NACE NACE - National Association for Able Children in Education

In the second of three articles, NACE Research and Development Director Hilary Lowe analyses the functions of language in education.

The various functions of language most pertinent in the classroom include:

  • Expression: ability to formulate ideas orally and in writing in a meaningful and grammatically correct manner.
  • Comprehension: ability to understand the meaning of words and ideas.
  • Vocabulary: lexical knowledge.
  • Naming: ability to name objects, people or events.
  • Fluency: ability to produce fast and effective linguistic content.
  • Discrimination: ability to recognize, distinguish and interpret language-related content.
  • Repetition: ability to produce the same sounds one hears.
  • Writing: ability to transform ideas into symbols, characters and images.
  • Reading: ability to interpret symbols, characters and images and transform them into speech.

(Lecours, 1998). 

All of these functions are key components in the teaching and learning process. Teachers and students use spoken and written language to communicate with each other formally and informally. Students use language to comprehend, to question and interrogate, to present tasks and learning acquired – to display knowledge and skills. Teachers use language to explain, illustrate and model, to assess and evaluate learning. Both use language to develop relationships, knowledge of others and of self. But language is not just a medium for communication – it is intricately bound up with  the nature of knowledge and thought itself.

What does this mean for cognitively challenging learning?

For the development of high levels of cognition and to achieve highly, pupils need to develop the language associated with higher-order thinking skills in all areas of the curriculum, such as hypothesising, evaluating, inferring, generalising, predicting or classifying (Gibbons, 1991).

In an educational context it is through iterations of linguistic interactions between teacher and student – and peer to peer – that the process of advancing in learning and knowledge occurs. As Hodge (1993) notes, with limited time in the classroom, teachers often spend much of the available time conveying information rather than ensuring comprehension. This reduces the opportunities for a range of linguistic interactions and for learners to acquire and practise the higher-level language skills associated with high achievement. Planning and organising teaching and learning therefore needs to allow for an increase in opportunities for rich language environments and interactions alongside a cognitively challenging curriculum.

In the NACE research project school visits, we witnessed numerous incidences of highly effective and consistent practices in classroom discourse which clearly contributed to the achievement of highly able learners.

These included:

  • Teachers modelling advanced language and skilled explanation and questioning;
  • Pupils being taught the language of skills such as reasoning, synthesis, evaluation;
  • Frequent use of ‘dialogic’ frameworks and enquiry-based learning; 
  • The use of disciplinary discourse and higher tiers of language;
  • Instructional models which include and prioritise the above.

Examples of effective, language-rich learning environments from the project include:

  • Portswood Primary School: focus on the early development of vocabulary, language and talk. Teachers use sophisticated language to communicate expectations and learning.
  • Alfreton Nursery School: teaching develops skills of concentration, as pupils focus on a central stimulus/object and formulate “big questions”. There is also an explicit focus on team working with reference to reasons “why we can agree to disagree” and the importance of listening. The teacher follows these pupil-led ideas in later sessions.
  • Glyncoed Primary School: a challenging curriculum is achieved through planning and delivery of problem solving-based activities, extended and cognitively demanding tasks, and pupil choice. Teacher talk and high-level and qualitatively differentiated questioning, rich dialogue and cognitive talk is in evidence. Excellent modelling and explanations are also pervasive.
  • Greenbank High School: pupils are stimulated by differentiated questions prompting them to test hypotheses, make predictions and transfer their knowledge to new contexts. As a result, pupils are working at a strong, sustained pace.

You can read more about the project and order copies of the report here.

In the final instalment of this three-part series, Hilary Lowe suggests approaches to creating language-rich schools and classrooms and the implications this would have for teacher development. Read part 3 here.