Academic literary

• Language


  A social tool that enables us to communicate our thoughts, ideas, feelings with others
• As a teacher you can't teach a child every word or every possible sentence in a language. The children have to be taught the use of rules of the language in order for them to understand and produce the words and the sentences that they require.
• Academic language


  • Used for teaching new information
  • Exchanging abstract ideas
  • Developing concepts in a formal way without contextual support
  • Learners understanding relies on language only
• School children need more support in learning academic language
• Academic language


  • Rules
  • Structure
  • Content for academic dialogue and text
  • Specific vocabulary
  • Sentence structures
  • Ways of organising their language in order to accomplish a variety of tasks in different learning areas
• Dimensions of Academic Language Proficiency


  • Conversational fluency
  • Discrete skills
• Conversational fluency


  • Uses high frequency vocabulary
  • Simple sentence structure
  • About here and now topics
• Discrete language skills


  • Listening, speaking, reading and writing
  • Learning the rule-governed aspects of language (phonology, morphology, syntax and spelling)
  • Developed by direct instruction
• Six discrete academic language skills


  • Organising text
  • Connecting ideas
  • Tracking themes
  • Comprehending complex sentences
  • Unpacking words
  • Using academic language by producing precise vocabulary and complex sentences
• Organising text


  1. Involves oral story telling which evolves into writing narratives

  2. Present a series of sentences and to get learners to write numbers next to each sentence to indicate the correct order
• Connecting ideas


  • Words or phrases that signal connections between concepts in sentences
  • Simple Connectives e.g But, so, if, then, although, however, etc
• Tracking themes


  • The ability to recognise that a word or phrase in the text refers to a previously established referent
  • Words or phrases appearing in a text that refer to a prior participant or idea
  • Process (evaporation occurs when water is heated)
  • She. Referring to a female (e.g Mary)
• Comprehending complex sentences


  Understanding sentences that are more complex than those with a basic subject-verb-object structure
• Unpacking words


  Using morphological skills to understand the complex sentence
• Using academic language by producing precise vocabulary and complex sentences


  1. Ask learners to choose the best definition for a word from several options

  2. Using dictionary for definitions

  3. A clown is a...