Academic Language for Multilingual Learners

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Why it works

One of the most consequential misunderstandings about multilingual learners is the assumption that a student who speaks English fluently in conversation has the English they need for academic work. Jim Cummins' well-known distinction between BICS (basic interpersonal communicative skills, the conversational language of everyday social interaction) and CALP (cognitive academic language proficiency, the language of academic content and tasks) names the gap. Conversational fluency develops relatively quickly, often within a couple of years, and it is highly visible, so a student who chats easily with peers can seem fully proficient. Academic language develops much more slowly, often over five to seven years or more, and it is the language that school actually runs on, so a student can sound fluent and still lack the language needed to read a textbook, write an analysis, or follow a content lesson. When teachers mistake conversational fluency for full proficiency, they stop providing language support precisely when the student most needs it, and the student's struggle with academic work gets misread as a content or ability problem rather than a language one. Academic language is more than vocabulary, though vocabulary is part of it. It includes the specialized and general-academic words of each subject (analyze, photosynthesis, numerator, significance); the more complex and compact sentence structures of academic text (passive constructions, embedded clauses, nominalizations that pack a process into a noun); and the discourse patterns of how academic communication is organized (how an argument is structured, how a lab report or an essay or a mathematical explanation is expected to sound). None of this is picked up automatically from conversation or content exposure; it has to be taught explicitly, which is good news, because it means teachers can do something concrete. The moves are learnable: identify the academic language demands of a text or task before teaching it (what words, structures, and patterns will students need); teach that language directly rather than assuming it; provide models and sentence frames that make academic structures visible and usable; give students structured opportunities to produce academic language in speaking and writing, not just receive it; and build academic language across all subjects, since every subject has its own. This work benefits multilingual learners most but helps many students, since academic language is a second register for nearly everyone. The workshop helps teachers see the BICS/CALP gap, analyze the academic language demands of their own content, and teach that language explicitly.

The research: Cummins, J. BICS and CALP; research on academic language development.

The run-of-show

Choose your slot. The agenda, timings, and length update to match.

The core activity: analyze and teach academic language explicitly

The heart of the session is identifying the academic-language demands of real content and planning to teach them directly.

Separate conversational fluency (BICS) from academic language (CALP); the first develops fast and visibly, the second slowly, and school runs on the second.
Do not mistake fluent speech for full proficiency, or a language gap gets misread as a content or ability problem just when support is most needed.
Treat academic language as words, sentence structures, and discourse patterns, none of which is picked up automatically from conversation or exposure.
Teach it explicitly: identify the demands of a text or task, model and provide sentence frames, and give structured chances to produce academic language, across every subject.

Fluent in conversation is not fluent in schoolConversational and academic language are different and develop on different timelines. Teach academic language, its vocabulary, structures, and discourse, explicitly, rather than assuming fluent speech means a student has it.

Facilitator notes

The dangerous misread: mistaking conversational fluency for proficiency and withdrawing support when the student most needs it.
Academic language is more than vocabulary; the complex sentence structures and discourse patterns matter as much as the words.
It must be taught explicitly; exposure to content and conversation does not deliver it on its own.

It helps far more than multilingual learnersAcademic language is a second register for nearly everyone, so teaching it explicitly supports many students, while being essential for multilingual learners.

Adapt it

Elementary: teach academic vocabulary and simple sentence frames, and model academic ways of explaining.
Secondary: analyze the dense academic language of subject texts and teach its structures and discourse explicitly.
Any setting: give structured opportunities to produce academic language in speaking and writing, not just receive it.

Participant handout

One page for every teacher. Print it, or save it as a PDF.

K12 Academics · Professional Learning

Academic Language: words, structures, discourse

Teach the language of school explicitly: fluent conversation is not academic language, so identify and teach the vocabulary, sentence structures, and discourse patterns content demands.

A student who seems fluent but struggles with academic work:
The academic vocabulary a task requires:
The sentence structures and discourse patterns it requires:
How I teach them explicitly (models, sentence frames):
How students produce academic language, not just receive it:

Make it stick

Academic language is built explicitly, over time. Close by setting the follow-up:

Name a check-in: are you teaching academic language rather than assuming fluent students have it?
Bring one task whose academic-language demands you taught.
Keep giving structured chances to produce academic language across subjects.

Common questions

If a student speaks English fluently, don't they already have the English they need?

Not necessarily, and assuming so is one of the most consequential mistakes teachers make with multilingual learners. Conversational fluency (what Cummins calls BICS) develops relatively quickly and is highly visible, so a student can chat easily with peers while still lacking the academic language (CALP) that school actually runs on, which develops much more slowly, often over five to seven years. When a fluent-sounding student struggles with a textbook or an analytical task, the gap is frequently academic language, not content knowledge or ability, and mistaking the fluent speech for full proficiency leads teachers to withdraw language support exactly when it is most needed. Recognizing that the two kinds of language are different, and develop on different timelines, is the first step.

Isn't academic language just subject vocabulary?

Vocabulary is an important part of it, but academic language is considerably more. It includes the specialized and general-academic words of a subject, yes, but also the more complex and compact sentence structures of academic text, such as passive constructions, embedded clauses, and nominalizations that pack a whole process into a noun, and the discourse patterns of how academic communication is organized, such as how an argument is built or how a lab report or essay is expected to sound. A student can know the vocabulary and still be unable to parse the dense sentences or produce the expected structure of an academic piece. Teaching academic language well means attending to all three, words, structures, and discourse, not just front-loading vocabulary and assuming the rest follows.

Does teaching academic language only help multilingual learners?

It is essential for multilingual learners, but it helps far more students than that, because academic language is effectively a second register for nearly everyone. Very few students arrive already fluent in the compact, formal, structured language of academic text and tasks; it is learned, and many native English speakers also struggle with it, particularly those with less exposure to academic language at home. So explicitly teaching the vocabulary, sentence structures, and discourse patterns of your subject benefits the whole class while being indispensable for multilingual learners. This is why academic-language instruction is best built into content teaching for everyone rather than reserved as a separate support, since it strengthens access to rigorous content across the board.