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##  What Elementary Teachers Need To Know about Language. ERIC Digest.           

Over the past decade, education reforms have raised the educational             bar that all children in the United States--including                           newcomers--must clear to finish school and participate in the                   economic and social world of the 21st century. These reforms place              tremendous pressures on children and teachers: In addition to                   mastering the content-area curriculum, children must become skilled             users of language. They must be highly competent in reading and                 writing to pass the various assessments that constitute gateways for            completing school, getting into college, and finding jobs. Teachers             need a wealth of content and pedagogical knowledge to ensure that               they are providing appropriate instruction to all students. Teachers            also need a thorough understanding of educational linguistics--how              language figures in education. This foundation would support                    teachers' practice overall, and in particular, it would help them               teach literacy skills (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998), especially to             English language learners (August & Hakuta, 1998). If approached                coherently, preparation in educational linguistics would cover many             items on lists of teacher competencies, such as skills in assessing             children, individualizing instruction, and respecting diversity.                This Digest summarizes some basic aspects of oral and written                   language about which elementary teachers need expertise in order to             promote literacy. However, it is only one part of the formula for               effective teaching. How literacy skills should be taught and how                teachers can learn what they need to know about language are beyond             the scope of this Digest. WHAT SHOULD CLASSROOM TEACHERS KNOW                 ABOUT LANGUAGE?Classroom teachers and other educators should be             able to answer a basic set of questions regarding oral and written              language. Underlying their knowledge should be an understanding that            oral language proficiency developed first in the native                         language (and often in a second language) serves as the foundation              for literacy and as the means for learning in school and out.                   Teachers need to know how written language contrasts with speech so             they can help their students acquire literacy. 
1. What are the                basic units of language? 
Teachers need to know that spoken                    language is composed of units, the smallest of which are sounds,                called phonemes if they signal meaning differences (e.g., bet and               met have different meanings because they start with different                   phonemes). Next come morphemes, sequences of sounds that form the               smallest units of meaning in a language (cat is a morpheme of                   English and so is -s); words, consisting of one or more                         morphemes (cats); phrases (one or more words); and sentences.                   Crucial to an understanding of how language works is the notion of              arbitrariness: Language units have no inherent meaning. A sequence              of sounds that is meaningful in English may mean nothing at all in              another language--or something quite different. Understanding the               variety of structures that different languages and dialects use to              show meaning can help teachers see the logic behind the errors in               their students' language use. 
2. What is regular, and what isn't?             How do forms relate to each other? 
Proficient English speakers                take for granted language irregularities that can be puzzling to                younger and less fluent language users. An important part of                    acquiring a vocabulary suitable for academic contexts is knowing how            to parse newly encountered words into their morphemes, rather than              simply treating them as "long words." Teachers need to be aware of              the principles of word formation in English since such knowledge can            aid students in vocabulary acquisition. 
3. How is the                         lexicon (vocabulary) acquired and structured? 
Most classroom                  teachers recognize the need to teach vocabulary. Often, they                    identify and define technical or unusual words in texts. But knowing            a word involves more than knowing its definition: It takes many                 encounters with a word in meaningful contexts for students to                   acquire it. It also requires understanding how the word relates to              similar forms, how it can be used grammatically, and how it relates             to other words and concepts. Effective vocabulary instruction                   requires that teachers understand how words are learned in                      noninstructional contexts through conversation and reading. 
4. Are            vernacular dialects different from "bad English" and if so,                     how? 
To realize that differences among regional and social                    dialects of English or another language are a matter of regular,                contrasting patterns in their sound systems, grammar, and                       lexicons--rather than errors--educators need a solid grounding in               sociolinguistics and in language behavior across cultures. Schools              must help children who speak vernacular varieties of English master             the standard variety required for academic development, and they                must respect the dialects that children use in their families and               primary communities. Recognizing how language influences adults'                perceptions of children and how adults relate to children through               language is crucial to teachers' work. Educators need enough                    knowledge to keep speakers of vernacular dialects from being                    misdiagnosed and misplaced in school programs. In addition, they                need knowledge about language variability in order to make sound                decisions about instruction. 
5. What is academic                              English? 
Academic English is a cognitively demanding and                      relatively decontextualized register (Cummins, 1984). It relies on a            broad knowledge of words, concepts, language structures, and                    interpretation strategies. Skills related to mastery of academic                English include summarizing, analyzing, extracting and interpreting             meaning, evaluating evidence, composing, and editing. 
Acquiring               academic English is a challenge for both English language learners              and native speakers. Few children arrive at school competent in this            register. For the most part, academic English is learned over the               course of schooling through frequent engagement in classroom talk,              reading textbooks, and writing. Teachers need to recognize that all             students need support to acquire the structures and vocabulary                  associated with academic English, and they need to know how to                  provide it. 
6. Why has the acquisition of English by non-English              speaking children not been more universally successful? 
English               language learners may be having a harder time learning English for              academic success. Regardless of instructional program (e.g.,                    bilingual, ESL, structured immersion), students who have entered                school speaking little or no English may not be receiving the                   instruction they require to master academic English. Many teachers              have been given misguided advice about what works for teaching                  English language learners--from letting children acquire the                    language naturally, to simplifying language use, to avoiding error              correction. The message has been that direct instruction has no                 role. Fillmore (1991) found that children who are successful in                 acquiring English interact directly and frequently with people who              know the language well. Such expert speakers not only provide access            to the language, they also provide clues as to how to combine and               communicate ideas, information, and intentions. Teachers must know              enough about language and language learning to evaluate the                     appropriateness of various methods, materials, and approaches for               helping students succeed. 
7. Why is English spelling so                       complicated? 
Unlike some other languages, English has not changed             its spelling to eliminate inconsistencies and reflect changes                   occurring in its sound system over time. In addition, English                   generally retains the spelling of morphological units, even when the            rules of pronunciation mean that phonemes within these morphological            units vary (e.g., the second /k/ sound in electric and the /s/ sound            in electricity have the same spelling). Errors in spelling can                  result from writers' inclination to write what they hear. English               language learners' spelling errors may reflect limited exposure to              written English forms, inadequate instruction, and transfer of                  general spelling strategies from another language. Understanding the            complexities of English orthography can help teachers take sensible             approaches to teaching it. Knowing how orthographies of different               languages are organized also can help teachers figure out why                   spelling is more difficult for some students and why students make              certain errors. 
8. Why do students have trouble with narrative and            expository writing? 
All students need to learn the rhetorical                 structures associated with story telling and the various kinds of               expository writing in English. However, many students bring to this             task culturally based text structures that contrast with those                  expected at school. The emphasis in mainstream English stories is on            getting the sequence of events correct and clear. This can seem so              obviously correct to the monolingual speaker of English that the                narrative of the Latino child, who emphasizes personal relationships            more than plot, or that of the Japanese child, who may provide very             terse stories, can be dismissed as incomprehensible (McCabe, 1995).             Similarly with expository writing, argument structure varies across             cultures. The topic sentences, paragraphs, and essays that are                  staples of English prose may be more difficult for students whose               language experience includes other ways of expression. 
9. How                 should the quality and correctness of a piece of writing be                     judged? 
Teachers must have a solid-enough knowledge of grammar to             support children's writing development and pinpoint problems in                 writing and interpreting text. Partly because teachers may feel                 insecure about their own writing, partly because students are not               given opportunities to write frequently, and partly because teachers            of writing are sometimes reluctant to correct students' writing,                students may not be receiving the kind of corrective feedback that              will help them be better writers. This problem is particularly acute            for English language learners. 
10. What makes a sentence or text              difficult to understand? 
Many educators erroneously associate                 simple sentences with ease in understanding and interpretation. For             this reason, texts for English language learners are often composed             of short, choppy sentences. The unintended result is that these                 simplified texts are far less readable than regular texts and may be            insulting to readers. Moreover, because simplified texts are often              unnatural, they cannot serve as exemplars of written academic                   English. With teachers' help, students can use well-written,                    grade-appropriate texts to learn content-area knowledge--as well as             the vocabulary, grammatical structures, and rhetorical devices                  associated with academic writing. CONCLUSIONAs schools become             increasingly diverse, education reforms will continue to put                    pressure on educators to provide appropriate instruction for all                students. Teachers will continue to need access to a wide range of              information to help students succeed, including information about               the language that many of their students are learning. A thorough               knowledge base in educational linguistics will support teachers'                work overall and make school a place for students to                            succeed. REFERENCESAugust, D., & Hakuta,                                  K. (Eds.). (1998). "Educating language minority children."                      Washington, DC: National Academy Press. 
Cummins,                              J. (1984). "Bilingualism and special education: Issues in assessment            and pedagogy." Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. 
Fillmore,             L.W. (1991). Second language learning in children: A model of                   language learning in social context. In E.                                      Bialystok (Ed.), "Language processing by bilingual children" (pp.               49-69). New York: Cambridge University Press. 
McCabe,                         A. (1995). "Chameleon readers: Teaching children to appreciate all              kinds of good stories." New York: McGraw-Hill. Snow, C.E., Burns,               M.S., & Griffen, P. (Eds.). (1998). Preventing reading difficulties             in young children. Washington, DC: National Academy                             Press. 
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This Digest summarizes a paper by Lily Wong                    Fillmore and Catherine Snow, "What Teachers Need to Know About                  Language," available at www.cal.org/ericcll/Teachers.pdf. 
This                digest was prepared with funding from the U.S. Dept. of Education,              Office of Educational Research and Improvement, National Library of             Education, under contract no. ED-99-CO-0008. The opinions expressed             do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of ED, OERI, or            NLE.                                                                         **Title:** What Elementary Teachers Need To Know about Language. ERIC Digest.           **Note:** Digest summarizes a paper by Lily Wong Fillmore and Catherine Snow              available at http://www.cal.org/ericcll.                                     **Document Type:** Information Analyses---ERIC Information Analysis Products (IAPs) (071); Information Analyses---ERIC Digests (Selected) in Full Text (073); **Target Audience:** Practitioners, Teachers                                                      **Available From:** ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics, 4646 40th Street               NW, Washington, DC 20016.  For full text:                                       http://www.cal.org/ericcll/DIGEST.                                           **Descriptors:** Elementary Education,  Elementary School Teachers, English,                     English (Second Language),  Knowledge Base for Teaching, Language               Acquisition,  Linguistics, Literacy Education,  Oral Language,                  Second Language Learning, Spelling,  Teacher Education,  Written                Language                                                                     **Identifiers:** ERIC Digests                                                                 
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