|
|
 | Putting Language Proficiency in Its Place: Responding to Critiques of the Conversational/Academic Language Distinction |
| |
  | |||
| |
Putting Language Proficiency in Its Place: Responding to Critiques of the Conversational/Academic Language Distinction Jim
Cummins University
of Toronto The
issue of how language proficiency relates to academic achievement is clearly
relevant to the educational development of bilingual and trilingual children.
These children may be exposed to a wide variety of language interaction
patterns in home and school. In many contexts in Europe and elsewhere, it is
increasingly common for schools to promote knowledge of three (or more)
languages. A typical pattern is for primary schooling to be conducted
bilingually through a minority language (which children speak at home) and the
national language, with instruction in a language of wider communication
(frequently English) introduced at a later stage (see Cummins & Corson,
1997, for numerous examples). A
number of issues arise for policy-makers contemplating the introduction of
bilingual and trilingual education programs. For example, if instruction is
divided among two or three languages, will proficiency in each language develop
adequately? When is it appropriate
to compare bilingual children’s proficiency in their two languages (L1 and L2)
with that of monolingual children whose instruction has been totally through
their L1? In other words, how long
does it take children to attain grade expectations in their second (or third)
language? In a transitional
bilingual program such as those implemented for minority students in the United
States and parts of The Netherlands (e.g. Verhoeven, 1991), when should children
be mainstreamed to classes taught predominantly or totally through their L2?
If children experience academic difficulties (e.g. in reading) in a
bilingual program, should they be transferred to a monolingual program where
more intensive instruction can be given through just one language?
How valid are tests administered through a bilingual child’s second
language, or even first language if that language is not being promoted strongly
in school? Should the introduction
of reading in a second language be delayed until a certain level of oral
language proficiency in that language has been attained?
If so, what level? These
issues have been debated in the context of bilingual education for linguistic
minority students in the United States, for majority language students in
Canadian French immersion programs, and in a wide variety of bilingual and
trilingual programs in Europe. I
have suggested that underlying many of these issues is the question of what do
we mean by language proficiency and how is it related to academic
achievement. Two examples will
illustrate the relevance of this underlying issue. In North America, minority children have frequently been
tested on IQ tests through English (their L2) after two or three years in the
country and assigned to special needs classes based on the results of these
tests (usually a pattern of low verbal scores and higher non-verbal scores). In
Texas in the early 1980s, for example, there were more than three times as many
Latino/Latina students labeled as “learning disabled” as would be expected
based on their proportion in the school population (Ortiz & Yates, 1983).
This pattern raises obvious issues such as the validity of ability and
achievement tests whose norms reflect the experiences of the dominant group in
the society; but it also raises the issue of how conversational fluency in a
second language is related to academic development in that language and how long
do students typically require to develop conversational and academic language
skills in a second language. A
related example is the debate in the United States over how long bilingual
students should remain in bilingual programs before being transferred to
all-English classrooms. Because of
controversy over the desirability of permitting minority languages into the
school system, there is considerable pressure on educators to limit the time
that a student can spend in a bilingual program to less than three years.
Students who are transferred after this period of time to classrooms
without additional support for learning English and catching up academically
frequently experience academic failure. An
obvious issue that arises is “How much proficiency in a language is required
to follow instruction through that language?” In
short, the question of how we conceptualize language proficiency and how
it is related to academic development is central to many volatile policy issues
in the area of bilingual education. I
have suggested that in order to address these issues we need to make a
fundamental distinction between conversational and academic aspects of language
proficiency (originally labeled basic interpersonal communicative skills [BICS]
and cognitive academic language proficiency [CALP]).
(Cummins, 1979). In this paper I use the terms conversational/academic
language proficiency interchangeably with BICS/CALP. This
distinction has been influential in a number of contexts (e.g. Cline &
Frederickson, 1996) but it has also been severely critiqued by a number of
investigators (e.g. Edelsky et al., 1983; Martin-Jones & Romaine, 1986;
Romaine, 1990; Wiley, 1996). In
this paper, I try to clarify the rationale and nature of the distinction in
light of research evidence from a number of contexts and I respond to the
critiques that have been addressed to the distinction.
In the first section below I elaborate the rationale for the distinction
and the evolution of the constructs during the past 20 years. Evolution of the
Conversational/Academic Language Proficiency Distinction
Skutnabb-Kangas
and Toukomaa (1976) had brought attention to the fact that Finnish immigrant
children in Sweden often appeared to educators to be fluent in both Finnish and
Swedish but still showed levels of verbal academic performance in both languages
considerably below grade/age expectations. Similarly, analysis of psychological
assessments administered to minority students showed that teachers and
psychologists often assumed that children who had attained fluency in English
had overcome all difficulties with English (Cummins, 1984). Yet these children
frequently performed poorly on English academic tasks as well as in
psychological assessment situations. The need to distinguish between
conversational fluency and academic aspects of L2 performance was highlighted by
the reanalysis of large-scale language acquisition data from the Toronto Board
of Education (Cummins, 1981a). These
data showed clearly that there was a gap of several years, on average, between
the attainment of peer-appropriate fluency in L2 and the attainment of grade
norms in academic aspects of L2. Conversational aspects of proficiency reached
peer-appropriate levels usually within about two years of exposure to L2 but a
period of 5-7 years was required, on average, for immigrant students to approach
grade norms in academic aspects of English. The
distinction between BICS and CALP (Cummins, 1979) was intended to draw
educators' attention to these data and to warn against premature exit of
minority students (in the United States) from bilingual to mainstream
English-only programs on the basis of attainment of surface level fluency in
English. In other words, the
distinction highlighted the fact that educators' conflating of these aspects of
proficiency was a major factor in the creation of academic difficulties for
minority students. The
BICS/CALP distinction also served to qualify John Oller's (1979) claim that all
individual differences in language proficiency could be accounted for by just
one underlying factor, which he termed global language proficiency. Oller
synthesized a considerable amount of data showing strong correlations between
performance on cloze tests of reading, standardized reading tests, and measures
of oral verbal ability (e.g. vocabulary measures). I pointed out that not all
aspects of language use or performance could be incorporated into one dimension
of global language proficiency. For
example, if we take two monolingual English-speaking siblings, a 12-year old
child and a six-year old, there are enormous differences in these children's
ability to read and write English and in their knowledge of vocabulary, but
minimal differences in their phonology or basic fluency.
The six-year old can understand virtually everything that is likely to be
said to her in everyday social contexts and she can use language very
effectively in these contexts, just as the 12-year old can.
Similarly, as noted above, in second language acquisition contexts,
immigrant children typically manifest very different time periods required to
catch up to their peers in everyday face-to-face aspects of proficiency as
compared to academic aspects. This
distinction was elaborated into two intersecting continua (Cummins, 1981b) which
highlighted the range of cognitive demands and contextual support involved in
particular language tasks or activities (context-embedded/context-reduced,
cognitively undemanding/cognitively demanding) (see Figure 1). The BICS/CALP
distinction was maintained within this elaboration and related to the
theoretical distinctions of several other theorists.
The terms used by different investigators have varied but the essential
distinction refers to the extent to which the meaning being communicated is
supported by contextual or interpersonal cues (such as gestures, facial
expressions, and intonation present in face-to-face interaction) or dependent on
linguistic cues that are largely independent of the immediate communicative
context. The
framework elaborated in Figure 1 differs
from distinctions made by theorists such as Bruner (1975)
[communicative/analytic competence], Donaldson (1978) [embedded and disembedded
thought and language], Olson (1978) [utterance and text] and Snow et al. (1991)
[contextualized and decontextualized language] in that it goes beyond a simple
dichotomy in mapping the underlying dimensions of linguistic performance in
academic contexts. In these
one-dimensional distinctions, as in distinctions between oral and literate forms
of language, the degree of cognitive demand of particular tasks or activities is
not represented. Thus there would
be no way of highlighting the fact that an intense intellectual discussion with
one or two other people can be just as cognitively demanding as writing an
academic paper, despite the fact that the former is contextualized while the
latter is relatively decontextualized. Cognitive
and Contextual Demands. The framework outlined in Figure 1 is designed to identify the extent to
which students are able to cope successfully with the cognitive and linguistic
demands made on them by the social and educational environment in which they are
obliged to function. These demands are conceptualized within a framework made up
of the intersection of two continua, one relating to the range of contextual
support available for expressing or receiving meaning and the other relating to
the amount of information that must be processed simultaneously or in close
succession by the student in order to carry out the activity. The
extremes of the context-embedded/context-reduced continuum are distinguished by
the fact that in context-embedded communication the participants can actively
negotiate meaning (e.g. by providing feedback that the message has not been
understood) and the language is supported by a wide range of meaningful
interpersonal and situational cues. Context-reduced communication, on the other
hand, relies primarily (or, at the extreme of the continuum, exclusively) on
linguistic cues to meaning, and thus successful interpretation of the message
depends heavily on knowledge of the language itself. In general,
context-embedded communication is more typical of the everyday world outside the
classroom, whereas many of the linguistic demands of the classroom (e.g.
manipulating text) reflect communicative activities that are close to the
context-reduced end of the continuum. The
upper parts of the vertical continuum consist of communicative tasks and
activities in which the linguistic tools have become largely automatized and
thus require little active cognitive involvement for appropriate performance. At
the lower end of the continuum are tasks and activities in which the linguistic
tools have not become automatized and thus require active cognitive involvement.
Persuading another individual that your point of view is correct, and writing an
essay, are examples of quadrant B and D skills respectively. Casual conversation
is a typical quadrant A activity while examples of quadrant C are copying notes
from the blackboard or filling in worksheets. The
framework elaborates on the conversational/academic distinction by highlighting
important underlying dimensions of conversational and academic communication.
Thus, conversational abilities (quadrant A) often develop relatively quickly
among immigrant second language learners because these forms of communication
are supported by interpersonal and contextual cues and make relatively few
cognitive demands on the individual. Mastery of the academic functions of
language (quadrant D), on the other hand, is a more formidable task because such
uses require high levels of cognitive involvement and are only minimally
supported by contextual or interpersonal cues. Under conditions of high
cognitive demand, it is necessary for students to stretch their linguistic
resources to the limit to function successfully. In short, the essential aspect
of academic language proficiency is the ability to make complex meanings
explicit in either oral or written modalities by means of language itself
rather than by means of contextual or paralinguistic cues (e.g. gestures,
intonation etc.). As
students progress through the grades, they are increasingly required to
manipulate language in cognitively-demanding and context-reduced situations that
differ significantly from everyday conversational interactions. In writing, for
example, they must learn to continue to produce language without the prompting
that comes from a conversational partner and they must plan large units of
discourse, and organize them coherently, rather than planning only what will be
said next. The difference between the everyday language of face-to-face
interaction and the language of schooling is clearly expressed by Pauline
Gibbons (1991) in outlining the differences between what she terms playground
language and classroom language: This playground language includes the language which
enables children to make friends, join in games and take part in a variety of
day-to-day activities that develop and maintain social contacts. It usually
occurs in face-to-face contact, and is thus highly dependent on the physical and
visual context, and on gesture and body language. Fluency with this kind of
language is an important part of language development; without it a child is
isolated from the normal social life of the playground. ... But playground language is very different from the
language that teachers use in the classroom, and from the language that we
expect children to learn to use. The language of the playground is not the
language associated with learning in mathematics, or social studies, or science.
The playground situation does not normally offer children the opportunity to use
such language as: if we increase the angle by 5 degrees, we could cut the circumference
into equal parts. Nor does it normally require the language associated with
the higher order thinking skills, such as hypothesizing, evaluating, inferring,
generalizing, predicting or classifying. Yet these are the language functions
which are related to learning and the development of cognition; they occur in
all areas of the curriculum, and without them a child's potential in academic
areas cannot be realized. (p. 3) Thus,
the context-embedded/context-reduced distinction is not one between oral and
written language. Within the framework, the dimensions of contextual
embeddedness and cognitive demand are distinguished because some
context-embedded activities are clearly just as cognitively-demanding as
context-reduced activities. For example, an intense intellectual discussion with
one or two other people is likely to require at least as much cognitive
processing as writing an essay on the same topic. Similarly, writing an e-mail
message to a close friend is, in many respects, more context-embedded than
giving a lecture to a large group of people. Contextual
support involves both internal and external dimensions. Internal factors are attributes
of the individual that make a task more familiar or easier in some respect
(e.g. prior experience, motivation, cultural relevance, interests, etc.).
External factors refer to aspects of the input that facilitate or impede
comprehension; for example, language input that is spoken clearly and contains a
considerable amount of syntactic and semantic redundancy is easier to understand
than input that lacks these features. A
central implication of the framework for instruction of second language learners
is that language and content will be acquired most successfully when students
are challenged cognitively but provided with the contextual and linguistic
supports or scaffolds required for successful task completion. In other words,
optimal instruction for linguistic, cognitive and academic growth will tend to
fall into quadrant B. Clarifications
of the Conversational/Academic (BICS/CALP) distinction. The
distinction between BICS and CALP has sometimes been misunderstood or
misrepresented. For example, the distinction was criticized on the grounds that
a simple dichotomy does not account for many dimensions of language use and
competence (e.g. sociolinguistic aspects of language) (e.g. Wald, 1984).
However, the distinction was not proposed as an overall theory of
language but as a very specific conceptual distinction addressed to specific
issues related to the education of second language learners. As outlined above,
the distinction entails important implications for policy and practice. The fact
that the distinction does not address issues of sociolinguistics or discourse
styles or any number of other linguistic issues is irrelevant.
The usefulness of any theoretical construct should be assessed in
relation to the issues that it attempts to address, not in relation to issues
that it makes no claim to address. To
suggest that the BICS/CALP distinction is invalid because it does not account
for subtleties of sociolinguistic interaction or discourse styles is like
saying: "This apple is no good because it doesn't taste like an
orange." Another
point concerns the sequence of acquisition between BICS and CALP. August and
Hakuta (1997), for example, suggest
that the distinction specifies that BICS must precede CALP in development. This
is not at all the case. The sequential nature of BICS/CALP acquisition was
suggested as typical in the specific situation of immigrant children learning a
second language. It was not suggested as an absolute order that applies in
every, or even the majority of situations.
Thus attainment of high
levels of L2 CALP can precede attainment of fluent L2 BICS in certain situations
(e.g. a scientist who can read a language for research purposes but who can’t
speak it). Another
misunderstanding is to interpret the distinction as dimensions of language that
are autonomous or independent of their contexts of acquisition (e.g. Romaine,
1990, p. 240). To say that BICS and CALP are conceptually distinct is not the
same as saying that they are separate or acquired in different ways.
Developmentally they are not necessarily separate; all children acquire their
initial conceptual foundation (knowledge of the world) largely through
conversational interactions in the home. Both BICS and CALP are shaped by their
contexts of acquisition and use. Consistent
with a Vygotskian perspective on cognitive and language development, BICS and
CALP both develop within a matrix of social interaction.
However, they follow different developmental patterns: phonological
skills in our native language and our basic fluency reach a plateau in the first
six or so years; in other words, the rate of subsequent development is very much
reduced in comparison to previous development.
This is not the case for literacy-related knowledge such as range of
vocabulary which continues to develop at least throughout our schooling and
usually throughout our lifetimes. It
is also important to point out that cognitive skills are involved, to a greater
or lesser extent, in most forms of social interaction.
For example, cognitive skills are undoubtedly involved in one's ability
to tell jokes effectively and if we work at it we might improve our joke-telling
ability throughout our lifetimes. However,
our joke-telling ability is largely unrelated to our academic performance. This
intersection of the cognitive and social aspects of language proficiency,
however, does not mean that they are identical or reducible one to the other.
The implicit assumption that conversational fluency in English is a good
indicator of "English proficiency" has resulted in countless bilingual
children being "diagnosed" as learning disabled or retarded. Despite
their developmental intersections, BICS and CALP are conceptually and follow
different developmental patterns. An
additional misconception is that the distinction characterizes CALP (academic
language) as a “superior” form of language proficiency than BICS
(conversational language). This
interpretation was never intended, although it is easy to see how the use of the
term “basic” in BICS might appear to devalue conversational language as
compared to the higher status of cognitive academic language proficiency.
Clearly, various forms of oral language performance are highly complex
and sophisticated both linguistically and cognitively. However, these forms of
language performance are not necessarily strongly related to the linguistic
demands of schooling. As outlined
above, access to very specific forms of language are required to continue to
progress academically and a major goal of schooling for all students is to
expand students’ registers and repertoires of language into these academic
domains. However, the greater relevance of academic language proficiency for
success in schooling, as compared to conversational proficiency, does not mean
that it is intrinsically superior in any way or that the language proficiency of
non-literate or non-schooled communities is in any way deficient. A
final point of clarification concerns the relationship of language proficiency
to social determinants of minority students’ academic development (e.g. Troike,
1984). The conversational/academic language proficiency theoretical construct is
psychoeducational in nature insofar as it focuses primarily on the cognitive and
linguistic dimensions of proficiency in a language.
The role of social factors in minority students' academic success or
failure was acknowledged in early work but not elaborated in detail.
In 1986, I proposed a
framework within which the intersecting roles of sociopolitical and
psychoeducational factors could be conceptualized (Cummins, 1986).
Specifically, the framework highlighted the ways in which the
interactions between educators and minority students reflected particular role
definitions on the part of educators in relation to students' language and
culture, community participation, pedagogy, and assessment.
It hypothesized that minority students are educationally disabled in
school in much the same way that their communities have historically been
disabled in the wider society and pointed to directions for reversing this
process. The framework argues that
educational interventions will be successful only to the extent that they
constitute a challenge to the broader societal power structure (Cummins, 1986,
1996). Linguistic Evidence
for the Conversational/Academic Language Distinction
To
this point, two major sets of evidence have been advanced to support the
conversational/academic language distinction: ·
In monolingual contexts, the distinction reflects the
difference between the language proficiency acquired through interpersonal
interaction by virtually all 6-year old children and the proficiency developed
through schooling and literacy which continues to expand throughout our
lifetimes. For most children, the basic structure of their native language is in
place by age 6 or so but their language continues to expand with respect to the
range of vocabulary and grammatical constructions they can understand and use
and the linguistic contexts within which they can function successfully.
A typical 16-year-old student has considerably greater knowledge of
language and options for language use (e.g. reading novels, encyclopedias, etc.)
than a typical six-year old despite the fact that both are fluent native
speakers of their L1. ·
Research
studies since the early 1980s have shown that immigrant students can quickly
acquire considerable fluency in the target language when they are exposed to it
in the environment and at school but despite this rapid growth in conversational
fluency, it generally takes a minimum of about five years (and frequently much
longer) for them to catch up to native-speakers in academic aspects of the
language (Collier, 1987; Cummins, 1979, 1981a; Klesmer, 1994) as assessed by
measures of literacy and formal language knowledge. In
addition to the evidence noted above, the distinction receives strong support
from two other sources: (a) Douglas Biber's (1986) analysis of a corpus of
authentic discourse gathered from a wide range of communicative situations, both
written and oral, and (b) David Corson’s (1995) documentation of the lexical
differences between English everyday conversational language and textual
language, the former deriving predominantly from Anglo-Saxon sources and the
latter from Graeco-Latin sources. Biber’s
Analysis of Textual Variation. Biber used psychometric analysis of an extremely
large corpus of spoken and written textual material in order to uncover the
basic dimensions underlying textual variation. Among the 16 text types included
in Biber's analysis were broadcasts, spontaneous speeches, telephone
conversation, face-to-face conversation, professional letters, academic prose
and press reports. Forty-one linguistic features were counted in 545 text
samples, totaling more than one million words.
Three
major dimensions emerged from the factor analysis of this corpus. These were labeled
by Biber as Interactive vs. Edited Text, Abstract vs. Situated Content,
and Reported vs. Immediate Style. The first dimension is described
as follows: Thus, Factor 1 identifies a dimension which
characterizes texts produced under conditions of high personal involvement and
real-time constraints (marked by low explicitness in the expression of meaning,
high subordination and interactive features) - as opposed to texts produced
under conditions permitting considerable editing and high explicitness of
lexical content, but little interaction or personal involvement. ... This
dimension combines both situational and cognitive parameters; in particular it
combines interactional features with those reflecting production constraints (or
the lack of them). (1986, p. 385) The
second factor has positive weights from linguistic features such as
nominalizations, prepositions, and passives and, according to Biber, reflects a
"detached formal style vs. a concrete colloquial one" (p. 396).
Although this factor is correlated with the first factor, it can be empirically
distinguished from it, as illustrated by professional letters, which, according
to Biber's analysis, represent highly abstract texts that have a high level of
personal involvement. The
third factor has positive weights from linguistic features such as past tense,
perfect aspect and 3rd person pronouns which can all refer to a removed
narrative context. According to Biber this dimension "distinguishes texts
with a primary narrative emphasis, marked by considerable reference to a removed
situation, from those with non-narrative emphases (descriptive, expository, or
other) marked by little reference to a removed situation but a high occurrence
of present tense forms" (p. 396). Although
Biber's three dimensions provide a more detailed analysis of the nature of
language proficiency and use than the conversational/academic distinction (as
would be expected in view of the very extensive range of spoken and written
texts analyzed), it is clear that the distinctions highlighted in his dimensions
are consistent with the broad distinction between conversational and academic
aspects of proficiency. For example, when factor scores were calculated for the
different text types on each factor, telephone and face-to-face conversation
were at opposite extremes from official documents and academic prose on Textual
Dimensions 1 and 2 (Interactive vs. Edited Text, and Abstract vs. Situated
Content). In short, Biber’s
research shows clearly that the general distinction that has been proposed
between conversational and academic aspects of language has linguistic reality
that can be identified empirically. Consistent
with Biber’s distinctions is recent work by Gibbons and Lascar (1998) in
Australia. Gibbons and Lascar point to the fact that Biber’s descriptions of
different registers of language are consistent with the characteristics that
Michael Halliday (e.g. Halliday & Hasan, 1985) assigns to the concept of Mode
“which examines the linguistic effects produced by the distance (in terms
of time, space and abstractness) between a text and the context to which it
refers, and also the distance between listener/reader and speaker/writer” (p.
41). Gibbons and Lascar note that
degree of context-embeddedness is a
defining feature of this register parameter Mode and refer to it as the literate
register on the grounds that “it constitutes an important element of
literacy” (p. 41). Gibbons and Lascar point out that many minority language
speakers often have a well-developed domestic or everyday register but have not
had opportunities to acquire many other registers, particularly the academic or
literate register. Their research
used multiple choice cloze procedures as a way of operationalizing cognitive
academic language proficiency. Corson’s
Analysis of the English Language Lexicon. . Corson (1993, 1995) has pointed out that the
academic language of texts in English depends heavily on Graeco-Latin words
whereas everyday
conversation relies more on an Anglo-Saxon-based lexicon: "most of the
specialist and high status terminology of English is Graeco-Latin in origin, and
most of its more everyday terminology
is Anglo-Saxon in origin" (1993, p. 13).
He cites data that suggests that approximately 60% of all of the words in
written English text are of Graeco-Latin origin. These words tend to be three or
four syllables long whereas the everyday high frequency words of the Anglo-Saxon
lexicon tend to be one or two syllables in length. Corson
(1997, p. 677) points out that …printed
texts provided much more exposure to [Graeco-Latin] words than oral ones.
For example, even children's books contained 50% more rare words than
either adult prime-time television or the conversations of university graduates;
popular magazines had three times as many rare words as television and informal
conversation. An
obvious implication of these data is that if second language learners are to
catch up academically to native-speakers they must engage in extensive reading
of written text because academic
language is reliably to be found only in written text. The research on reading
achievement also suggests, however, that in addition to large amounts of time
for actual text reading, it is also important for students to have ample
opportunities to talk to each other and to a teacher about their responses to
reading (see Fielding and Pearson, 1994, for a review).
Talking about the text in a collaborative context ensures that higher
order thinking processes (e.g. analysis, evaluation, synthesis) engage with
academic language in deepening students’ comprehension of the text. To
better illustrate the centrality of the Graeco-Latin lexicon to the
comprehension of academic language consider the following passage from Edgar
Allan Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum which appeared in a high school
literature compendium: My outstretched hands at length encountered some
solid obstruction. It was a wall,
seemingly of stone masonry -- very smooth, slimy, and cold. I followed it up;
stepping with all the careful distrust with which certain antique narratives had
inspired me. (ScottForesman, 1997, p. 256) Among
the more difficult words in this passage are the following: outstretched,
encountered, solid, obstruction, masonry, slimy, distrust, antique, narratives,
inspired With the exception of outstretched
and slimy, all of these words are Graeco-Latin in origin and have
semantic relationships across the Romance languages. Outstretched has
indirect cognate relationships with Graeco-Latin-based languages through its
synonym extended (e.g. extendido in Spanish). Thus, at least in
English, the lexicon used in conversational interactions is dramatically
different than that used in more literate and academic contexts. In
summary, there is solid linguistic evidence for the reality of the
conversational/academic language distinction in addition to the evidence of
different time periods required to develop peer-appropriate levels of each
dimension of language proficiency among second language learners. In the North
American context, failure to take account of this distinction has led to
inappropriate psychological testing of bilingual students and premature exit
from bilingual or ESL support programs into "mainstream" classes where
students received minimal support for continued academic language development.
In other words, the conceptual distinction between conversational and
academic language proficiency highlighted misconceptions about the nature of
language proficiency that were contributing directly to the creation of academic
failure among bilingual students. Critiques of the
Conversational/Academic Language Distinction
Early
critiques of the conversational/academic distinction were advanced by
Carole Edelsky and her colleagues (Edelsky et al., 1983) and in a volume
edited by Charlene Rivera (1984). These
critiques were responded to and will not be discussed in depth in this paper
(see Cummins & Swain, 1983). Edelsky
(1990) later reiterated and reformulated her critique and other critiques were
advanced by Martin-Jones and Romaine (1986) and Romaine (1990).
More recently, Terrence Wiley (1996) has provided a detailed review and
critique. The
major criticisms in these and other critiques are as follows: ·
The conversational/academic language distinction reflects
an autonomous perspective on language that ignores its location in social
practices and power relations (Edelsky et al., 1983; Romaine, 1990; Troike,
1984; Wald, 1984; Wiley, 1997). ·
CALP or academic language proficiency represents little
more than “test-wiseness” - it is an artifact of the inappropriate way in
which it has been measured (Edelsky et al., 1983). ·
The notion of CALP promotes a “deficit theory”
insofar as it attributes the academic failure of bilingual/minority students to
low cognitive/academic proficiency rather than to inappropriate schooling; in
this respect it is no different than notions such as “semilingualism” (Edelsky, 1990; Edelsky et al., 1983;
Martin-Jones & Romaine, 1986).
I
will outline in more detail the points raised by Edelsky (1990) and Wiley (1996)
as representative of the general orientation of these critiques. Edelsky’s
(1990) critique. Consistent
with her previous critique (Edelsky et al., 1983), Edelsky disputes the
legitimacy of the constructs of cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP)
and basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS).
She argues that CALP consists of little more than test-taking skills and
the construct encourages skills-oriented instruction, thereby impeding the
literacy development of bilingual students who will thrive only in
meaning-oriented whole-language instructional contexts.
The tone and substance of her critique can be gauged from the following
extracts: The fundamental problem with all versions of
Cummins’ THEORY is that it is premised on an erroneous, psychologically
derived ‘theory’ of the nature of reading—a conception of reading as
consisting of separate skills with discrete components of language. What counts
as either reading-in-action or as evidence of reading ability is ‘reading
skills’. These are demonstrated by performance in miscontextualized tasks
(performed for the sole purpose of either demonstrating proficiency or complying
with the assignment) or on tests whose scores are presumed to represent some
supposedly context-free reading ability. (pp. 60-61) Despite Cummins’ occasional use of ‘whole
language’ terminology (e.g. ‘inferring’, ‘predicting’ ‘large chunks
of discourse’), his underlying skills orientation shows through. (p. 61)... he
uses a discourse of empowerment and puts forward a set of suggestions that
implicitly contradict his ‘theory’ of reading as consisting of separate
skills (Cummins, 1986). ... And Cummins uses the right rhetoric.
He talks of students setting their own goals and generating their own
knowledge and he mentions congruent educational practice... Even so, the
separate skills ‘theory’ slips out and he contradicts his own message.
For example, for empirical support, he relies heavily on test score data
that can only provide evidence of how well students perform on skill exercises.
He applauds and describes at length programs that operate according to a
skills ‘theory’. For instance, he talks of two programs that make language
or cultural accommodations which benefit minority language children by helping
them attain readiness or success. Readiness
for what? For the academic tasks of the traditional kindergartens the children
will enter in California. Success at what? Success in doing reading exercises in
tests and basal reading lessons in Hawaii. (p. 62) What
Edelsky is referring to here is reference to two programs that incorporated many
of the characteristics that I postulated were necessary to challenge coercive
power structures in school. One was
the bilingual preschool program in Carpinteria that used Spanish as the
predominant language of instruction and attempted to incorporate children’s
cultural background experience into the design of the program which was strongly
child-centered (Campos & Keatinge, 1988). The other was the Kamehameha
program in Hawaii that dramatically improved native Hawaiian children’s
reading performance by incorporating culturally-familiar communal
story-construction patterns into reading instruction (Au & Jordan, 1981). According
to Edelsky the theoretical constructs “gained popularity so fast and was so
effective in influencing policy” (p. 63) because they reinforced ideas that
“undergird predominant thinking about education in North America” namely
“[t]hat written language consists of separate skills, that curriculum should
teach those skills, that tests can assess them” (p. 63). Edelsky
points out that in disputing the constructs of CALP and BICS, she is not
claiming that all children are equally competent. She also points out that she does not believe that
proficiency with any language variety, in either oral or written modes,
enables one to do everything humanly possible with language (p. 65): Though potentially equal, at any given
historical moment different language repertoires (including literate
repertoires) of particular speech communities are unequally efficient for all
purposes and even then, unequally assigned to members. ... However, the nature
of those repertoires, their functions, their meanings, and their inequalities
must be determined by ethnographies of speaking and of literacy, not by
differential performance in one (testing) context that is subject to criticism
on multiple grounds. (p. 65) She
is explicit about how she views the construct of cognitive academic language
proficiency: it is nothing more than “test-wiseness” (p. 65) or what she
terms “skill in instructional nonsense” (SIN).
Any research that has used any form of “test,” whether standardized
reading measures or non-standardized measures of any kind of cognitive
performance is dismissed. For
example, in referring to Gordon Wells’ (1986) documentation of the relation
between exposure to literacy at home and subsequent literacy performance in
school she notes: “In fact, from the use he makes of Wells’ research,
Cummins seems to interpret the social grounding of CALP to mean no more than a
correlation between test scores and certain kinds of home interactions” (p.
68). It is not surprising to her that support for the theoretical constructs of
CALP and BICS would come ... almost entirely from studies using tests of
separate so-called reading skills. (No wonder. His small parts, psychometric
orientation that views all human activity as first divisible into atomized
skills and then measurable would certainly lead him to prefer such evidence. (p.
61) Edelsky
concludes her critique by rejecting theories that locate “failure in
children’s heads (in their IQ, their language deficits, their cognitive
deficits, their learning styles, their underdeveloped CALP).” Response
to the Critique. A first point to note is that there is nothing new in the Edelsky (1990)
critique that was not already in the Edelsky et al. (1983) critique.
The only difference is that any elaboration of the sociopolitical
determinants of students’ academic difficulties is dismissed as suffering from
“internal contradictions.” The
same charge is leveled against any explication of the pedagogical implications
of the theoretical framework which attempt to go beyond apolitical
one-size-fits-all whole language approaches towards transformative or critical
pedagogy (Cummins, 1986, 1996; see also Delpit, 1988, and Reyes, 1992, for
critiques of whole language from progressive educators).
To
set the record straight, the sociopolitical and instructional implications of
the theoretical framework which Edelsky dismisses as internally contradictory
were expressed in 1986 as follows: Sociopolitical
perspective: Minority students are disabled or empowered in
schools in very much the same way that their communities are disempowered in
interactions with societal institutions. ... This analysis implies that minority
students will succeed educationally to the extent that the patterns of
interaction in school reverse those that prevail in the society at large. (p.
24) Given the societal commitment to maintaining the
dominant/dominated power relationships, we can predict that educational changes
threatening this structure will be fiercely resisted. (p. 34) Instructional
perspective: A central tenet of the reciprocal interaction model is that “talking
and writing are means to learning” (Bullock Report, 1975, p. 50). ... This
model emphasizes the development of higher level cognitive skills rather than
just factual recall, and meaningful language use by students rather than
correction of surface forms. Language
use and development are consciously integrated with all curricular content
rather than taught as isolated subjects, and tasks are presented to students in
ways that generate intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivation.
In short, pedagogical approaches that empower students encourage them to
assume greater control over setting their own learning goals and to collaborate
actively with each other in achieving these goals (p. 29) In
terms of the quadrants outlined in Figure 1, these approaches fall into quadrant
B (cognitively demanding, context embedded). In later work, I have emphasized
the importance of going beyond whole language or “progressive pedagogy” as
illustrated in the quotation below: Transformative pedagogy uses collaborative critical
inquiry to enable students to relate curriculum content to their individual and
collective experience and to analyze broader social issues relevant to their
lives. It also encourages students
to discuss ways in which social realities might be transformed through various
forms of democratic participation and social action.
Thus, transformative pedagogy will aim to go beyond the sanitized
curriculum that is still the norm in many schools.
It will attempt to promote students’ ability to analyze and understand
the social realities of their own lives and of their communities.
It will strive to develop a critical literacy... (1996, p. 157) So
how are these perspectives “internally contradictory” with the
conversational/academic language distinction and with the dimensions outlined in
Figure 1? They are not in any way contradictory.
The construct of academic language proficiency does not in any way
depend on test scores as support for either its construct validity or relevance
to education. Three out of four sources of evidence cited above make no mention
of test scores. The obvious differences between 6-year-old and 16-year-old
monolingual students in multiple aspects of literacy-related knowledge
(assessed by any criterion) illustrate this reality as does Corson’s
analysis of the lexicon of English and Biber’s analysis of more than one
million words of English speech and written text (although Biber’s work might
be suspect to Edelsky since he did use psychometric tools to analyze
relationships among words and their linguistic and social contexts of use). Edelsky’s
vehement dismissal of any test used for any purpose in any context and her
adamant endorsement of only one way of collecting data on language proficiency
(through ethnographies of speaking and literacy) might appear to some
researchers as extreme. To others
it might appear as a fundamentalist approach which recognizes only one truth and
adopts an “off with their heads” attitude to other perspectives. There are
very few researchers in the area of bilingual education (or any other area of
educational research) who, on ideological grounds, have refused to even cite
research that used statistics or that involved formal testing of academic
progress. A
characteristic of fundamentalist approaches to any topic or belief system is
that attempts at dialogue tend not to progress very far.
This is illustrated in the fact that Edelsky (1990) makes no attempt to
respond to the rebuttals of the Edelsky et al. (1983) position advanced by
Cummins and Swain (1983). We made three basic points in response to the arguments that
the CALP/BICS distinction entailed a “deficit position” that blamed the
victim by attributing school failure to “low CALP” and furthermore that it
promoted a “skills” approach to pedagogy that would further victimize
minority group students. We suggested: ·
That
rational discussion of which theories constitute ‘deficit theories’ require explicit
criteria of what constitutes a
‘deficit theory’; for example, does it constitute a “deficit theory” to
note, as many researchers and theorists have done (e.g. Wells,
1981), that middle class children tend to have more experience of books
than low-income students when they come to school and that this gives them
access to a greater range of language functions and registers that are relevant
to the ways schools tend to teach initial literacy? In this case, children’s
linguistic experience and the consequent earlier access to certain registers of
language is seen as an intervening variable that interacts with patterns of
instruction at school. Is any positing of learner attributes and linguistic
experience as an intervening variable a deficit theory? ·
That
universal condemnation of all formal test situations is simplistic and fails to
account for considerable data documenting strong positive relationships between
reading test scores and “authentic” assessment measures such as miscue
analysis and cloze procedures. We pointed out that “if cloze tests are to be
dismissed as ‘irrelevant nonsense’ then this surely merits some comment in
view of their widespread use and
acceptance among applied linguists” (1983, p. 28) including Sarah Hudelson,
one of Edelsky’s co-authors. ·
That when
language proficiency or CALP “is discussed as part of a causal chain, it is never
discussed as an isolated causal factor (as Edelsky et al. consistently
depict it) but rather as one of a number of individual learner attributes
which are determined by societal influences and which interact with educational
treatment factors in affecting academic progress” (p. 31). In other words,
language proficiency was always seen as an intervening variable rather
than an autonomous causal variable; it develops through social interaction in
home and school. To
deny this essentially Vygotskian perspective on language and academic
development, one has to either adopt an extreme Chomskian perspective that
identifies “language proficiency” as Universal Grammar and immune from
virtually all social interactional and environmental influence or claim that a
student’s language proficiency in a particular language has no relationship to
that student’s ability to benefit from instruction in that language. Edelsky’s
(1990) failure to define what she means by a deficit position, explain how
“authentic” measures of reading are so closely related to “skill in
instructional nonsense,” and discuss the extent to which, within her belief
system, there is a place for any construct of “language proficiency” and if
so how it relates to academic progress (intervening variable, “causal”
variable, totally unrelated?) suggests that she is more interested in rhetoric
than dialogue. A
more open approach would admit that there is no contradiction between the
conception of “language proficiency” outlined in the early part of this
paper and a theoretical framework that ·
identifies
coercive power relations as the causal factors in the underachievement of
subordinated group students; and ·
promotes
transformative pedagogy as a central component in challenging these coercive
relations of power in the classroom. In
fact, the distinction between conversational and academic dimensions of
proficiency has been instrumental in highlighting both how standardized tests
(e.g. IQ tests used in psychological assessment) and premature exit from
bilingual programs on the basis of conversational rather than academic
development in English have contributed to the perpetuation of coercive power
relations in the educational system. A
balanced critique would have acknowledged the impact of the
conversational/academic distinction in highlighting these realities. A
final issue concerns Edelsky’s dismissal of the efforts of dedicated educators
in Carpinteria and Hawaii (and countless other programs that have used
standardized tests as one way of documenting student progress and establishing
credibility to skeptical policy-makers and the general public). While the
offensive tone of this dismissal is probably unintended, it illustrates the
consequences of adopting a one-dimensional perspective on the contradictions
encountered by educators attempting to create contexts of empowerment in the
real world of classrooms and schools. Wiley’s
(1996) critique. Wiley’s critique forms a chapter in his useful volume Literacy and
Language Diversity in the United States. The critique derives from a basic
distinction he makes between different orientations to literacy. Specifically,
he contrasts the autonomous approach with the ideological approach.
The former is described as follows: The autonomous approach to literacy tends to focus on
formal mental properties of decoding and encoding text, excluding analyses of
how these processes are used within social contexts. The success of the learner
in acquiring literacy is seen as correlating with individual psychological
processes. ... Those operating within the autonomous approach see literacy as
having “cognitive consequences” at both the individual and societal level...
An autonomous perspective largely ignores the historical and sociopolitical
contexts in which individuals live and differences in power and resources
between groups. (p. 31) By
contrast, in the ideological approach advanced by Street (1993) and critical
pedagogy theorists (e.g. Freire, 1970) “literacy is viewed as a set of
practices that are inextricably linked to cultural and power structures in the
society (p. 32). From this
perspective, literacy problems are seen as related to social stratification and
to gaps in power and resources between groups. The role of schools in
reinforcing this stratification is expressed as follows: Because schools are the principal institutions
responsible for developing literacy, they are seen as embedded within larger
sociopolitical contexts. Because some groups succeed in school while others
fail, the ideological approach scrutinizes the way in which literacy development
is carried out. It looks at the implicit biases in schools that can privilege
some groups to the exclusion of others. Finally, the social practices approach
values literacy programs and policies that are built on the knowledge and
resources people already have. (p. 33) Wiley’s
major concern is that constructs such as BICS/CALP or conversational/academic
language and the contextual and cognitive dimensions outlined in Figure 1 appear
to invoke an autonomous orientation to language and literacy that isolates
language and literacy practices from their sociocultural and sociopolitical
context. He concurs with the critiques of Edelsky et al. (1983) that the
construct of CALP relies on inauthentic test data and cites Martin-Jones and
Romaine (1986, p. 30) that the distinction between CALP and BICS is suspect ...if both are seen as independent of rather than
shaped by the language context in which they are acquired and used... The type
of literacy-related skills described by Cummins are, in fact, quite
culture-specific: that is, they are specific to the cultural setting of the
school. Wiley
is also concerned about the higher status supposedly assigned to academic as
compared to conversational language: Notions of academic language proficiency and
decontextualization, as they are often used, are particularly problematic
because they confound language with schooling and equate a higher cognitive
status to the language and literacy practices of school. Academic language
proficiency seems to equate broadly with schooling. Schooling is not a neutral
process. It involves class and
culturally specific forms of socialization. (p. 183) Finally,
Wiley criticizes the “simplistic” but “well-intentioned” ways in which
practitioners have attempted to operationalize the kinds of language
tasks/activities that would fall into the four quadrants of Figure 1. He gives
one set of examples of such tasks/activities used for professional development
in California which he describes as “value laden and arbitrary” with
categorization of tasks which is “confused and inaccurate.”
He points out that “[p]rofessional development materials such as these
illustrate the limitations of applying constructs in practice that have not been
fully elaborated at the theoretical level.” Wiley
concludes that it is “necessary to rid the framework of those constructs that
are compatible with an autonomous view of language use. ... It would require
focusing more on social than on cognitive factors affecting language development
(Troike, 1984) and on the cultural factors that affect language and literacy
practices in the schools” (p. 178). Response to the
Critique. Wiley’s analysis suffers from a rigid “either-or”
perspective on what forms of inquiry are appropriate in the area of literacy and
schooling. Either an approach is autonomous or it is ideological but it can’t
be both, or draw from each tradition in order to address different kinds of
questions. Linked to this is a prescriptivism which, although much less strident
than Edelsky’s (1990), suggests that only questions deriving from an
ideological perspective can and should be asked.
This
rigid dichotomy leads him to largely ignore the fact that the theoretical
constructs associated with the notion of language proficiency (e.g. as outlined
in Figure 1) have been integrated since 1986 with a detailed sociopolitical
analysis of how schools construct academic failure among subordinated groups.
This framework (Cummins, 1986, 1989, 1996) analyzes how coercive
relations of power in the wider society (“macro-interactions”) affect both
educator role definitions and educational structures which, in turn, result in
patterns of “micro-interactions” between educators and subordinated group
students that have constricted students’ academic language development and
identity formation. The framework documents educational approaches that challenge
this pattern of coercive power relations and promote the generation of power in
the micro-interactions between educators and students. This
framework, however, does not regard “language proficiency” as irrelevant to
the schooling of subordinated group students. I believe that, in order to
analyze how power relations operate in the real world of schooling, it is
crucial to ask questions such as “How long does it take second language
learners to catch up to native speakers in English academic development?” The
data showing that five years are minimally required to bridge this gap continue
to provide bilingual educators with a powerful rebuttal to efforts to deny
students access to bilingual programs or exit them rapidly from support services
whether bilingual or English-only. Yet, Wiley would presumably classify this
question as deriving from an “autonomous” perspective. I
also believe that it is legitimate to ask “What forms of proficiency in
English do bilingual students need to survive academically in all-English
classrooms after they have been transitioned out of bilingual programs?” This
question would also fall into the “autonomous” category of the artificial
either-or dichotomy that Wiley constructs. The conversational/academic language
proficiency distinction has been instrumental in helping educators understand
why students transitioned on the basis of conversational fluency in English
frequently experience severe academic difficulties in all-English mainstream
classrooms. The
same issue surfaces with respect to the assessment of bilingual children for
special education purposes. The
BICS/CALP distinction highlighted the fact that psychological assessment in
English was considered appropriate by psychologists and teachers when students
had gained conversational fluency in English but frequently were far from their
native English-speaking peers in academic English development (Cummins, 1984). Wiley’s
dichotomy would also consign any question regarding how language and cognition
intersect (in either monolingual or multilingual individuals) to the garbage
heap of scientific inquiry. All of the research studies documenting
that acquisition of bilingualism in childhood entails no adverse
cognitive consequences for children and, in fact, is associated with more
advanced awareness of language and ability to analyze language would also be
castigated as reflecting an “autonomous” perspective. It
is also legitimate, I believe, to ask how linguistic interactions in home and
school, and interactions related to print, affect children’s linguistic,
cognitive, and academic development. These interactions take place within a
sociocultural and sociopolitical context but their effects are still linguistic,
academic, and cognitive. A student
from a bilingual background who does not understand the language of instruction
in school and receives no support to enable him or her to do so is unlikely to
develop high levels of academic or literacy skills in either first or second
language. The
list of questions could go on. The
point I want to make is that within the framework I have proposed, “language
proficiency” is seen as an intervening variable that mediates
children’s academic development. It
is not in any sense “autonomous” or independent of the sociocultural
context. I fully agree with Martin-Jones and Romaine’s point that the
development of conversational and academic aspects of proficiency are “shaped
by the language context in which they are acquired and used” and that academic
language is “specific to the cultural setting of the school.”
Their claim that the BICS/CALP distinction proposes otherwise is without
foundation. A central aspect of the framework, in fact, is that language
proficiency is shaped by the patterns and contexts of educator-student
interaction in the school and will, in turn, mediate the further outcomes of
schooling. The
claim that the BICS/CALP distinction ascribes a superior status to academic
language as compared to conversational has already been addressed above. No form
of language is cognitively or linguistically superior to any other in any
absolute sense outside of particular contexts.
However, within the context of school, knowledge of academic language
(e.g. the Graeco-Latin lexicon of written English text) is clearly relevant to
educational success and adds a crucial dimension to conversational fluency in
understanding how “language proficiency” relates to academic achievement..
Wiley, like Martin-Jones and Romaine, take a conceptual distinction that was
addressed only to issues of schooling, and criticize it on the grounds that this
distinction is “specific only to the cultural setting of the school.” They
seriously misrepresent the distinction when they label it “autonomous” or
“independent” of particular contexts.. An
inconsistency in Wiley’s attitude to “inauthentic test data” should be
noted. He suggests (p. 167) that there is a major concern regarding the
authenticity of using school-test data as a means of determining language
proficiencies. I would agree. School-test data attempt to assess certain kinds
of language proficiencies but often do it very inadequately without regard to
cultural and linguistic biases in the test instruments, as the study of
psychological test data demonstrated (Cummins, 1984). However, in view of
Wiley’s dismissal of school-test data as even a partial basis for constructing
theory, it is surprising to see him invoke exactly this type of data to assert
that “[t]here is an ever-growing body of evidence that bilingual education is
effective in promoting literacy and academic achievement
among children when adequate resources are provided” (p. 153).
Virtually all of this evidence derives from “inauthentic” standardized test
data. For example, among the references cited to back up this claim are Ramirez
(1992) and Krashen and Biber (1988) who relied almost exclusively on
standardized test data to support their claims for the effectiveness of
bilingual education. A
final point concerns Wiley’s unease with the “simplistic,” “confused and
inaccurate” interpretations by some practitioners of what kinds of language
task or activities would fall into the four quadrants of Figure 1. He fails to
appreciate that the quadrants represent a visual metaphor that incorporates
hypotheses about the dimensions underlying various kinds of language
performance. It makes linkages
between the theoretical literature on the nature of proficiency in a language
and specific instructional and policy issues faced on a daily basis by educators
working with bilingual learners (e.g. how much “English proficiency” do
children need to participate effectively in an all-English classroom?). It
attempts to provide tentative answers to certain questions such as why certain
kinds of “English proficiency” are acquired to peer-appropriate levels
relatively quickly while a longer period is required for other aspects of
proficiency. However, it was also
intended as a heuristic tool to stimulate discussion regarding the linguistic
and cognitive challenges posed by different academic tasks and subject matter
content and in both the British and North American context it has been effective
in this regard (e.g. Frederickson & Cline, 1996).
Thus, it risks appearing condescending to dismiss as “simplistic” the
efforts of educators to use the framework as a tool to discuss, and attempt to
better understand, the linguistic challenges their students face. In
summary, Wiley’s basic point is that the theoretical construction of language
and literacy and prescriptions regarding how they should be taught are never
neutral with respect to societal power relations. An “ideological” approach is fundamental to understanding
literacy development, particularly in linguistically and culturally diverse
contexts. I am in full agreement
with this perspective and have attempted to highlight how coercive power
relations affect the development of language and literacy among bilingual
students. However, there are also
many important and legitimate questions regarding the nature of language
proficiency, the developmental patterns of its various components, and the
relationships among language proficiency, cognitive development, and academic
progress, that cannot be totally reduced to “ideological” or sociopolitical
questions. To dismiss these issues
as reflecting an “autonomous” orientation and to demand that any traces of
such an orientation be purged from theoretical approaches to literacy is not
only to dismiss much of the entire disciplines of psychology and applied
linguistics but it also reflects a misunderstanding of the nature of intervening
or mediating variables. There is absolutely no internal inconsistency in asking
questions about the nature of the relationships between language, bilingualism,
cognition, and academic achievement within the broader context of a
sociopolitical causal model. Conclusion
Although
much of the discussion in this paper has revolved around theoretical issues
relating to language proficiency and how it relates to academic development, my
primary goal has been to clarify misconceptions regarding these issues so that
policy-makers and educators can re-focus on the issue of how to promote academic
language development effectively among bilingual children.
If academic language proficiency or CALP is accepted as a valid construct
then certain instructional implications follow.
In the first place, as Stephen Krashen (1993) has repeatedly emphasized,
extensive reading is crucial for academic development since academic language is
found primarily in written text. If bilingual students are not reading
extensively, they are not getting access to the language of academic success.
Opportunities for collaborative learning and talk about text are also relevant
in helping students internalize and more fully comprehend the academic language
they find in their extensive reading of text.
Writing
is also crucial because when bilingual students write about issues that matter
to them they not only consolidate aspects of the academic language they have
been reading, they also express their identities through language and
(hopefully) receive feedback from teachers and others that will affirm and
further develop their expression of self. In
general, the instructional implications of the framework within bilingual
programs can be expressed in terms of the three components of the construct of
CALP: Cognitive - instruction
should be cognitively challenging and require students to use higher-order
thinking abilities rather than the low-level memorization and application skills
that are tapped by typical worksheets or drill-and-practice computer programs; Academic - academic content (science, math, social studies, art
etc.) should be integrated with language instruction so that students acquire
the specific language of these academic registers. Language - the
development of critical language awareness should be fostered throughout the
program by encouraging students to compare and contrast their languages (e.g.
phonics conventions, grammar, cognates, etc.) and by providing students with
extensive opportunities to carry out projects investigating their own and their
community's language use, practices, and assumptions (e.g. in relation to the
status of different varieties). In
short, instruction within a strong bilingual program should provide a Focus
on Message, a Focus on Language, and a Focus on Use in both
languages (Cummins, in press). We
know our program is effective, and developing CALP, if we can say with
confidence that our students are generating new knowledge, creating literature
and art, and acting on social realities that affect their lives.
These are the kinds of (quadrant B) instructional activities that the
conversational/academic language distinction is intended to foster. Footnote
1.
I would
like to thank David Corson for helpful comments on an earlier version of this
paper. References Au,
K.H. & Jordan, C. (1981). Teaching
reading to Hawaiian children: Finding a culturally appropriate solution. In H.
Trueba, G.P. Guthrie, & K.H. Au (Eds.), Culture and the bilingual
classroom: Studies in classroom ethnography. (pp. 139-152). Rowley, MA:
Newbury House. August,
D. & Hakuta, K. (Eds.). (1997). Improving schooling for language-minority
children A research agenda. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Biber,
D. (1986). Spoken and written textual dimensions in English: Resolving the
contradictory findings. Language,
62, 384-414. Bruner,
J.S. (1975). Language as an instrument of thought. In A. Davies (Ed.), Problems
of language and learning. London: Heinemann. Bullock
Report. A Language for life: Report of the Committee of inquiry appointed by
the Secretary of State for Education and Science under the chairmanship of Sir
Alan Bullock. London: HMSO,
1975. Campos,
J. & Keatinge, R. (1988). The Carpinteria language minority student
experience: From theory, to practice, to success. In T. Skutnabb-Kangas and J.
Cummins (Ed.), Minority education: From shame to struggle. (pp. 299-308).
Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters Collier,
V. P. (1987). Age and rate of
acquisition of second language for academic purposes. TESOL Quarterly, 21, 617-641. Corson,
D. (1993). Language, minority education and gender: Linking social justice
and power. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.
Corson,
D. (1995). Using English words. New York: Kluwer.
Corson,
D. (1997). The learning and use of academic English words. Language Learning,
47, 671-718. Cummins,
J. (1979). Cognitive/academic language proficiency, linguistic interdependence,
the optimum age question and some other matters. Working Papers on Bilingualism, No. 19, 121-129. Cummins,
J. (1981a). Age on arrival and immigrant second language learning in
Canada. A reassessment.
Applied Linguistics, 2, l32-l49. Cummins,
J. (1981b) The role of primary language development in promoting educational
success for language minority students. In California State Department of
Education (Ed.), Schooling and language minority students: A theoretical
framework. Evaluation, Dissemination and Assessment Center, California State
University, Los Angeles. Cummins,
J. (1984). Bilingualism and special education: Issues in assessment and
pedagogy. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. Cummins,
J. (1986). Empowering minority
students: A framework for intervention.
Harvard Educational Review, 56, 18-36. Cummins,
J. (1989). Empowering minority
students. Sacramento:
California Association for Bilingual Education. Cummins,
J. (1996). Negotiating
identities: Education for empowerment in a diverse society. Los Angeles:
California Association for Bilingual Education. Cummins,
J. (in press). Teaching the
language of academic success. Monograph to be published by New Jersey
TESOL/Bilingual Education Association. Cummins,
J. & Corson, D. (Eds.). (1998). Bilingual education. Dordrecht, The
Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Cummins,
J. & Swain, M. (1983). Analysis-by rhetoric: reading the text or the
reader’s own projections? A reply to Edelsky et al. Applied Linguistics, 4(1),
22-41. Delpit,
L. D. (1988). The silenced dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other
people's children. Harvard Educational Review, 58, 280-298. Donaldson,
M. (1978). Children's minds. Glasgow: Collins. Edelsky,
C. (1990). With literacy and justice for all: Rethinking the social in
language and education. London: The Falmer Press. Edelsky,
C, Hudelson, S., Altwerger, B., Flores, B., Barkin, F., Jilbert, K.(1983).
Semilingualism and language deficit. Applied
Linguistics, 4(1), 1-22. Fielding,
L.G. & Pearson, P.D. (1994).
Reading comprehension: what works. Educational Leadership, 51(5), 62-68. Freire,
P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Herder & Herder. Gibbons,
J. & Lascar, E. (1998). Operationalizing academic language proficiency in
bilingualism research. Journal
of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 19(1), 40-50. Gibbons,
P. (1991). Learning to learn in a second language. Newtown, Australia:
Primary English Teaching Association. Halliday,
M.A.K. & Hasan, R. (1985). Language, context and text: Aspects of
language in a social-semiotic perspective. Geelong, Victoria: Deakin
University Press. Heath, Klesmer,
H. (1994). Assessment and teacher
perceptions of ESL student achievement. English Quarterly, 26(3), 5-7. Krashen,
S. (1993). The power of reading.
Englewood, CO.: Libraries
Unlimited. Krashen,
S.& Biber, D. (1988). On course: Bilingual education’s success in
California. Sacramento: California Association for Bilingual Education. Martin-Jones,
M., & Romaine, S. (1986). Semilingualism: A half-baked theory of
communicative competence. Applied
Linguistics, 7(1), 26-38. Oller,
J. (1979). Language tests at
school: A pragmatic approach. London: Longman. Olson,
D.R. (1977). From utterance to text: The bias of language in speech and writing.
Harvard Educational Review, 47, 257-281.
Ortiz,
A.A. & Yates, J.R. (1983). Incidence of exceptionality among Hispanics:
Implications for manpower planning. NABE Journal, 7, 41-54.
Ramirez,
J.D. (1992). Executive summary. Bilingual Research Journal, 16, 1-62. Reyes,
M. de la Luz. (1992). Challenging venerable assumptions: Literacy instruction
for linguistically different students. Harvard Educational Review, 62,
427-446. Rivera,
C. (Ed.). (1984). Language proficiency and academic achievement. Clevedon,
England: Multilingual Matters. Romaine,
S. (1989). Bilingualism. Oxford: Blackwell. Skutnabb-Kangas,
T. & Toukomaa, P. (1976). Teaching migrant children's mother tongue and
learning the language of the host country in the context of the sociocultural
situation of the migrant family. Helsinki: The Finnish National Commission
for UNESCO. Snow,
C.E., Cancino, H., De Temple, J., & Schley, S. (1991). Giving formal
definitions: A linguistic or metalinguistic skill? In E. Bialystok (ed.) Language
processing in bilingual children. (pp. 90-112). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. Street,
B.V. (Ed.). (1993). Cross-cultural approaches to literacy. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. Troike,
R. (1984). SCALP: Social and cultural aspects of language proficiency. In C.
Rivera (Ed.), Language proficiency and academic achievement. (pp.
44-54). Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. Verhoeven,
L. (1991). Acquisition of
biliteracy. AILA Review, 8,
61-74 Wald,
B. (1984). A sociolinguistic prspective on Cummins’ current framework for
relating language proficiency to academic achievement. In C. Rivera (Ed.), Language
proficiency and academic achievement. (pp. 55-70). In C. Rivera (Ed.), Language proficiency and
academic achievement. Clevedon,
England: Multilingual Matters. Wells,
G. (1981). Learning through interaction: The study of language development.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wells,
G. (1986). The meaning makers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Wiley, T. G. (1996). Literacy and language diversity in the United States. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems
| ||||||||||||||||||
