{"id":3231,"date":"2011-08-21T06:00:10","date_gmt":"2011-08-21T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com\/tlb\/?p=3231"},"modified":"2019-03-27T14:28:47","modified_gmt":"2019-03-27T19:28:47","slug":"understanding-bics-and-calp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com\/tlb\/understanding-bics-and-calp\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding BICS and CALP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/professionallearningboard.com\/blog\/\"> <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"check_out_the_new_blog\" title=\"Check Out the New Blog\" alt=\"Check Out the New Blog\"  src=\"https:\/\/k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com\/images\/check_out_the_new_blog.jpg\"><\/a> <span style=\"font-size: small\"><a href=\"https:\/\/k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com\/tlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/20TELL.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3232\" style=\"border: 4px solid black;margin: 5px 10px\" src=\"https:\/\/k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com\/tlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/20TELL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"266\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com\/tlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/20TELL.jpg 266w, https:\/\/k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com\/tlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/20TELL-199x300.jpg 199w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 266px) 100vw, 266px\" \/><\/a>Teachers who work with English Language Learners (ELL) are often puzzled by the differences that they see between different language skill areas. For example, a teacher may observe that an ELL speaks easily with his peers about lunch, music, video games and what he did on the weekend, but may struggle a lot with his chemistry lesson. The teacher often tends to think that the student is \u201cplaying dumb\u201d in chemistry in order to get out of doing the work, or that the student has a learning disability.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small\">While either of these could be the case, the explanation is more likely based on the fact that the language needed for a lesson in chemistry is very different from the language required for casual day-to-day conversation. Infact there are two very different types of language acquisition &#8211; BICS and CALP.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small\">The first is the language used in social situations, called Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS). The second is needed in formal academic settings, like the chemistry lesson, referred to as Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small\">An awareness of the difference between BICS and CALP can help education professionals understand why an ELL may speak well in social situations and yet lag behind peers academically. An ELL often just needs time and support to acquire the complex language needed for schoolwork. Given such assistance, ELLs can have great academic success.<\/span><em><strong><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>From Professional Learning Board\u2019s online continuing education course for teachers:<\/strong><\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com\/tlb\/teaching-english-language-learners\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Teaching English Language Learners<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>  Teachers who work with English Language Learners (ELL) are often puzzled by the differences that they see between different language skill areas. For example, a teacher may observe that an ELL speaks easily with his peers about lunch, music, video games and what he did on the weekend, but may struggle a lot [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1335,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,38],"tags":[261,262,263,137,158,175,225,253,115,264],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com\/tlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3231"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com\/tlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com\/tlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com\/tlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1335"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com\/tlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3231"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com\/tlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24843,"href":"https:\/\/k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com\/tlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3231\/revisions\/24843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com\/tlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com\/tlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com\/tlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}