Language and Culture of Schooling by Bridget Erickson

“If we do in the future see a generation of teachers emerge with a lively and critical understanding of the role of language in the ways we mean, and hence in the ways children work and think in schools, we will witness considerable change in the ways teachers and children work together.  .  . Language will become no longer the hidden curriculum of schooling. Instead, its essential role in the structuring and organising of experience and information will be properly acknowledged. Whatever the age group taught, whatever the "content" of concern, whatever the mental skills to be developed, teachers will be able to consider and answer the question: What is it that my students need to be able to do in language order to be successful in this learning activity.” (Christie, 1985)
            What will your students DO in language in order to be successful in your lessons? This is the directive Frances Christie put forth to us as teachers over 30 years ago; yet, language remains the implicit, hidden curriculum of schools, and not surprisingly, we are still facing a major achievement gap amongst students based on socioeconomic status. What’s the connection?
              The language of school is inherently academic: the vocabulary, the text structures, the oral discourse patterns, and the syntactic patterns differ from the language patterns many students have been socialized in and are most familiar with. Yet, explicitly teaching these language features and patterns are not the norm in school, and not part of our teaching in the various content areas: math, science, social studies, or even language arts. Why not? Well, our science curriculums aren’t focusing on syntactic patterns or linguistic genres. Neither is math nor social studies, for that matter. Yet, the language of each of these content areas is unique to that content area. There is indeed a language of science, a language of social studies, a language of language arts, and students must demonstrate proficiency in each of these literacies; otherwise, it’s impossible for them to meet proficiency standards in these curricular areas. At least one modality of language (reading, writing, listening, speaking) is always carrying the meaning of the instruction, and if students aren’t literate in one or all of these modalities, then, it will be impossible for students to participate fully. Thus, we must teach the language of the content in order for students to access the content.
            So, how do we start to do this? How do we think about what all of our students need to do in language in order to successfully meet our content objectives? Join the journey as we explore language and school.
 

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