A Culpable CALP: Rethinking the conversational/academic language proficiency distinction in early literacy instruction
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This article draws on examples from several primary grade classrooms to critique current conceptualizations of second language learning that distinguish between Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). The piece argues that what counts as CALP is arbitrarily defined and varies widely depending on culture and context, and it considers ways in which what we call ""academic"" language and ""social"" language are inextricably interwoven. It argues that it is both inaccurate and pedagogically counterproductive to think of any classroom language as truly decontextualized: context is always salient, for the teacher and for the students. And yet, believing that the aim is to teach children ""context-free"" language use, teachers often take their own sense of the context so for granted that the children's differing understandings of that context become invisible. The author proposes that we rely instead on an alternative theory of recontextualization to frame how second language learners engage with reading and writing in school, keeping the child's understanding of the context in a recognizably central place in literacy teaching and learning.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | April 2007 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Aukerman, Maren |
|---|---|
| Publisher | The Reading Teacher |
Subjects
| Subject | academic |
|---|---|
| Subject | classroom |
| Genre | Article |
Bibliographic information
| Related Publication | Aukerman, M. (2007). A Culpable CALP: Rethinking the conversational/academic language proficiency distinction in early literacy instruction. The Reading Teacher, 60(7), 626-635. |
|---|---|
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/rp279rg5036 |
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- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
Collection
Graduate School of Education Open Archive
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