Chapter 9: Double-Teaming: Teaching Academic Language in High School Biology

These students soon learned that this was a very different science class, one in which two teachers—a biology teacher and an English as a second language (ESL) teacher—collaborated on a biology course that integrated the academic language of science with the content of biology. Educators have long known that sheltered instruction alone is insufficient to close the English language learner (ELL) achievement gap, that explicit instruction in academic English is needed, and that language and content instruction must occur simultaneously (Goldenberg, 2008). Given the increased focus on literacy across the curriculum (Biancarosa & Snow, 2004) and the growing awareness that native English speakers also need explicit instruction in academic language (Zwiers, 2008), the integration of literacy instruction into content classrooms is well supported.