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We who work in higher education are constantly using and learning academic English, often without realizing it. We may not realize that the way we speak English is quite challenging to many students who don’t speak this way at home. College students who struggle to communicate fluently in academic English often experience lowered expectations from professors, stereotyping, and other forms of discrimination without their teachers being aware of their own biases (Lippi-Green, 2011). Research has shown that college professors tend to show positive bias toward students who sound like themselves and negative bias toward those who don’t (Godley et al., 2006). Students may absorb some of these negative messages and become reluctant to participate, which limits their ability to expand their language lexicons. In effect, our insensitivity to academic language can silence our students and limit their capacity to demonstrate their knowledge or skills. This may in turn limit a student’s view of themselves as a competent member of the community, with the same bright dreams and future ambitions as their peers.
In reality, all of us are English language learners, and none of us have entirely mastered academic English. But some of us have a great deal more practice and skill with academic English than others. This is important to emphasize because academic English is a golden ticket of sorts. Those who learn it have a much better chance of gaining access to many kinds of jobs, to leadership opportunities, and to other forms of power in their communities. To support our students’ mastery of academic language without devaluing their home ways with words, consider some of the suggestions below:
While the checklist above might help you create a more inclusive classroom, it also comes with some risk. Checklists can lead us to make assumptions about specific populations and thus stereotype them. We might assume that because a person is “an international student” or “Latinx” or “Arabic-speaking,” that we can confidently apply a strategy that will “work,” as if we were dealing with machines rather than other human beings. The best way to learn what’s working well and what a student needs is to ask. The strategies offered here are thus meant to be used as part of an approach that focuses on building strong learning relationships.
If you’ve noticed that the suggestions above are simply good teaching practice for everyone, you’re not alone. But consider that good practices for some may be essential practices for others. Encourage yourself to try adding just a few of these strategies at a time so that you can pay close attention to their impact. You’ll likely find that as you implement these strategies, more and more students will grow more confident, discover deeper connections with the content, and become more engaged in your classroom communities. They may also discover new identities as they “try on” new ways with words, and these new identities may lead them into roles they had never imagined for themselves.
Godley, A. J., Sweetland, J., Wheeler, R. S., Minnici, A., & Carpenter, B. D. (2006). Preparing teachers for dialectally diverse classrooms. Educational Researcher, 35(8), 30–37. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X035008030
Lippi-Green, R. (2011). English with an accent: Language, ideology and discrimination in the United States. Routledge.
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/8-strategies-teaching-academic-language-todd-finley
https://www.fluentu.com/blog/english/writing-academic-english
Rebecca Zambrano is the director of online learning at Edgewood College. She designs professional development for faculty in all content areas, provides leadership mentoring and instructional design coaching, and helps guide the direction of college-wide faculty development efforts. Find her on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccazambrano.
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