Academic language is a
meta-language that helps learners acquire the 50,000 words they are expected to have internalized by the end of high school
and includes everything from illustration and chart literacy to speaking, grammar, and genres within fields.
What is academic language?
Academic language refers to
the oral, written, auditory, and visual language proficiency required to learn effectively in schools and academic programs
—i.e., it’s the language used in classroom lessons, books, tests, and assignments, and it’s the language that students are expected to learn and achieve fluency in.
Why is academic language is important?
Students who are proficient in the Academic Language for the subject areas you teach will be much better equipped to acquire new
knowledge
through reading and listening, and to express this knowledge and their ideas through oral discussions, writing and test taking.
Why does academic language matter?
In writing, knowledge of academic English helps students develop topic sentences,
provide smooth transitions between ideas
, and edit their writing effectively. Reading, discussing, and writing about texts needs to be a central part of the English language development instruction dispersed throughout the day.
What is academic language what are its components?
The three main components of academic language are
vocabulary, grammatical structures, and functions
. The components of academic language must be deliberately developed and taught.
Where is academic language mostly used?
In education, academic language refers to the words we use mostly in
schools in places like text books, lessons, assignments and tests
. It’s the vocabulary students need to learn and is necessary for their success in school.
What are the purposes of doing an academic writing?
The most common purpose in academic writing is
to explain some idea or research finding and to persuade readers that your explanation or theory
is the correct one. In doing so, you may need to describe an object, place, or activity. Sometimes you might write to narrate set of events, in the manner of a story.
What are examples of academic language?
Academic language is the language needed by students to do the work in schools. It includes, for example,
discipline-specific vocabulary, grammar and punctuation, and applications of rhetorical conventions and devices
that are typical for a content area (e.g., essays, lab reports, discussions of a controversial issue.)
What are the academic language skills?
Academic language skills include three skills: (1)
use of inferential language
(communicating about ideas across contexts); (2) use of narrative language (clearly describing a series of events); and (3) understanding a range of academic vocabulary and grammatical structures.
What are the three characteristics of academic language?
Academic language has a unique set of rules: it should
be explicit, formal and factual as well as objective and analytical in nature
. Students often think that academic language should sound complex and be difficult to write and understand but that is not necessarily the case.
What are the five features of academic language?
- Complexity. Written language is relatively more complex than spoken language. …
- Formality. Academic writing is relatively formal. …
- Precision. In academic writing, facts and figures are given precisely. …
- Objectivity. …
- Explicitness. …
- Accuracy. …
- Hedging. …
- Responsibility.
What is academic language in a lesson plan?
Academic language is the
means by which students develop and express content understandings
. Academic language represents the language of the discipline that students need to learn and use to participate and engage in meaningful ways in the content area.
Social language is the set of vocabulary that allows us to communicate with others in the context of regular daily conversations. Conversely, academic language is the set of
specific terminology
that pertains to specific subjects people usually learn in academic contexts.
What are the four components of academic language?
These include
morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics and phonology
. Morphology is the study of word structure. It describes how words are formed out of more basic elements of language called morphemes. A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a language.
What are the four features of academic language?
- On this page.
- Objectivity.
- Formality.
- Precision.
- Hedging.
- Final tip.
- Related resources.
How does academic language help students?
Academic language is a meta-language that
helps learners acquire the 50,000 words they are expected to have internalized by the end of high school
and includes everything from illustration and chart literacy to speaking, grammar, and genres within fields.
