Why is Language a Focus for EVERY Content?

Traveling outside the country was single most impactful moment for me and started the trajectory of my career. In Costa Rica to work with a local church, I experienced being the minority language for the first time. Traveling and seeing Spanish on everything when I only had one month of Rosetta Stone changed my perspective on how important it was to understand the majority language and how isolating it was to not have that skill. The experience felt like feeling around in the dark.

Through that experience I saw that teaching language was going to be my passion.

Every content has their own language in addition to the majority language. Meaning, in a science classroom not only do I need a full understanding of English or any other majority language, I also have to understand the science academic language. Therefore, as a science teacher I have to teach the structure of graphs, informational articles, the specific vocabulary, the goal of all these things, and expose them to these new concepts found in this field. Our students have their own world of language involving their family experiences, peer language, and special interests. As teachers, we see this every time a new slang word or anime fact comes up in the classroom. It takes a group effort for all of us to be on the same page.

You are the tour guide in the country of your content. Language is how they are going to navigate this new world. Knowing how we learn language is huge whether you are a Language Arts teacher or not. Follow along to see how to be a better tour guide and interpreter in your classroom.