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Academic Language in K-12: What Is It, How Is It Learned, and How Can We Measure It? 

 

Hetty Roessingh 

University of Calgary 

 

Abstract 

 

Using Beck, McKeown and Kucan’s (2002) three-tiered model as a general framework for 

vocabulary, this article sheds light on the construct of academic vocabulary and how it might be 

measured. Using illustrative writing samples of student work of different genres and drawing on 

corpus based studies, I highlight the distinction between general, high utility academic 

vocabulary visible in expository mode (Tier 2), and narrative vocabulary (Tier 1) on the one 

hand; and general, high utility academic vocabulary and literary vocabulary associated with 

English Language Arts literature-based curriculum (Tier 3). Tier 2 words have consistently 

correlated with academic achievement across disciplinary boundaries, especially at post-

secondary levels. Suggestions are made for policy reform, curriculum, and assessment 

approaches that will afford more equitable access to post-secondary programs of study for the 

growing numbers of English language learners across Canada, including in provinces such as 

Alberta and British Columbia.  

 

Introduction 

 

The research community is increasingly cognizant of the key role of vocabulary in academic 

literacy development among students in the K–12 school system (Beck, McKeown & Kucan, 

2002; Cummins & Mann, 2007; Ranney, 2012; Schleppegrell, 2012). There is growing 

consensus among scholars related to the construct of academic vocabulary and pedagogical 

considerations (DiCerbo, Anstrom, Baker & Rivera, 2014). Approaches to assessment are less 

well developed especially in relation to English language learners (ELLs).  

 

 This article aims to contribute to the discussion on both the meaning and assessment of 

academic vocabulary. This is a timely contribution, given Canada’s shifting demographic 

landscape to include increasing numbers of Canadian-born children of immigrants whose first 

language is not English. They represent between 25–50% of the general school-going population 

in large, urban school jurisdictions in Vancouver (Skelton, 2014), Toronto and Calgary. English 

language learners (ELLs) are not distributed equally throughout school jurisdictions, and many 

are not identified for funding purposes (British Columbia Teachers’ Federation, 2012). Based on 

British Columbia (BC) Ministry of Education data, out of approximately 550 schools in the 

Metro Vancouver area, Skelton (2014) reports 65 schools—primarily in Richmond, Surrey, and 

Vancouver—where more than half of the students are ELLs. Gillis (2016), citing data from the 

Early Development Instrument (EDI, 2015), observes that many children from high SES 

backgrounds, specifically West Vancouver, are deemed “vulnerable” in terms of their readiness 

to participate in more formal learning settings in kindergarten on at least two of the five domains 

assessed by the EDI, including Communication and General Knowledge. Language proficiency 

is thought to be the biggest factor (Gillis, 2016, p. 21). Many of these families live in gated 

properties that do not afford ready access to playgrounds, community centres, and opportunities 

to participate and socialize with the broader community. Economic advantage may simply 



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BC TEAL Journal Volume 1 Number 1 (2016): 67-81 

exacerbate the linguistic divide starting early in the educational trajectory and accelerating over 

time.   

 

 Increasing numbers of ELLs, estimated as high as 45% in the admissions data at one 

Canadian university (Roessingh & Douglas, 2012), underscore the urgency to address concerns 

related to their preparedness for engaging with the demands of post-secondary studies. There is a 

need for pragmatic approaches for teaching, tracking, and testing the growth of academic 

vocabulary use over time, and further to consider policy implications related to thresholds 

required for educational success at all levels in the K–12 system and beyond.  

 

What is Academic Vocabulary? 

 

In broad strokes, academic vocabulary pertains to the language of school and the demands for 

engaging in the reading and writing tasks associated with curriculum. With each advancing year 

of participation in the educational system these demands accelerate—both in their quantity and 

complexity. Figure 1 below summarizes the salient differences between communicative and 

academic modes of language use. 

 

Communicative language Academic language 

 Highly contextualized: “here and now” 
and “lived experience” 

 

 Conversational, narrative 

 Acquired from immersion and interaction 
 

 High frequency (Tier 1): 3,000 words 
 
 
 

 

 Concrete: names and the references are 
transparent (glass, water, cup, coffee)  

 Anglo-Saxon word origins 

 Repetitive: same words re-used ±3 times 
 

 Context reduced: “there and then”, ideas 
that can only be accessed through 
language itself  

 Information, expository mode 

 Learned from direct and explicit 
instruction 

 Mid-frequency and general academic 
language, often procedural: construct, 
provide, obtain, design, include; and low- 
frequency, discipline/topic specific words: 
komodo, dinosaur, fossil.  

 Abstract: metaphor, idiom, imagery; 
Technical and specialized uses of words  

 Greek and Latin roots 

 More lexical variability: words re-used ±2 
times 

Figure 1. Differences between communicative and academic language 

 

 Cummins coined the terms Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and 

Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) to describe the interdependency of linguistic 

– cognitive development over time. Many K–12 practitioners will be familiar with Cummins’ 

model (1981). In brief, Cummins posits a continuum of language learning along two axis: from 

cognitively undemanding to cognitively demanding along the vertical axis and from context 

embedded to context reduced along the horizontal axis. BICS level language comprises the two 

quadrants cognitively undemanding/context embedded language and cognitively 

undemanding/context reduced language that may be described as the “here and now” and “lived 



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BC TEAL Journal Volume 1 Number 1 (2016): 67-81 

experience” vocabulary needed to navigate and negotiate our daily interactions and basic literacy 

needs. As language becomes more cognitively demanding and context reduced, learners must 

avail themselves of language itself to make meaning. Often, these meanings are framed by way 

of metaphor, adding another level of complexity to this language. Roessingh (2006) elaborates 

on Cummins’ model with further illustrative information that will be helpful to a practitioner 

audience.   

 

 Beck, McKeown and Kucan (2002) advance a three tiered model for understanding 

communicative versus academic language. It differs from Cummins’ BICS-CALP model in 

making the distinction between general academic vocabulary and discipline specific academic 

vocabulary. The model is illustrated in Figure 2, below.   

 
Figure 2. Three tiered model of vocabulary (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002) 

 

 Tier 1 words correspond to Cummins’ conceptualization of BICS comprising perhaps 

2,000–3,000 high frequency word families needed for daily interaction, though Beck, McKeown 

and Kucan (2002) suggest a threshold of 8,000 word families. These word families form the 

important foundation needed to build further meaning in the Tier 2 “next words to know.” The 

Tier 2 words are the high utility or general academic words that travel across curricular 

boundaries. These words often have Greek or Latin roots, and relate to procedures such as 

investigate, experiment, analyze, and prepare, as noted in the model above. Coxhead’s (2000) 

seminal work on academic vocabulary identified some 570 high frequency head words or word 



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BC TEAL Journal Volume 1 Number 1 (2016): 67-81 

families from analyzing a large corpus of university textbooks and academic writing. However, 

many of these words are not particularly difficult, and appear in the corpus of academic words 

young students in Grade 3 use in their writing in response to an expository prompt (Roessingh, 

Douglas & Wojtalewicz, 2016). There is rapid growth in this vocabulary in the Grade 4 year 

(Wojtalewicz, 2016). Figure 3 below illustrates this growth, taken from the writing of the same 

group of young learners over one year in the studies cited above. Beck, McKeown and Kucan 

further suggest an additional 7,000 Tier 2 word families, a figure that together with the Tier 1 

words noted earlier, would indicate a Grade 9 reading age of approximately 15,000 word 

families or 50,000 words.   

 
Figure 3. Growth of academic words from Grade 3 to Grade 4 

 

 Tier 3 words are discipline or content area specific words such as mitosis and habitat. In 

a subject area such as a high school English literature course, words such as despair, inherent, 

and oppress emerge (Pinchbeck, 2016). In general, teachers spend little of their instructional time 

focused on vocabulary teaching and learning, especially of words associated with informational 

texts where expository modes of writing afford access to the academic words young learners are 

ready to learn at an early age (Biemiller, 2003a; Duke, 2000). Words that are associated with 

literary texts are often rare, sophisticated words used figuratively and metaphorically. They are 

particularly challenging for many ELLs since their meanings are not transparent: they must be 

understood at the interpretive level. Tier 3 words are needed for precision and nuanced meaning, 

and learning these words continues throughout the educational trajectory. As the tiered model 



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BC TEAL Journal Volume 1 Number 1 (2016): 67-81 

suggests, tens of thousands of these words, estimated at 85,000 words or 18,000 word families, 

are needed to access advanced textbook information.  

 

 Among children, it is important to note that there is a developmental aspect to the arrival 

of academic words in their lexical repertoire. The age of 7–9 marks, in Piagetian terms, the point 

at which children become structured thinkers, and are able to name and describe objects, 

articulate similarities and differences, categorize and classify, and understand the properties of 

objects according to their key features such as size, shape, speed, and colour (Isaacs, 1974). 

Monkey bars, slides and swings can now be described as playground equipment, for example. 

Increasing use of words with Greek and Latin roots in particular are now used to talk about 

procedures such as construct vs. build, design vs. draw, and create vs. make (Roessingh & Elgie, 

2015). Increasingly, students are expected to understand specialized uses of common words such 

as energy or work; and to learn content-curriculum specific vocabulary such as habitat or 

species.   

 

 A second developmental milestone is realized around age 15, as students increasingly are 

able to avail themselves of metaphor and imagery to access abstract ideas. As noted earlier, such 

uses of vocabulary may be particularly difficult for ELLs since they are often culturally 

constrained: a dance or a journey to refer to the aging process versus the idea of ripening fruit in 

Asian culture as a metaphor for the passage of time and aging. Idioms and proverbs such as 

“beauty is only skin deep,” or “never judge a book by its cover” are often equally difficult for 

linguistic and culturally diverse learners to “unpack.”  Pavlov (2015) found that while ELLs are 

represented across the full range of scores on Grade 12 provincially mandated tests of reading 

comprehension involving literary texts, on average they score less well than their native English 

speaking (NS) classmates largely related to the use of this type of vocabulary and lexical 

bundles—strings of words that must be interpreted as a whole, such as idioms. The ability to 

engage with text at an aesthetic, contemplative level (Rosenblatt, 1985) involves the ability to 

evoke images and associations especially through the use of metaphor, a task that will be very 

difficult for a growing demographic of ELLs present in our K–12 schools.  

 

How is Academic Vocabulary Learned? 

 

As noted earlier, BICS type language associated with conversational discourse can be acquired 

through exposure and opportunities to interact with NS or more competent users of English, in 

contexts that require negotiating meaning and problem solving, for example. The vocabulary 

involved is high frequency, cognitively undemanding, and context embedded, thus providing 

support for getting at the meaning of these words. 

 

 Academic vocabulary, on the other hand, must usually be taught. Because these words 

are often termed rare or sophisticated, it is difficult to learn them from mere exposure through 

reading alone. Authentic materials do not provide sufficient context support to infer meaning. 

Further, because they are rare, they are not encountered often enough to be noticed or learned 

incrementally, gradually, through exposure (Stahl, 2003). Vast amounts of comprehensible input 

would be required for this to occur. Hence the need for instructional attention to these words.   

 



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BC TEAL Journal Volume 1 Number 1 (2016): 67-81 

 Young learners who already know these words will often have learned them from their 

parents through engaged, elaborative and collaborative talk and the co-construction of meaning. 

Torr and Scott (2006) observe the storybook reading behaviours of high socio-economic status 

(SES) mothers include introducing as many as 34 words beyond the words “on the page” through 

elaborated, extended talk. From my work with young students, I have been apprised of many 

different opportunities and life experiences made available to them that afford access to 

sophisticated input (Roessingh & Elgie, 2009). Family trips to the zoo, the science centre, travel 

(to Paris), hiking with a parent who points out interesting indigenous flowers and grasses, 

shadowing father at his place of work in the research lab, and even the innocuous task of buying 

a new toaster presents an opportunity to learn a new word. Hence, words such as aquarium, 

telescope, microscope, cheetah, monuments, appliance, and thistle are in the receptive, oral 

repertoire of these youngsters, and, later when these words are elicited either from a picture 

prompt or encountered in print, they can readily produce or comprehend them (Biemiller, 

2003b). Sometimes a single exposure was sufficient for the word to register with the youngster: 

an insatiable interest and curiosity about language and the names of things, a strong memory 

capacity, and the ability to retain connections and context information were reported to me by 

these young learners.  

 

 Over time, many researchers report a widening gap in the vocabulary knowledge between 

advantaged learners and those who are linguistically vulnerable for reasons of SES, or language 

minority status, although, as noted earlier, advantaged SES may not in itself ensure access to rich 

English language learning opportunities. Targeting instruction would benefit from a strategic 

approach to knowing which words, how many, and when. Corpus based studies and the creation 

of developmental academic word lists would be helpful in providing teachers more precise 

information on where to begin teaching the words children need to know. A scatter shot 

approach to addressing the 18,000 word families an academically oriented 18 year old high 

school graduate seeking university admission is estimated to need in order to access university 

course materials is an overwhelming task for any school teacher. Targeting the big bang for the 

buck words involves not only frequency, but other considerations such as its position in a 

thematic field that would naturally connect to other words readily learned through incidental 

exposure as well as its collocations. Figure 4 on the next page illustrates this idea.  

 

Measuring Academic Vocabulary in Kindergarten to Grade 12 

 

 Various standardized tests such as the Gates MacGinite Reading Tests (MacGinitie & 

MacGinitie, 1992) and the Expressive One Word Picture Vocabulary Test (Academic Therapy 

Publications, 2000) are routinely used for diagnostic and research purposes. Generally, academic 

vocabulary is only measured indirectly through large end assessment programs across Canada 

administered by provincial ministries of education to monitor outcomes in early literacy 

development in Grade 3 or 4, and at the other end of the educational spectrum, Grade 12 

outcomes on an English Language Arts examination. The BC Ministry of Education assesses 

literacy learning through the Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) program in Grades 4 and 7 

(BC Education, 2016). At Grade 4, the writing tasks involve an impromptu personal response 

and a longer narrative spontaneous story telling. Vocabulary is not directly assessed by way of 

the marking rubric; however, young writers are increasingly expected to demonstrate a “varied 

and precise” use of language. Yet even at standard 4 (exceeds expectations) on the story telling 



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BC TEAL Journal Volume 1 Number 1 (2016): 67-81 

task of My Incredible Journey, the standard setting sample paper, comprising 354 words, 

demonstrates overwhelming use of high frequency Tier 1 vocabulary. Two words, security and 

finally, are drawn from the Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000) and are considered Tier 2 

words.    

 

 
Figure 4. Words in a thematic field. 

 

 The University of British Columbia (UBC), like others across Canada, requires all 

prospective students to demonstrate English-language competency prior to admission. Various 

options are available to fulfill this requirement; however, for most BC high school graduates 

seeking admission to UBC, a final Grade in Grade 11 or Grade 12 English, including the 

provincial examination is taken as a proxy for English-language competency. A score of 70% or 

better is required on the provincial examination portion of Grade 12 English or the equivalent 

(UBC, n.d.). However, for ELLs, including the Canadian born children of immigrants, there may 

be challenges to reaching this threshold (Roessingh & Douglas, 2011). Recall that literary 

language is constrained by culture, and many ELLs find themselves “on the outside”—frustrated 

in their attempts to make meaning of words used metaphorically or figuratively. In addition, 

students applying to UBC’s Vancouver campus who do not achieve a grade of 75% in Grade 12 

English or an approved equivalent standard are required to demonstrate the first year English 

course entry requirement (UBC Department of English, n.d.). Students who do not meet this 

requirement are most likely to fulfill the English language competency requirement by way of 

the Language Proficiency Index (LPI) (LPI, 2016), a measure of academic writing that includes 

an expository essay of 300 – 400 words.   

 

 When asking students to write to a prompt, it is important to elicit and sample the full 

range of students’ lexical resources (Olinghouse & Wilson, 2013; Roessingh, 2012). Corson 



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BC TEAL Journal Volume 1 Number 1 (2016): 67-81 

(1997), referred to this threshold as the lexical bar. This is generally achieved through expository 

modes of writing. Neither narrative nor literary responses fulfill the requirements: the former 

overwhelmingly elicits Tier 1 words; the latter elicits the types of literary language that is 

bounded by the English language arts curriculum.  

 

 The figures below illuminate these points. In the first example (Figure 5), a Grade 3 

student writes a narrative entitled Birds Galore. The student is tasked with developing a story in 

response to a picture prompt showing a young boy in a bird costume intently gazing into a nest 

of birds’ eggs, one of them newly hatched. There is no sign of the mother. The same student 

writes an expository text, this time explaining her ideas on how to use the empty space behind 

the school yard. Both texts are digitized, corrected for spelling and submitted to vocabulary 

profiling tools available in the public domain at www.lextutor.ca/vp/kids (Cobb, 2016a). 

Vocabulary profiles are generated for each sample of approximately equal length (250 words) to 

glean insights into various indices of lexical variability that reflect on the productive demands of 

each genre of writing.  
 

 
Figure 5. Narrative vs expository prose 

 

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Table 1 summarizes some of the salient differences between narrative and expository prose 

written by the same young student (both samples assessed as “excellent” writing) who scored on 

the 95th percentile on a vocabulary measure.  

 

 The data include the total number of words or tokens (TNW), the number of different 

words (NDW), the type-token ratio (a ratio of the NDW to TNW), the percent coverage at the 

1,000 word frequency threshold (i.e. Level 4, with each of the 10 levels accounting for 250 word 

families), and the number of Off-List words, reflecting the vocabulary “reach” beyond the 2,500 

word families represented in the reference corpus of children’s oral language at age 5–7.  

 

Table 1 

Differences between narrative and expository prose 

Features:  Birds Galore Empty space 

TNW 251 249 

NDW 138 136 

 t – t ratio       .55       .55 

1000 word % 88.84   79.11 

Off- List %   4.78     7.63 

Examples of O-L 

and AWL 

Encounter, 

opposite, fury, 

rage, permission 

Aid, amount, 

equipment, 

include, locate, 

maximum, public, 

supervisor 

 

 In brief, the data in Table 1 reflect far greater use of the high frequency words at the 

1,000 word threshold in narrative prose (88.84%) versus expository (79.11%). Access to low 

frequency and academic words as a percentage of the total words generated in the expository text 

is greater than in the narrative (7.63% vs 4.78%). A comparison of words in the narrative versus 

expository writing using the Text Lex Compare feature on the www.lextutor.ca website (Cobb, 

2016b) reveals the use of 86 word families unique to expository writing, 53 of them (40%) 

beyond the 1,000 word threshold that is accessible to most young writers at Grade 3. This 

represents a sizable gap and qualitative difference in vocabulary use between narrative and 

expository prose, making a compelling case for the use of expository prompts to identify young 

writers who may be linguistically vulnerable and who might benefit from targeted vocabulary 

instruction (Roessingh, 2012). 

 

 In Grade 12, a different pattern emerges when comparing literary and expository genre. 

The opening paragraph for each piece of text is provided in Figure 6 on the next page to give the 

reader a feel for the types of vocabulary each prompt elicits. The top of the figure contains an 

example of literary language and the bottom of the figure contains an example of expository 

language. 

 

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BC TEAL Journal Volume 1 Number 1 (2016): 67-81 

 
Figure 6. Literary vs. Expository 

 

 Table 2 below provides some points of comparison that reflect on the question of 

academic vocabulary. These data were taken from vocabulary profiles generated on the VP 

Classic tool available on www.lextutor.ca (Cobb, 2016a). Data beyond the 2,000 word frequency 

threshold and the Academic Word list (AWL) are reported.  Coxhead (2000) developed the 

AWL from a corpus a university level reading materials. The AWL consists of 570 head words 

(word families) beyond the 2,000 word threshold in English. They are organized into 10 sub-lists 

by frequency, and offer a good resource for practitioners to consider in their instructional 

planning. Many of these words are accessible to young students in elementary school. The word 

web in Figure 4, for example, aligns with content in science curriculum that is often addressed 

around Grade 4.   

 

 The first text, a critical response to the prompt, “The struggle to restore honor and 

certainty in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet” and the second—the “empty space” prompt (the 

same as that given to the Grade 3 student above) are both assessed at the standard of excellence.  

 

Table 2 

Comparisons between literary and expository prose 

Features Literary  Expository 

TNW 790   791 

NDW 354   272 

t-t ratio        .45        .34 

2000 word %   85.57%    85.84% 

 AWL %      5.57%        9.86 

Off-List       8.86%       4.30  

 

In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the eponymous hero struggles to restore honor and 

certainty to the corrupt kingdom of Denmark. For the purposes of this essay, honor will be defined as 

honesty and integrity, and certainty will be defined as justified, true belief. Hamlet struggles to 

restore honor and certainty in three ways: through thought, which only leads him to further doubt, 

through manipulation, which Hamlet finds difficult due to his inherent honesty, and through force, 

which Hamlet turns to out of despair. These three strategies slowly transform Hamlet from a fair and 

gentle prince to a source of corruption that equals his uncle, the ‘treacherous, lecherous, damned 

villain.’  

The space provided by the large undeveloped area in the schoolyard provides a variety of excellent 

opportunities for the creation of numerous projects that are practical and enjoyable for both 

students and parents. This fact in itself is the basis of the reason for keeping the area free of installed 

equipment or permanent fixtures- it should remain undeveloped in order to preserve the flexibility of 

its functionality. Not only would maintaining the field as an empty space keep it useful for a variety of 

purposes, it can also be utilized for sports, in order to encourage physical activity, and it will certainly 

be the most inexpensive option available.  

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Controlled for length, both texts reflect similar coverage of 85% at the 2000 word threshold. The 

pattern for the AWL and the Off-List words are in stark contrast. A Text Lex Compare of the 

two texts revealed these differences. 

 

Table 3 

Lexical differences between Literary and Expository Texts (Total = 472 word families) 

 Literary 

unique 

Shared word 

families 

Expository 

unique 

# of 

families 

244  60  168  

K1  52.05% 95% 52.38% 

K2  12.7%   1.67% 16.67% 

AWL  11.89% 3.3 % 19.05% 

Off-List  23.36%  0  11.9% 

Total: 100.0 % 99.97% 100.0% 

 

 These two texts have little in common: they share just 60 word families (approximately 

12.7% of the 472 word families in total). Perhaps the single most striking feature of literary text 

is the heavy use of Off-List words. Again, these are overwhelmingly discipline specific, Tier 3 

words : antic, avenge, betray, contempt, deceit, desperate, disposition, eponymous, feign, 

lecherous, reconcile, remorse to give a few examples. The two texts share just two AWL words: 

furthermore and maintain. The remaining AWL words are drawn from the low frequency lists 

and include ambiguity, inherent, and integrity. 

 

 The expository text, on the other hand, contains a far greater percentage of AWL 

(19.05%) and they appear on the high frequency sub-lists of the AWL. They are good candidates 

for instruction since they have high general academic utility: available, function, issue, 

community, participate, contribute, option, project, and promote for example. Similarly, the Off-

List words are accessible and also would seem to have high utility: engage, install, and oblige for 

example.  

 

 In a small scale study investigating academic language proficiency and achievement at 

university among students required to sit the Effective Writing Test (EWT), Douglas (2010) 

reported that an expository piece of writing is a stronger predictor of academic achievement than 

the literary writing associated with the ELA diploma examination in Alberta. Thus, the challenge 

facing increasing numbers of ELLs is clear: in order to fulfill the academic demands of high 

school curriculum and meet admission requirements to university, they must learn hundreds of 

AWL words in a variety of contexts, and even more daunting, thousands upon thousands of Off-

List words associated with literary texts that are abstract and complex in their meaning. As a 

young ELL myself, sitting the Alberta English 30-1 diploma examination nearly 50 years ago 

and scoring 57%--on average about the same as the outcomes reported by Roessingh and 

Douglas (2012), I know and understand the challenge. 

 

  



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The way ahead  

 

This article makes a pitch for addressing the needs of ELLs while maintaining the high school 

requirements of the ELA curriculum across Canada. Through literature study, we come to know 

ourselves and each other, our history, and our dreams for the future that is constantly reshaped as 

our demographic landscape evolves and we reinvent the Canadian identity based on values of 

inclusion and diversity. This project takes time and hard work. Pedagogical approaches must 

make this language and content more accessible through a variety of means. A major challenge 

will be to identify and select literary texts that are relevant and resonate with the increasing 

diverse learner profile of the inclusive classroom. Comprehension is not beyond the reach of 

most ELLs with a little mediation and explicit instruction. Delpitt (1988) makes an impassioned 

plea to educators to make the language of school more available to linguistically vulnerable and 

culturally diverse young learners. To deepen engagement with these texts to the transactional-

aesthetic level suggested by Rosenblatt (1986) requires much more and is potentially not within 

reach of many first generation ELLs: they remain cultural spectators (as I do) and find it very 

difficult to live life through literature, and to bring personal life experiences to the study of 

literature through language. It is akin to experiencing the literature curriculum through a frosted 

glass window, only partially accessible—the grasp is elusive, the meaning obscured and for the 

most part, the words remain as they were, “on the page.” Look instead for inspiration in a sunset 

and grace through everyday small miracles that do not require language to touch the soul, 

reminding us what it means to be human. 

 

 English for academic purposes curricula have been found to make a difference in the 

academic outcomes at university (Crossman, 2014; Crossman & Pinchbeck, 2012). Such 

programs can easily be implemented in high school to complement the ELA program, ideally in 

Grade 11 or early Grade 12. As well, we must begin with young learners as early as their arrival 

in kindergarten, and sustain involvement with academic vocabulary over the duration of the K–

12 years. Why not teach Latin for kids (Van Tassel-Baska, 1987)? 

 

 Future research can involve developing growth models for the arrival of academic words 

into the lexicon of young learners over time from analyzing expository writing samples from 

time series data, generating the “words to know,” or a developmental AWL for young learners. 

This would provide an excellent start point for instructional planning and in turn, enhancing 

achievement outcomes among linguistically vulnerable young learners, including the Canadian 

born children of immigrants who may not have access to academic vocabulary either at home, or, 

it would seem, at school.   

 

 Finally, policy initiatives could include universities awarding advance credit for an iEAP 

course (Crossman, 2014) taken in high school that could be accompanied by a diploma exam 

along the lines of BC’s LPI test. It is timely to rethink the demands of a literature based course as 

the gate keeper to admission to post-secondary institutions including universities, colleges, and 

technical programs.   

 

 From multiple perspectives including assessment, curriculum and instruction, policy, and 

research initiatives, there is much work to do to address the needs of our rapidly changing 

demographic profile of our K–12 population and in turn, post-secondary and workplace 



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potential. Canada’s quality of life depends on the ability to be competitive in a complex, 

connected global economy that demands increasing levels of academic literacy. 

 

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