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Scaffolding Science Vocabulary for Middle School Newcomer ELLs

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Teaching Science to English Language Learners

Abstract

Language is critical to building knowledge in science as students are increasingly asked to read complex informational texts and to develop sophisticated means of oral and written expression, as expected by the Next Generation Science Standards [NGSS] (NGSS Lead States 2013). Developing literacy in content areas is particularly important for English language learners (ELLs), whose still-emergent academic English language skills often undermine their academic performance across subject areas (see discussion in Ardasheva et al. 2016).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Although vocabulary was assessed in this study, the intervention itself did not include an explicit vocabulary instruction component to qualify for the second line of research.

  2. 2.

    August et al. (2016) did report, however, that the participating teachers dropped some of the vocabulary games due to insufficient time.

  3. 3.

    The term “incidental”—rather than the more often used term “embedded”—was chosen to better describe the teacher’s practices. That is, although both terms suggest brevity in application, the term “embedded” refers to vocabulary instruction that consists of providing a brief verbal definition to a new word (August et al. 2016), not reflecting the wide-ranging repertoire of verbal and non-verbal strategies used by the teacher.

  4. 4.

    Although the reported lower-end effect sizes were comparable to in-service professional development interventions, the upper-end effects were substantially larger (.95 for science concepts and vocabulary in writing).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Teaching and Learning, Washington State University Tri-Cities, 2710 Crimson Way, Richland, 99354, WA, United States

    Yuliya Ardasheva

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  1. Yuliya Ardasheva
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Correspondence to Yuliya Ardasheva .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Teaching and Learning, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, USA

    Luciana C. de Oliveira

  2. Department of Educational Theory and Practice, University of Albany, School of Education, Albany, New York, USA

    Kristen Campbell Wilcox

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Ardasheva, Y. (2017). Scaffolding Science Vocabulary for Middle School Newcomer ELLs. In: de Oliveira, L., Campbell Wilcox, K. (eds) Teaching Science to English Language Learners. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53594-4_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53594-4_10

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