Social Studies and Academic Language

Yeah. Hello and thank you for looking and watching at

our presentation.

My name is ERic Alva and uh we are discussing

Today academic language and specifically how it deals with social

studies in history.

Decided to record this outdoors today considering it is a

nice, beautiful, lovely cloudy day today.

Not too hot.

Um so just kind of bear with me on the

lighting process.

And as I had alluded to, we are looking at

specifically how academic language goes with social studies and history.

Luckily for me I've had quite a few years of

experience with social studies, so this is pretty much right

up my alley.

Uh we were also uh well I should say that

in this group we had Galatea and Helen, even though

it's just me doing the presentation, we all contributed just

so that way if you're not too sure everybody did

their part in this project.

So I just want to make sure we we get

that. Okay, so as a general introduction into academic language,

what we're looking at is everything when it comes to

communication. Okay, We're looking at verbal communication throughout this process.

We're looking at written, uh, when it comes to academic,

we're looking at uh, in addition to the verbal, in

in addition to the writing process, we're looking at the

listening as well, what we hear.

So academic language is more or less the idea of

how we can be successful academically when it comes to

what we read, what we see and how we're speaking.

So there's been points of emphasis where we might not

necessarily say however, or therefore when we're speaking to others

and social aspects, but it is that language that we

would need to understand and be able to use as

well in order to succeed academically in our school settings,

whether we're students or educators.

Okay, so understanding the content and how to show that

we understand the content with language basically across the board,

regardless of content.

Okay, now, when it comes to specifically with social studies,

I want to focus more or less on the first

bullet point, the first topic, which deals with textbooks.

And so as a ap history teacher for us and

world I've seen for myself, just how much the text

books can be a challenge to students who are barely

developing their language skills.

There is no tied uh qualifications when it comes to

a p.

So any student can basically take the class.

And so we get all sorts of different types of

students and some of them are maybe their first year

or second year or third year with learning the language

and they get thrown into these classes.

And it's kind of like a rude awakening because they're

reading textbooks that are designed uh, more or less for

like college.

And so when they read these textbooks, they get a

little discouraged because of the material that's in there, and

how much of the material is in there.

And so one of the issues that we come across

as well when it comes to academic language and social

studies is we just assume like, okay, you know what,

if you understand its vocabulary term, uh you know, you

can understand what it looks like, that's good enough, but

we don't want just that it has to go more

than just vocabulary when it comes to academic language.

Mhm. Which we will get into a jazz attack.

Okay, And then the second bullet point is something here

that I wanted to look at, students are expected to

understand complex text on a higher level.

And so again, that ties into the textbook aspect with

social studies.

Okay. Because almost every subject is going to have some

sort of required reading and these can definitely be challenges

for some of the students because they're reading material.

That is tough just for the average student at that

grade level.

Uh, and then the third bullet points, so patterns and

history text chosen by the authors are assumed not explain.

And that's another good point as well.

We expect students to read something and to be able

to understand it, but sometimes that's not always the case.

Okay. So we got to be very, very careful when

it comes to how we assign these types of readings.

Uh, typically something a little bit smaller, uh, passages would

be a good start as well, which has to do

with our following slide as well.

Yes. Okay.

So specific strategies, talking about history.

Fantastic, fantastic way to develop academic language.

Now, what we've been talking about history, this could be

like a think para share where you're with a partner.

This could be in small group settings and this could

be in large classroom discussions.

Okay, so ideally you're doing all of them.

Uh, and those would be some really good ways to

start off with engaging with artifacts.

I personally have done assignments before where my students are

to build models.

So like the industrial revolution as an example, they would

have to build it and sell it like if they

were on shark tank.

And so the final products, whether it was like an

electric chair of roller coaster, the refrigerator, the automobile, we're

really good.

Were really good and they have to go up there

in front of their peers, Their judges there sharks if

you will and they have to present them and know

the information behind it.

Okay. So I think those would be something that we

should consider as well, exploring new concepts.

Okay, again, that could be something that's related to um

having to sell something like how we were doing with

that, that type of project creating a timeline, managing cooperative

group roles, interpreting maps and graphs.

So for academic language, what we're trying to stress is,

yes, we it's okay for students who know the vocabulary,

but we also want them to do history.

Okay. We want them to learn to talk and to

do it.

Okay, create a map research, discuss these things.

Okay, so they're not just writing things down from a

textbook the whole time.

They're actually practicing history.

Mhm. Mhm.

And visually this is what we would be talking about.

So the picture on the top left would be an

example of small group discussions.

Okay. Just a few students at the time sharing some

ideas. There's so many different examples.

You could do, like a hypothesis of a topic and

the students are using evidence to try to prove their

hypothesis correct or maybe adjust it.

And in their small groups they are discussing these the

content of what they're reading and what they're looking at.

We have cooperative groups in the top hand, right?

So this could be in terms of project based learning,

Okay. Where students need to get together and come up

with a plan and an idea of what they're trying

to do with their project, basically what we just did

with this project.

Okay. And everybody else as well.

That would be an example right there.

Bottom left debates, debates.

Fantastic way.

They have to research.

They have to write out a plan a speech.

They have to counter their argument.

Okay, so they're writing, they're reading their thinking and they

are speaking fantastic, basically.

It's everything that we're looking for.

And then here in the bottom right, we're looking at

a timeline example.

Okay, so, again, all of these examples visually practicing history

by doing history by doing something, writing and reading thinking.

Speaking all of these are fantastic examples.

Hopefully you enjoyed the presentation, of course, uh, if you

have any questions, feel free to contact us again, it

was me Valeria and Helen.

I hope you enjoyed it.

And thank you very much for watching.

Social Studies and Academic Language

Chapters

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