How has our understanding of BICS/CALP and time needed for academic achievement by second-language learners changed over the last 3 decades as we have learned more from new waves of immigration and new research findings? In this session, this foundational information will be updated and re-examined based on current research and teaching practices.

1. Beyond BICS and CALP:
Evolving concepts in
second language
acquisition
Mike Anderson, Bonnie Swierzbin, Elaine Tarone MELEd, 2015

2. Three Framing Questions
1. How long does it take a newly arrived immigrant ESL
student who knows a few words of English to acquire
English?
2. How do you see the concepts of BICS and CALP?
3. How do you describe the typical language learner
studied in SLA research?

3. Evolving ideas in theory and research
• What do we know and what we can explain?
• How do evolving foundational concepts fit into teacher
education?
• How do they affect our classrooms today, the questions we
ask, and the explanations we provide?
• 3 illustrations of how we can move beyond the talking points
and contextualize foundational concepts in today’s teaching
situation.

4. 1.How would you answer the following
question for someone with no background
in second language acquisition?
How long does it take a newly arrived
immigrant ESL student who knows a few
words of English to acquire academic
English?

5. How long does it take?
 “Virginia Collier (1989) found that, for most students,
acquiring age-appropriate CALP takes several years.” (Lightbown
& Spada, 2013, p.32)

6. Continuing Development
• 1989
• Explaining how long it takes
• 2015
• What is the quickest (most effective) road to get students to
proficiency?

7. Academic Language: Current Thought
• Focus on Dual Language Programs
• How can we design programs for students for the most
efficient language and content acquisition?
• Variety of methods
• Context is important as is how we measure this

8. 2. How do you see the concepts of
BICS and CALP?
BICS: Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills
CALP: Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency
Take a minute to draw a picture of how you see these
concepts.

9. BICS/CALP: Does your picture look like this?

10. Maybe your BICS/CALP picture looks like this …

11. BICS/CALP: The original ideas
Basic Interpersonal Communicative Language and Cognitive
Academic Language Proficiency were proposed as an alternative
to the idea that all individual differences in language
proficiency could be accounted for by ONE underlying factor
(Cummins, 1979).
“Misconceptions about the nature of language proficiency”
(Cummins, 1999) led to students’ early exit from ESL programs
to mainstream classes with little or no support for developing
academic language.

12. The Iceberg Model
http://is.eips.ca/about/school-news/post/working-with-esl-students-in-eips

13. Developmental relationships

14. Building bridges

15. 3. How would you describe the
typical language learner studied in
SLA research?
SLA researchers can only know how SLA works in the
kinds of learners they’ve studied – but there are
unstudied learners in different contexts (Bigelow
& Tarone 2004)

16. Research Context Affects SLA Findings
2014 UN Human Development Quartiles

17. Challenges to SLA Theory
1. In developing world, ELLs may learn English as L3 or L4:
their L1, not used in schools, is lost.
The story of V.
2. Many US immigrants from
developing world are not literate: How do they acquire ESL?

18. Few SLA studies on literacy & oral SLA
• Literacy level affects oral L2
processing
• Literate L2 learners visualize
graphemes to help process oral L2
input
• Our study found low literate learners
less likely to notice oral corrections
to malformed English questions

19. Research in ‘nontraditional contexts’
still absent from major reviews of SLA
research
So who can do this needed
research?
Teacher research is needed
(Exploratory Practice &
action research)

20. Summing up
Evolving concepts in SLA:
1.How long does it take?
2.BICS and CALP
3.Nature of ‘SLA’ in ‘nontraditional’ contexts
(developing countries, low literate learners)

21. References
 2014 UN Human Development Report Quartiles. Accessed 11/3/15 at
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2014_UN_Human_Development_Report_Quartiles.svg#/media
 Are, O. B. (2013). Conceptual issues in second language research in Africa. Linguistik Online, 58, 1. Accessed
9/7/2015 at http://www.linguistik-online.de/58_13/are.html
 Bigelow , M. & Tarone, E. (2004). The role of literacy level in SLA: Doesn’ t who we study determine what we
know? TESOL Quarterly 38, 4: 689-700.
 Collier, V.P. (1989). How long? A synthesis of research on academic achievement in second language. TESOL
Quarterly, 23, 509-531.
 Collier, V.P. (1987). Age and rate of acquisition of second language for academic purposes. TESOL Quarterly, 21,
617-641.
 Ellis, R. (2008). Study of second language acquisition, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press.

22. References
 Gibbons, P. (2009). English learners, academic literacy, and thinking: Learning in the challenge zone.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
 Rauf, S. (2015) Politics of quality (language) education. CARLA presentation, University of Minnesota, Oct. 20,
2015.
 Tarone, E., M. Bigelow & K. Hansen (2009). Literacy and second-language oracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Thomas, W.P., & Collier, V.P. (2002). A national study of school effectiveness for language minority students'
long-term academic achievement. Santa Cruz, CA: Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence,
University of California-Santa Cruz (351 pp.)