A review of the literature on teaching academic English to English Language Learners

DiCerbo, P. A., Anstrom, K. A., Baker, L. L., & Rivera, C. (2014). A review of the literature on teaching academic English to English Language Learners. Review of Educational Research, 84(3), 446-482.


An article that transcends its stated purpose can be an especially valuable resource. This article’s stated purpose is to give us a look at what we know about Academic English, how to teach it to English Language Learners (ELLs), and how best to prepare teachers to do that teaching. The article accomplishes that purpose well, but it transcends that purpose by presenting what is in effect a primer on the linguistic knowledge that teachers need to teach students of all linguistic backgrounds about Academic English. The article might just as easily been titled “What Every Teacher Needs to Know about Linguistics”. For those like me who educate teachers, it might also have been titled, “Linguistic Concepts to Address in All Teacher Preparation Programs”.

DiCerbo et al present a discussion of Academic English that is thorough, clear, and accessible. As they make the case that teaching Academic English to ELLs is more complex than just teaching vocabulary words, they also take readers through a survey of the linguistic components that define Academic English. Components covered include vocabulary, grammar, and discourse. There is discussion of how Academic English is specific to various content areas, as well as how function and purpose can shape how we read and write academic texts. This review is valuable because it reminds us of the complexity of the various registers we use for teaching and learning. Shallow knowledge and simplistic instructional strategies really will not help us teach students how to use the English language in ways that will open the highest levels of academic and career opportunities.

As a teacher educator reading this article, I appreciated the review of linguistics principles and was challenged to put a renewed emphasis on those components into my literacy education courses. A nagging question arose as I read, and kept getting louder and louder in my head: How can teachers help K-12 students learn to use Academic English effectively when they themselves do not know how to do that? Most of the future teachers in my courses struggle with understanding simple linguistics concepts. I doubt that they would be ready to engage in something like discourse analysis, which is what would be needed before one could design an instructional sequence to teach about how to use Academic English in the various content areas. The second question that began to nag me was: What do I need to do to better prepare future teachers? What do they need to know, understand, and be able to do to teach Academic English effectively to ALL students?

This article will serve as a starting point for my search for answers to these questions, and is in effect a scaffold for me as I begin to research possible curriculum enhancements that I might propose to my colleagues. It is a valuable resource for all teachers and teacher educators who want to better understand Academic English and how to teach it.