ACADEMIC LANGUAGE and Language for Sharing out

If teachers use activities designed to build the language skills of diverse learners when teaching mathematics, academic language instruction can happen along side mathematics instruction.

This is a focus, not on mathematics vocabulary, but on the words students need to know to speak and write formally. Students can learn unique, but challenging features, of specific English verbs, as they impact conceptual understanding of content, as well as, sentence scaffolds they can use in situations where they are having difficulty.

The academic verbs are:

Analyze (verb): to break something down into its essential parts as tool for understanding the whole

Compare (verb): to examine in order to note similarities and/or differences

Prove (verb): to demonstrate that something is ALWAYS true justify (verb): to support your assertion using facts, examples, and reasoning

Interpret (verb): to clarify the meaning, to make sense

Infer (verb): the act or process of drawing a conclusion based only on what one already knows.

Generalize (verb): the formulation of general concepts from specific instances by abstracting common properties

Explain (verb): to show why, to demonstrate a cause and effect relationship

Describe (verb): to give an account or representation of in words

Define (verb): to state the meaning of something.

Confirm (verb): to establish or strengthen with facts.

Refute (verb): to prove to be false by using facts.

The Language for sharing out: (download)

Things to Say when Your Idea has been Shared
Things to Say when You Don’t Understand
Language for Reporting Out
Language for Asking for Help
Small Group Participation Structures
Things to Say when you Disagree