Unit 2-16. Content and language integrated learning

Guidelines for extensive reading of texts on the use of ESP in European transnational education

The information and advice in this Unit is based on Professor Jim Cummins’ theory. Professor Cummins is one of the world’s leading authorities on bilingual education and second language acquisition. Mainstream teachers who have a knowledge of his theories and act on his advice will be in a much stronger position to help the ESL students in their classes.

Professor Jim Cummins differentiates between social and academic language acquisition. Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) are language skills needed in social situations. It is the day-to-day language needed to interact socially with other people. Social interactions are usually context embedded. They occur in a meaningful social context. They are not very demanding cognitively. The language required is not specialized.

Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) refers to formal academic learning. This includes listening, speaking, reading, and writing about subject area content material. This level of language learning is essential for students to succeed in their speciality.

Academic language acquisition isn't just the understanding of content area vocabulary. It includes skills such as comparing, classifying, synthesizing, evaluating, and inferring. Academic language tasks are context reduced. The language becomes more cognitively demanding. New ideas, concepts and language are presented to the students at the same time.

Jim Cummins also advances the theory that there is a Common Underlying Proficiency (CUP) between two languages. The idea of CUP is in that the skills, ideas and concepts students learn in their first language will be transferred to the second language.

 

Text 2-16. BICS / CALP / CUP. Explaining BICS and CALP AND CUP

(After Judie Haynes)

1. Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS)

Experts such as Jim Cummins differentiate between social and academic language acquisition. Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) are language skills needed in social situations. It is the day-to-day language needed to interact socially with other people. English language learners (ELLs) employ BIC skills when they are in the lunch room, on the bus, at parties, playing sports and talking on the telephone. Social interactions are usually context embedded. They occur in a meaningful social context. They are not very demanding cognitively. The language required is not specialized. University students can develop these language skills usually within six months to two years after starting their ESL course.

In fact the acronym BICS describes social, conversational language used for oral communication. Also described as social language, this type of communication offers many cues to the listener and is context-embedded language. As it takes about two years for students from different linguistic backgrounds to acquire context-embedded social language readily, ESL learners can comprehend social language by: observing speakers’ non-verbal behavior (gestures, facial expressions and eye actions); observing others’ reactions; using voice cues such as phrasing, intonations, and stress; observing pictures, concrete objects, and other contextual cues which are present; and asking for statements to be repeated, and/or clarified.

Cognitive Academic Language (CALP) Proficiency is the basis for a student’s ability to cope with the academic demands placed upon her/him in the various subjects.

CALP refers to formal academic learning: listening, speaking, reading, and writing about subject area content material. CALP usually takes from five to seven years because: there is less face-to-face interaction; academic language is often abstract; literacy demands are high (narrative and expository texts and textbooks are written beyond the language proficiency of the students); and cultural/linguistic knowledge is often needed to comprehend fully.

 

Implications for mainstream teachers

We should not assume that non-native speakers who have attained a high degree of fluency and accuracy in everyday spoken English have the corresponding academic language proficiency. This may help us to avoid labelling students who exhibit this disparity as having special educational needs when all they need is more time. The non-native speakers in your classes, who have exited from the ESL program, are still, in most cases, in the process of catching up with their native speaking peers.

Common underlying proficiency (CUP)

Jim Cummins also advances the theory that there is a common underlying proficiency (CUP) between two languages. Skills, ideas and concepts students learn in their first language will be transferred to the second language.

Briefly stated, Cummins believes that in the course of learning one language a child acquires a set of skills and implicit metalinguistic knowledge that can be drawn upon when later working in another language. This common underlying proficiency (CUP), as he calls these skills and knowledge, is illustrated in the diagram below. It can be seen that the CUP provides the base for the development of both the first language (L1) and the second language (L2). It follows that any expansion of CUP that takes place in one language will have a beneficial effect on the other language(s). This theory also serves to explain why it becomes easier and easier to learn additional languages.

L1 L2 CULP

 

 

Implications for mainstream teachers

It is very important that students be encouraged to continue their native language development. When parents ask about the best ways they can help their child at home, you can reply that the child should have the opportunity to read extensively in her own language. You could suggest that parents make some time every evening to discuss with their child, in their native language, what she has done in school that day: ask her to talk about the science experiment she did, question her about her understanding of primary and secondary sources of historical information, have her explain how she has solved a math problem etc.

As Cummins (2000) states: "Conceptual knowledge developed in one language helps to make input in the other language comprehensible." If a child already understands the concepts of "justice" or "honesty" in her own language, all she has to do is acquire the label for these terms in English. She has a far more difficult task, however, if she has to acquire both the label and the concept in her second language.

Task Difficulty

Cummins has devised a model whereby the different tasks we expect our students to engage in can be categorized. In the diagram below tasks range in difficulty along one continuum from cognitively undemanding to cognitively demanding; and along the other continuum from context-embedded to context-reduced. A context-embedded task is one in which the student has access to a range of additional visual and oral cues; for example s/he can look at illustrations of what is being talked about or ask questions to confirm understanding. A context-reduced task is one such as listening to a lecture or reading dense text, where there are no other sources of help than the language itself. Clearly, a D quadrant task, which is both cognitively demanding and context- reduced, is likely to be the most difficult for students, particularly for non-native speakers in their first years of learning English. However, it is essential that ESL students develop the ability to accomplish such tasks, since academic success is impossible without it.

Context A cognitively	embedded C cognitively
Undemanding B Context	Demanding D reduced

 

Bloom's taxonomy (Knowledge > Comprehension > Application > Analysis > Synthesis) provides a useful way of determining whether a task is demanding or undemanding. So activities which fall within the category of Knowledge – such as collecting, naming, showing etc. – will clearly be less demanding than Analysis activities such as comparing, explaining and inferring.

The degree to which a task is context-embedded depends on the number of channels of information available to the student. So a student who listens to a news report on the radio has only one channel of information – this is a context-reduced learning experience. Compare this with the student who reads a report about the same event in a newspaper article which contains photographs and diagrams. The student can read at her own speed and has access to a dictionary. If she can also ask another student or her parents to explain parts of the text, then she has many channels of information available to her. This is clearly a context-embedded activity and as a result is much more manageable.

It is difficult to see the value of any tasks that are cognitively undemanding and context-reduced. Copying a list of the kings and queens of England from a textbook to an exercise book is an example of such an activity. It is sometimes called busy work.