© A task-based route to academic literacy Nora Bogaert

© Two Flemish educational projects : Educational Priorities Policy = enhance academic performance of ethnic minority children and stimulate school effectiveness : Equal Opportunities Policy = enhance academic performance of low SES children and stimulate school effectiveness

© The Centre for Language and Migration and the Flemish projects assist schools in improving the academic performance of all pupils (low SES and others), through focusing on development of CALP i.e. the ability to understand cognitively demanding and decontextualized texts (Cummins ‘84) and to use them as a tool for conceptualizing, drawing abstract generalisations and expressing complex relationships (Swain ‘81)

© adopting a teaching approach which benefits to both at-risk pupils and others: active/constructivist/task-based learning coaching and assisting teachers and schools in setting priorities and adopting the task-based approach (in-service training - teaching materials)

© Designing a task-based approach to academic literacy An early start in kindergarten : by offering a rich array of stories, picture books, verses, and all sorts of written messages, to make toddlers feel motivated to learn how to read and to understand aspects of written language Developing language and literacy skills in a systematic way across all curriculum, in all subject areas

© 'tasks' create a situation of functional reading: sets a goal that cannot be reached without the reading of (a) particular ‘academic’ text(s) introduce appealing subjects and interesting, challenging problems function as a ‘zone of proximal development’ (= gap between acquired and required proficiency)

© (tasks) are accomplished through learner-learner or learner-teacher cooperation (meaningful interaction as the locus for signalling problems to a more knowledgeable partner and for resolving them in cooperation with others) are embedded in a positive (safe and stimulating) environment

© The sequencing of tasks Parameters for 'task complexity': the ‘world’ represented in the task cognitive demands of information processing text characteristics/linguistic input features

© World simple  complex contextual embeddedness here-and-now world  there-and-then world  world of abstractions perspective individualizing  generalizing/abstracting prior knowledge indispensable prior knowledge is expressed (verbally and/or visually)  not expressed

© Cognitive demands simple  complex information processing knowledge telling  knowledge transforming (restructuring, evaluating) output modality non-verbal  verbal but limited  verbal and extensive

© Text simple  complex vocabularyfrequent  specialized/figurative syntaxsimple clauses  subordination coherenceexplicitly marked (chrono)logical structure  no (marked) structure cohesion explicitly expressed  implicitly expressed redundancyinformation expressed in different verbal ways (paraphrase, synonymy, …)  high information density length

© Complexity parameters: why? for task developers allow a better tuning into (general) level of target group (young learners, (non-)educated absolute beginners, learners with a lower than required proficiency level, …) for teachers mediation 'stepping stones' (when the gap is not ‘bridgeable’)

© check on indispensable prior knowledge, activating or creating it if necessary increase motivational power of the task: ‘attention catchers’ - expression of high expectations of learners’ performance - expression of own curiosity/enthusiasm in relation to task provide more elaborated/detailed/step-by- step instructions Mediation (1) - pre-task

© Mediation (2) - during task interactional support to overcome learners’ 'stagnations': through eliciting questions stimulate learners to identify and solve their problems themselves - activate/feed their mental activity –What is the problem? Is there something you do not understand? … –What could x mean? Doesn’t the text provide clues which may help you out?..... Doesn’t the text say that...?

© Mediation (3) - post-task ‘(re)construction’ of the process: Which steps did you follow in order to find the solution/answer? What information was (not) relevant/useful? Where did you find information x? (…) (construction of knowledge) Is there anything you found particularly interesting in the text / you did not know / you want to remember? (= about the world, about language) ?

© Stepping stones giving functional visual support or knowledge building pre-task(s) world starting out with a lower level of processing processing limiting production output providing receptive ways of performing output subdividing an original text/task into meaningful subtasks/subtexts text features

© Concluding remarks The route to academic literacy is a sys- tematic one + involves all subject areas The quality of the tasks is an essential condition for success Setting out the route should be done in a very deliberate way, by taking into account well-defined criteria of complexity

© (concluding remarks) In the Centre’s approach academic literacy is developed through reading, but also by communicating about the text: by listening to and talking with partners, by writing down information which is useful for or required by the task =increasing opportunities for acquiring CALP