Academic Language Development Flashcards

The Language Experience Approach (LEA) in bilingual settings supports academic language development primarily by:

Answer: Using students' own language and experiences as the basis for reading and writing texts

LEA uses students' dictated accounts of their experiences to create personalized texts, bridging oral language and literacy while building academic language in context.

Which approach to vocabulary instruction is most effective for building ELs' academic language across content areas?

Answer: Rich, repeated exposure to target words in multiple meaningful contexts

Research consistently shows that multiple exposures to words in varied, meaningful contexts produces deeper and more durable vocabulary learning.

A teacher uses graphic organizers, visual displays, and real objects during a science lesson for ELs. These supports are best described as:

Answer: Comprehensible input strategies that make academic content accessible

Visual and concrete supports lower the language barrier to academic content, aligning with Krashen's comprehensible input hypothesis (i+1).

Academic language functions such as 'compare,' 'classify,' 'hypothesize,' and 'justify' are important in bilingual education because they:

Answer: Represent the language demands of higher-order thinking across all content areas

Academic language functions align with Bloom's higher-order thinking levels and appear consistently across disciplines, making them high-priority targets for EL instruction.

Metalinguistic awareness in bilingual learners refers to their ability to:

Answer: Reflect on and analyze language as a system, independent of meaning

Metalinguistic awareness—thinking about how language works—is often stronger in bilinguals and supports reading development, spelling, and academic language analysis.

In a dual-language bilingual program, academic language development in both languages is best achieved when:

Answer: Language allocation is consistent and academic content is taught to high standards in each language

Consistent language allocation with high academic standards in both languages develops true biliteracy and prevents one language from dominating academic learning.