“Academic English” in the 7th grade: Broadening the lens, expanding access

In this article, I describe mainstream middle school classrooms designed to re-think the conditions under which language minority students who have lived in the United States for a number of years can develop English language skills while also gaining access to a rigorous curriculum. I describe a variety of transactions that students used to engage in group social studies tasks, and I show how students used language differently for discussing ideas within their groups and for preparing to present these ideas to their teacher and classmates. I argue that in order to document the wide range of language demands and language learning opportunities inherent in doing academic work, as well as to understand what students from language minority backgrounds are able to do to meet these demands, the notion of “academic English” must be expanded beyond the “academic” vs. “conversational” language distinction.