We can Address Language Through Content in ALL Areas for ALL Learners!

In my new role as instructional coach at South and North High School, I have been lucky enough to get into many classrooms and learn about content that I never had much success with in high school. I have sat in on Chemistry, Physics, Algebra, AP Economics among many others. You may be able to conclude that math and science were the challenging classes for me in high school.

I have seen a lot of great teaching happening at the high school level this year. It has been enlightening to learn about new content and see the expertise teachers have in order to deliver this subject matter. However, I still believe that we can do more to support ALLs (academic language learners).  I would like to remind everyone the idea that we are all "academic language learners" and the practices that support language in our classrooms not only support emerging bilinguals, but also support ALL learners.  I encourage you to read this blog that I wrote a little over a year ago as a reminder. I know that from my recent experiences in classrooms, my language still needs to be supported in order to be successful in my most challenging subject areas of math and science.

Examples of Addressing ALLs in the Field

This is an example from South High School in Mr. Ramthun's class. His students used the collaborative strategy of Carousel Brainstorming to help one another understand complex equations in AP Physics.

North High School's science department has taken on the task of systematizing language supports by creating their own language functions tool in their PLC. They plan to use this tool that includes high level questioning, key language, and sentence frames around language functions to support ALL learners in their science classes.

         

Here is one example from Lowell Elementary that I ran into this week and excited me! Last year I worked with Mr. Stigler (Physical Education Teacher). As part of his new teacher training last year he learned about ideas to support ALLs. He applied his new learning to his area of expertise, physical education. I was more than excited when I showed up to Lowell on Wednesday and he said, "Look what I did to support ALL learners in my class!" Then he showed me this word wall! 

Keep up the good work out there! We can address language through content in ALL areas for ALL Learners!