The Office of Faculty Development

Language Development Through Coursework

All students who enter our class come with specific language learning needs.  For example, some students may speak a native language other than English.  These students will enroll in our classes with varying levels of prior experience reading, writing, listening, and speaking in English.  

Likely all of our students will enroll in our classes needing varying levels of support in accessing and developing the academic language specific to our fields and necessary for our courses.  Consider that students with little prior experience in computer programming and algorithms will lack much of the relevant academic language when first enrolling in a first semester programming course.

It is also important to recognize that learning is a continual process and that all of our students, regardless of native language and prior academic experiences, are in the process of developing their language and literacy skills.

There are research based strategies and best practices that are known to support the language development needs of our students.  The effectiveness of these strategies will vary from student to student and depending on context and language development goals.

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