Language for academic thinking – Reflection
In the chapter, Zwiers points out that the academic language for most teachers is their every language. Because university has gotten me more comfortable speaking in academic language, I may not able to pick out those big abstract words. For instance, the word “economy” has become part of my everyday language, and is no longer an abstract word. Like Zwiers emphasizes, we, teachers, must work on two dimensions – our own language and communication behavior and those of our students.
Another important aspect of academic language is that it is much more than memorizing the big words. Handing out a long list of vocabularies for students memorize for weekly quizzes is not sufficient to teach them the academic language. Students need to understand those words. Many students simply memorize the new vocabularies, without understanding what they mean, without the ability to use these words in sentences. It is the responsibility of teachers to make sure that students understand the bricks and are able to use those bricks to express their ideas.