Favor de leer la siguiente seleccion sobre BICS/CALP. Mientras lees, apunta en el margen algunas ideas sobre lo que quiere decir lenguaje.
Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills
Experts such as Jim Cummins differentiate between social and
academic language acquisition. Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills
(BICS) are language skills needed in social situations. It is the
day-to-day language needed to interact socially with other people.
English language learners (ELLs) employ BIC skills when they are on the
playground, in the lunch room,on the school bus, at parties, playing
sports and talking on the telephone. Social interactions are usually
context embedded. They occur in a meaningful social context. They are
not very demanding cognitively. The language required is not
specialized. These language skills usually develop within six months to
two years after arrival in the U.S.
Problems arise when teachers and administrators think that a child is
proficient in a language when they demonstrate good social English.
Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency
CALP refers to formal academic learning. This includes listening,
speaking, reading, and writing about subject area content material.
This level of language learning is essential for students to succeed in
school. Students need time and support to become proficient in academic
areas. This usually takes from five to seven years. Recent research
(Thomas & Collier, 1995) has shown that if a child has no prior
schooling or has no support in native language development, it may take
seven to ten years for ELLs to catch up to their peers.
Academic language acquisition isn't just the understanding of
content area vocabulary. It includes skills such as comparing,
classifying, synthesizing, evaluating, and inferring. Academic language
tasks are context reduced. Information is read from a textbook or
presented by the teacher. As a student gets older the context of
academic tasks becomes more and more reduced.
The language also becomes more cognitively demanding. New ideas,
concepts and language are presented to the students at the same time.
Jim Cummins also advances the theory that there is a common
underlying proficiency (CUP) between two languages. Skills, ideas and
concepts students learn in their first language will be transferred to
the second language.