Unpacking the Language Purpose: Vocabulary, Structure, and Function

Abstract

Although learning objectives are a hallmark of lesson planning, it is rare for these to be shared with learners, even though best practices suggest doing so. This article examines the practice of establishing purpose for English language learners as a means for developing conceptual schemas. Participants in this study were 332 southern California K‐12 teachers who submitted 500 examples of the language purposes they used with students. The authors analyzed these surveys and identified the predominant language purpose forms as those that featured vocabulary, language structure, and language function demands. Implications and future lines of research are discussed.

Content area teachers’ challenges writing language objectives: A document analysis

“…The other targets included verb tenses, wh ‐questions, paragraph writing, one contraction, and one conjunction. These findings are similar to the studies reviewed above (Baecher et al, 2014; Fisher & Frey, 2010; Ranney, 2012) that underscored teachers’ tendency to overemphasize vocabulary over other structures in LOs. For example, one of the objectives that focused on vocabulary for a language target was “Your job today is to match 10 pictures of actions ( cut , pour , add , beat , stand , stir , place , fill , top, and refrigerate ) to their vocabulary word.” This objective for a Level 1 student has the specific vocabulary listed as a language target, a support (pictures), a language function (match), and content connection (recipe reading was a main part of the content objective).…”

“…Fisher and Frey (2010) also found that teachers were including activities in their LOs instead of language learning goals. Some of the teachers in their study explained that they would do this because they were trying to go along with the administrative expectation to have a language goal but did not understand how to construct a purpose statement.…”

“…When a grammar focus was integrated into an LO, verb tenses, adjectives, transition words, parts of speech, and sentence structures were most common. Fisher and Frey (2010) also found that content teachers in a variety of K–12 school contexts in California were focused more on vocabulary than on language forms and functions. When language structures were present, they included only complete sentences, plurals, subject/verb agreement, verb tenses, articles, idioms, and figurative language.…”

The challenges of planning language objectives in content-based ESL instruction

“…These in turn relate to contextual influences, such as whether the instruction takes place in a single period of language instruction or as part of a total immersion program, and if the target language is learned in a highly scripted grammatical model or a content-based environment. Teachers who are focused on the content learning of students may neglect to attend to language form, letting errors go uncorrected and placing their emphasis on meaning rather than accuracy, while teachers who are oriented towards teaching language may provide much in the way of feedback to error and attention to language instruction, but struggle to situate this language in rich content learning (Cammarata, 2009;Fisher & Frey, 2010;Long, 2007). As Lyster (2007) sums up, 'content-based instruction that only alludes to language incidentally falls short of full-fledged integration, and decontextualized grammar instruction, by definition, precludes integration' (p. 26).…”

A Proposed Pedagogical Approach for Preparing Teacher Candidates to Incorporate (Academic) Language

“…o Conceptualizing Academic Language (Solomon & Rhodes, 1995) o "The Language of Mathematics": Towards a Critical Analysis of Mathematics Texts (Morgan, 1996) o Learning Mathematics Vocabulary: Potential Pitfalls and Instructional Strategies (Thompson & Rubenstein, 2000) o Word, Definitions, and Concepts in Discourses of Mathematics, Teaching, and Learning (Morgan, 2005) o Examining Mathematical Discourse Practices (Moschkovich, 2007) o Let's Talk: Promoting Mathematical Discourse in the Classroom (Stein, 2007) o The Language and Grammar of Mathematics (pp.8-16) in The Princeton Companion to Mathematics (Gowers, Barrow-Green, & Leader, 2008) o Unpacking the Language Purpose: Vocabulary, Structure, and Function (Fisher & Frey, 2010) o Although we are committed to preparing our PSTs to be successful with any performance assessments, it is important to have a balanced perspective and make informed instructional decisions in teacher preparation programs. In particular, we have some concerns regarding the ways edTPA incorporates academic language.…”