This document provides suggestions for activities to build students' academic English skills, including writing, reading, speaking, and vocabulary. For writing, it recommends explicitly teaching the writing process, including brainstorming, outlining, drafting, revising. For reading, it suggests extensive reading of graded texts along with explicit instruction in reading strategies. For speaking, it advises raising students' awareness of differences between academic and conversational English through discussion and analysis of speeches. For vocabulary, it provides ideas for teaching vocabulary through definitions, visual representations, and using corpus tools to find example sentences and collocations. The overall document offers a variety of scaffolding techniques and strategies to develop students' academic language abilities.

1. Building Academic Language in the ESL Classroom 1
TICE Mini ESL Conference – Arkansas State University
The International Center for English Elisabeth Chan
Arkansas State University echan@astate.edu
Building Academic Writing
Activity #1: Explicitly Teach And Practice the Writing Process
Activity Alternatives
1. Brainstorm Give students a topic to write about.
Have students free write for 5 minutes
on a blank piece of paper.
Give students a choice of a couple
of topics. Alter the time for free
writing depending on level.
Give students a topic to write about.
Put students into groups of 4.
Have the students take turns sharing one
idea about the topic, keeping record.
See above.
Alter the size of the group or use
pairs. Assign group jobs ex: leader,
recorder, time keeper, encourager
2. Organize Using the brainstorm, have students
circle their 3 best ideas.
Have students write these ideas (and
any accompanying details) into an
outline.
Depending on the scope of the
writing, you may have students
choose 1 or 2 ideas to develop.
A graphic organizer can be used
rather than an outline.
Using the group brainstorm, have
students discuss what the 3 best ideas
were. Have the students write these
ideas into an outline.
See above.
Use the board to share with the
class.
3. Rough Draft Using the outline, have students write a
paragraph together in groups.
Have students each take a copy of
the outline and write individual
paragraphs.
4. Peer Review Have groups exchange paragraphs.
Give students a list of questions or
points for them to check for. Have
students discuss the points and also give
positive comments.
Have individuals trade their
paragraphs and then follow a list of
questions or points for them to
check. Remind them to also make
positive comments.
5. Final Draft Have groups discuss what suggestions
were given and how they can make the
paragraph better.
Have individuals use the
suggestions given and write a final
paragraph.
Activity #2: Paraphrasing
1. Model finding key words and paraphrasing a small part of the academic text.
2. Now, have students pull key words from a level appropriate academic text and then put away
the original text! This also helps you measure how well students practice finding main ideas and
details.
3. Now have students paraphrase using only the keywords written down to help. Check their
length first, followed by content, and word choice last. Gradually increase cognitive difficulty.
Model
Pull key
words
Compare
words
Paraphrase Check

2. Building Academic Language in the ESL Classroom 2
TICE Mini ESL Conference – Arkansas State University
The International Center for English Elisabeth Chan
Arkansas State University echan@astate.edu
Activity #3: Reconstructing (or Deconstructing) Academic Texts to work on Cohesion
Example 1: Focus on Cohesive Paragraph Structure: Using Reference Words
*As an alternative, have students write the paragraphs for step 2 with no reference words and
trade with other students, so that the partner can replace subjects with reference words.
Step 1: Identification
Have students locate the subject of each sentence within a paragraph.
Next, have them search for reference words, such as “this, these, those, hers, etc.”
Finally, have students determine what these words refer back to.
Step 2: Scaffolded Production
Give students a paragraph without references.
Next, have students find sentences with subjects that are the same.
Finally, have students replace subjects with appropriate reference words.
Step 3: Production
Have students complete a writing assignment, in which they use reference words
throughout their paragraph. Students can present their new paragraphs to each other or in
front of the class.
** You can use a similar activity for conjunctions and nominalizations at the paragraph level.
Building Academic Reading
Activity #1: Extensive reading
1. Give students a choice in reading material. Have a wide variety available.
2. Have students work with texts that are one level below their actual reading level.
Graded readers work well for this: Pearson/Longman Penguin readers, Oxford readers etc.
3. Read as much as possible and do it silently and quickly, rarely using a dictionary.
4. Reading is its own reward, so there are no follow up questions.
5. As a teacher, be a role model for reading and read with the students.
http://www.jalt-publications.org/tlt/files/97/may/extensive.html
Activity #2: Engagement & motivation
(Guthrie and Davis, 2003) Engagement Model of Instruction
1. Knowledge Goals – rather than test scores, have students read with the goal of understanding
and communicating information that matters to them; find students’ interests and allow for some
freedom of choice; what if you have a set topic?: use a great deal of enthusiasm and describe
why it’s interesting to you, followed by connecting it to their lives to make it relevant
2. Real World – connect reading to the real world; example: conduct surveys, read local news,
books, or search the Internet, assign projects that require action outside the classroom (presenting
to other classes, analyzing an aspect of their school, self-reflections, etc.)
3. Many Interesting Texts – increase access to books or other reading materials that students
want to read about; what if you have a set topic?: gather magazine or newspaper articles that
revolve around topics in your textbook that you have to cover
4. Support Student Choice – give students at least some freedom to choose what they read;
support it with time to read in class, like sustained silent reading (SSR); give students 10-15
minutes of class each day to read an easy book they have chosen

3. Building Academic Language in the ESL Classroom 3
TICE Mini ESL Conference – Arkansas State University
The International Center for English Elisabeth Chan
Arkansas State University echan@astate.edu
5. Direct Strategy Instruction – model, scaffold, guide practice with feedback, and use
independent reading (See Activity #3 below)
6. Collaboration Support – use pairs and group work to help students feel more comfortable
asking questions and comment on their readings
Activity #3: Explicitly teach reading skills
Teach students reading skills through explicit explanation, followed by modeling.
Read a page of text together, and as the teacher, stop at each point in a checklist of steps.
Explain to students why you’re looking at that point first, why you’re stopping there, what
you’re thinking about/asking yourself when you look at each point.
Example:
 Look at titles and headings; what do you think the main idea is?
 Look at pictures and graphs; what information can you learn from these?
 Think about the topic / personalize the topic; what do you already know about the topic?
 Look at bold / italicized words; what important key words are there? What do they mean?
 Skim the reading, paying attention to topic sentences; what are the main ideas?
 Guess vocabulary words from context; can I use prefixes/suffixes to help?
 Use graphic organizers to take notes on the reading; map the main ideas and details
 Follow-up; Write three questions about the reading or summarize the reading or
paraphrase important parts of the reading
After finishing the reading together, have students complete a short worksheet about different
reading skills they have learned. This helps you measure their metacognitive skills.
Worksheet Example:
Name ______________________________
What are some strategies for reading?
Before you read
look at titles
As you read
use graphic organizers
Understanding word strategies
guess words using context
Using context
And so on…
Using prefixes, roots, suffixes
Using glossaries and dictionaries

4. Building Academic Language in the ESL Classroom 4
TICE Mini ESL Conference – Arkansas State University
The International Center for English Elisabeth Chan
Arkansas State University echan@astate.edu
Building Academic Spoken English
Raise Students’ Awareness
Activity #1. Using Discussion Group Questions that lead them to raise their awareness of
academic English, rather than telling them there’s a difference- again, working on metacognition.
 Example questions you can use before discussing the difference between academic and
conversational English: In your native language, how would you ask your sister/brother for a
favor? Your parents? Your boss? Your professor? Discuss any differences or similarities.
Follow up by showing you speak differently to different people and in different situations.
Activity #2. Listening to speeches and/or lectures and analyzing the academic language used;
many great websites for this: http://www.americanrhetoric.com; http://ocw.mit.edu
 Example questions: What makes this speech powerful? What was effective about the lecture?
What made it difficult for you to understand? How would you explain what you heard to
your friend?
Activity #3. Analyze research done on academic spoken English. Then use activities that
exercise students’ use of the structures found to be more prevalent.
 Swales (2005) analysis of academic English
ACADEMIC WRITTEN LANGUAGE
○ Long declarative sentences
○ 20% passive verbs
○ Technical vocabulary with Greek & Latin origins
ACADEMIC SPOKEN LANGUAGE
○ Most of the same features as conversational language, except for technical
vocabulary!
 Based on Swales’ research, it would be beneficial to incorporate more technical vocabulary
into your lectures but not worry about other items that might be found in academic written
English, such as long declarative sentences.
Building Academic Vocabulary
Activity #1
Teach students the four parts of the chart. Provide students with the word and your definition;
you can have it already on the paper or do a dictation exercise with it. Students then work alone
or together to come up with their own definition of the word. Then encourage them as they draw
a simple picture that reminds them of the word.
Word Teacher’s definition In student’s own words Picture / Clue
investigate To explore or look
into something to
learn more about it
To study something to find
what we want to know
connection A link or bond
between two people or
events
And so on…

5. Building Academic Language in the ESL Classroom 5
TICE Mini ESL Conference – Arkansas State University
The International Center for English Elisabeth Chan
Arkansas State University echan@astate.edu
Activity #2
Students create a four-square entry into a notebook or on notecards. Use vocabulary words they
have been using in class, so it is context-embedded. Have students use dictionaries and come up
with a definition in their own words. Similar to the first activity, have students then use a symbol,
drawing, or some other visual clue that reminds them of the word. In the last square, have
students use a word or short phrase that reminds them of the vocabulary word.
Example:
WORD
naïve
SYMBOL/DRAWING
DEFINITION
Innocent or doesn’t have much knowledge
about social skills
WORD OR PHRASE THAT REMINDS
YOU OF THE MEANING
my sister
Activity #3: Increasing Academic Vocabulary by Using a Corpus
The following page is an example of how to use The Corpus of Contemporary American English
as a resource in finding collocations for new vocabulary, along with example sentences.
http://www.americancorpus.org/
Registration is free and the site has many other flexible search features, for example, allowing
you to search what kinds of verbs come after a word, and so on.
Please see the next page!