How Significant is Comprehensive Language Development in Building Connections Between

the Social Studies Content and Student’s Real-World Applications?

Julia Khader

Manhattan College: EDUC 360

 Abstract

The largest and most largely aggreged upon threat to the content area of social studies

remains its inability to engage and maintain student engagement. An identifiable root to a viable

path to success in creating student engagement is to focus on civic and language literacy and

giving students the means to connect what they learn in the classroom to their life beyond.

However, fostering engagement has been a persistent struggle in social studies classrooms for

students who speak English as a primary language, engagement is further complicated by the

task of filling the equity gap ELLs face in the classroom. To solve this pervasive issue, I will be

exploring the significance of language development and comprehension in building clear, strong

connections between the social studies content and student's real-world applications.

Introduction

As a future social studies teacher, there are heightened stakes upon entering the

workforce and content area to bring a new era of historical education. There has been an

awakening of more recent times, to dissect and enhance the perspectives and lens through which

social studies is taught. Personally, I firmly believe that to produce educated, prepared, and

literate young adults at their time of graduation to enter the world beyond school requires

establishing an all-encompassing and targeted social studies knowledge from the start. I feel a

more inclusive approach to social studies, with particular emphasis on connection to the modern-

day, would aid deeply in engagement.

After all, most studies concur that the largest hurdle between students and intrinsic

success in social studies is a lack of engagement and an inability to see relevancy applicable to

their modern-day lives. It is one of my aspiring goals as a potential educator to boost engagement

through concrete and explicit connections of the social studies curriculum to current events.
However, it is infeasible to expect students to meet such a high civic standard at a young age

without a firm basis of knowledge. Further, this basis is even more difficult to attain for students

to whom English is not their primary language. Thus, to make sense of the large concepts and

significant institutions that come with the social studies curriculum, logical and progressive

language development is essential.

The Research

The article “Integrating Language and Content Instruction for Language Minority

Students”, presents why we need to combine language and content instruction for the benefit of

our ELL students, but also so effective strategies to implement this instruction seamlessly. One

of the main objectives is to actually include language skills into students’ objectives. Crandall

proposes a three-step idea to making the first step into curriculum integration:

1.) Develop one lesson.

2.) Develop a unit in one academic area.

3.) Develop a content-based ESL or sheltered English curriculum. (Crandall, 1987)

I find this source key in addressing the first and most basic principle of our exploratory question.

In summary, “A totally integrated curriculum for LEP students would combine language

instruction with all content areas” (Crandell, 1987). Essentially, there must be work across

content areas between the instructors themselves to find ways to incorporate and implement an

intertwined curriculum to support English language learners in making the most progress in

terms of language and content demands.

The National Council for the Social Studies defines the aim of social studies as, “… the

promotion of civic competence- the knowledge, intellectual processes, and democratic

dispositions required of students to be active and engaged participants in public life.” However, a
2012 study exploring the reasons students attribute the purpose of social studies showed that

most students were unable to make the connection from the classroom to their real-world

applications (Gibson, 2012). Further, these students expressed minimal active engagement in

their social studies classes. If the national consensus towards social studies among administrators

is that social studies are predeterminate for life beyond schooling, then teachers and students

need to realize that potential as well. By revising curriculums to make connections to student’s

real-world apparent and abundant, then the chances of students developing an intrinsic

engagement with the content area increases.

A study conducted by surveyed social studies educators in the ways they accommodate

their ELL students in the classroom. The findings of the study proved the ELLs should have

more accessibility to appropriate curriculum and materials in the classroom. The article suggests

multiple things and one of the most significant is an increase in the comprehensibility of texts

and speech involved in classroom content (Cho, 2008). This study is focused on reaching a new

generation of immigrants currently making their way through the school system. One day they

will be tasked with going civil society, All students need to be able to make connections between

their social studies education and their real-world applications, this article realizes the gap

immigrant students and ELLs face in achieving these connections:

Serving the needs of this growing population and helping them succeed academically is

the professional and civic responsibility of all teachers. If we are not able to meet young

immigrants’ needs, we risk losing their generations energy and brilliance. Worse still,

how will future children of today’s young immigrants come to terms with living

in America? As social studies teachers who know the history of immigration to this
 country, we must be at the forefront of co-creating an inclusive civic vision with our

immigrant students. (Cho, 2008)

Students who speak English as their primary or first language will find the connections between

social studies and the real world through prompting or parallels between the two. These

connections are reliant on activating student’s prior knowledge of the English language and the

social studies terms that come with it. Academic language specific to social studies and relevant

to modern civic involvement includes vocabulary such as “bipartisan”, “democratic”, “republic”,

“legislation”, etc. These terms represent vast concepts and to be able to make connections

between these terms in social studies class to life outside of school requires a firm understanding

of them. If the answer to student engagement in social studies lies in being able to make these

connections and one day to implement their knowledge to participate as civic citizens, then it is

essential that ELL students are able to follow along with the language development as well.

Implications of Literacy

There are multiple benefits to targeting literacy in the Social Studies classroom. The

University of Florida article puts it best, “Whether a single lesson or a whole curriculum,

teachers can integrate language and content-area instruction in ways that make learning both

more effective” (Crandall, 1987). Content areas such as social studies, but also mathematics and

science among others, have a high language demand. Meeting this demand is essential for the

survival of all students in the course. However, students have different challenges meeting this

demand due to a number of external and internal factors. The most primary challenge students

such as these confront on the way to language literacy is English comprehension itself.

Therefore, through the combination of language and content instruction into unified curriculum

standards, the best of both worlds can be achieved in enhancing overall student well-being and
providing an accessible and equitable opportunity to ELL and disadvantaged students to find

success in the classroom.

Social studies is an umbrella term used to describe the many social sciences and

humanities disciplines that fall under it which students will have multiple experiences within

their educational careers. These varying and diverse social studies courses have their own unique

language demands, specialized concepts, and terminology. The social studies are diverse in this

way to the point that even English-speaking students find the content intellectually challenging

(Szpara, 2006). Michelle Szpara punctuates her article on making social studies engaging and

accessible to ELL students emphasizes the point that:

Until concerted efforts are made across schools and universities to meet the needs of

ELL students, we will continue to do a disservice to the next generation of American

citizens. The social studies classroom has the potential. To demonstrate civic duty in

action, as teachers and schools come together with families to help new immigrants

participate actively in the social, political, and economic life of the United States.

(Szpara, 2006)

Multiple studies have similarly concluded that the ability to make connections between the

classroom and students’ real-world applications is one of the larger goals of social studies and

also the most efficient way to foster engagement. ELL students are just as deserving of being

able to make those connections, thus, comprehensive content language development is crucial.

Conclusion

Through intensive research analysis, it is apparent that a comprehensive intention to

develop language and foster literacy is the key to building strong connections between social

studies and content and students’ real-world applications. By accomplishing a tangible language
development for students, a foundation of social studies knowledge is established where progress

can then made for the differing needs of students to move toward content mastery and most

importantly, find a way to engage in their social studies classrooms.

 Works Cited

Szpara, M. Y., & Ahmad, I. (2006). Making social studies meaningful for ELL students: Content

and pedagogy in mainstream secondary classrooms. Essays in education, 16(1), 1.

https://openriver.winona.edu/eie/vol16/iss1/1/

Gibson, S. (2012). “‘Why Do We Learn This Stuff’? Students’ Views on the Purpose of Social

Studies. Canadian Social Studies, 45(1), 43-58.

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ972852.pdf

NCSS. “National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies: Executive Summary.”

https://www.socialstudies.org/standards/national-curriculum-standards-social-studies-

executive-summary

Cho, S., & Reich, G. A. (2008). New immigrants, new challenges: High School social studies

teachers and English language learner instruction. The Social Studies, 99(6), 235-242.

https://tpsteach.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/new-immigrants-new-challenges.pdf

Crandall, J., Spanos G., Christian, D., Simich-Dudgeon, C., & Willetts, K. (1987). Integrating

language and content instruction for language minority students. Washington, DC:

National Clearing House for Bilingual Education.

https://www.ncela.ed.gov/files/rcd/BE016277/TRG4.pdf