be taught at school so that they succeed in learning, particularly in such learning tasks as reading curriculum material, discussing it, and writing about it. To develop students’ academic language effectively, teachers need to know how to talk about language and how to teach vocabulary and language skills.