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Teaching Academic English
Jim Cummins, Longman Cornerstone Author
Pearson Longman celebrates the contributions of English Language teachers through an on-going series of workshops called Amazing Minds.
On January 22 and 23, Dr. Jim Cummins, author of the new K-5 program Longman Cornerstone, delivered the keynote speech and ran professional development workshops at Amazing Minds
events in New York City, attended by over 600 teachers. The training,
titled "The Challenge of Learning Academic English," focused on
the unique issues facing students as they acquire proficiency in a
target language.
Download the slides from Dr. Cummins' presentation (PDF format, 2.7 MB).
The workshop explored the following topics:
- What is Academic English?
- How Do We Teach Academic English?
- Challenges and Opportunities in Teaching ELL Students
Dr.
Cummins emphasized that language proficiency has several
dimensions. He discussed how conversational fluency, discrete language
skills, and academic language proficiency must be addressed when
building language proficiency with English language learners.
Dr. Cummins also
described elements that are critical to literacy attainment for English
learners, especially the connection between scaffolding meaning,
activating prior knowledge, affirming students' identity, and extending
language. These elements all influence literacy engagement and
therefore must be present in language teaching. (For more
information on identity affirmation, visit: http://www.multiliteracies.ca/index.php/folio/viewProject/8
and view galleries to see dual language identity books
written by students.)
For more information about Dr. Cummins and his research, please visit the following links:
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Read an article by Jim Cummins on "The Challenge of Learning Academic English"
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Listen to a podcast by Jim Cummins.
To see articles by other Cornerstone authors, click
here.
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