Course Details

Everything we do in classrooms and schools requires language, yet the nuances and complexities of language are rarely explored in educator-preparation programs. As the population diversifies and more students come to schools with competencies in languages other than English, teachers must understand how language works so that they can support students in developing language spanning grades and disciplines. In this course, teachers will explore the language demands within and across academic disciplines and enact scaffolds to support multilingual students' language development by attending to these demands. Course understandings and related pedagogical practices emphasize the value of students' multilingual repertoires and competencies with foci on building metalinguistic awareness and encouraging translanguaging with languages and language varieties. Pedagogical practices will focus primarily on building classroom environments to support students' language development, including contextual features, scaffolds, and procedures.

Outcomes: Participants will: Describe the role of language(s) in teaching and learning, including how it develops; Distinguish the components of language (eg, phonology, morphology, syntax); Apply knowledge of language components in support of language development; Describe the language functions, features, and domains of disciplinary classrooms; Apply knowledge of language demands to support students' language development; Explain the interplay of home and school languages (eg, metalinguistic awareness); Apply knowledge of metalinguistic awareness in support of language development.