Viewing Content Curriculum Through the Lens of Language Acquisition: A Content Analysis

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate
whether literacy journals are supporting teaching
content curriculum as language acquisition.
Articles from three literacy journals (N= 1648)
during the years 2005-2015 were coded via
mixed method content analysis. Articles with a
focus on any aspect of content curriculum were
initially selected. Further coding revealed articles
that did not discuss forms of literacies (i.e.
thinking, reading, writing, listening, and reading),
articles that discussed one or more forms
of literacies in relation to the content area(s),
and articles that connected teaching content
curriculum to language acquisition either explicitly
or implicitly. The researchers support a
belief that students should become fluent in the
language of content as content is a language to
be acquired; however findings from this study
indicated that less than 1% of articles in the selected
literacy journals related teaching content
curriculum to language acquisition. Further research
to include additional literacy journals as
well as content specific journals is needed to
explore the topic deeper.