Core Academic Language Skills in Grade 6 South African Learners

Abstract

This research validates a construct that describes cross-disciplinary Core Academic Language Skills (CALS) for use in South African schools, and argues for its use as an underpinning instructional framework. The construct was derived from a novel instrument aimed at testing a constellation of school-relevant English language skills which was developed and validated for use in the United States. The unitary construct tested by this instrument was dubbed CALS and it aimed to describe the set of skills that comprise academic language proficiency. CALS has been described as “knowledge and deployment of a repertoire of language forms and functions that co-occur with oral and written schooling tasks across disciplines” (Uccelli et. al, 2015a, p. 1077). The overall aim of this research was to ascertain if the CALS construct can be used to validly assess learners from different linguistic backgrounds in South Africa, and further if the fully operationalised skillset can be used as a basis for instruction in the discrete academic language skills described. A range of national and international assessments have shown that South African learners perform at the lower end of the spectrum on language and mathematical skills, and it seems that the disparity between the language status of the population and the language of schooling is a core determinant of the poor scores attained by South African learners. This thesis was completed by publication, with four linked articles that addressed each of the related sub-questions. In order to determine if the CALS construct was appropriate for use in South Africa, the first article (Chapter 3) localised and piloted a version of the CALS instrument for use in South Africa – resulting in the CALS-I-ZA assessment instrument. The second article (Chapter 4) deals with the crucial question of whether the CALS construct is related to academic outcomes in South Africa – and this chapter shows the link between the 6 scores obtained on the CALS-I-ZA and the Gauteng provincial Common Examinations. The predictive relationship between CALS and Academic Results (as proxied by the Common Examinations) was shown to be robust. The final empirical part of the work (Chapter 5), investigates if the CALS-I-ZA instrument shows a different pattern of functioning when used to assess first-language English learners (L1) and non-first-language English learners (L2). Surprisingly, the CALS-I-ZA instrument showed robust functioning and a strong predictive relationship with school outcomes when used to assess both L1 and L2 learners. Chapter 6 represents the final article in this thesis which consists of a brief meta-analysis of the previous work on CALS detailed in this thesis as well as by other researchers working on this construct. This article makes the argument for a cautious use of CALS as the basis for a form of CALS-informed instruction that could be employed for use in South African classrooms, while retaining a critical awareness of the deeply problematic nature of the mismatch between the Language of Learning and Teaching (LoLT) and the linguistic profile of the majority of South African learners.