Language Success for School Success
Dr. Sharon Ishii-Jordan


Language is a big part of how we determine success in schools….a purpose of schooling is to enculturate students in our society’s expectations…and a big part of that, beyond just knowledge of history, is looking at how we socialize and how we communicate.


Dr. Ishii-Jordan talked about the importance of language learning and use in achieving success in school in both academics and socialization. She said that an important function of schools is socializing students in terms of society’s expectations and how we communicate. However, we do not give that as much focus as knowledge acquisition.

Being successful in school is determined in large part by success on language-based assessments. In addition, access to academic resources like libraries, the Internet, and textbooks is all language-based. Students who do not have a strong language base due to disabilities or experiences in their home, neighborhoods, or cultural groups will likely have difficulty in school.

Pragmatic language competence is a combination of several factors including semantics (vocabulary and different levels of meaning) and syntax (grammar and structure). Also important is cognitive ability, i.e., mental maturity, memory, reasoning, and being able to link past and present. Social behaviors, including turn-taking, pausing, presupposition, and understanding nonverbal cues and unwritten rules about status also play a part. Presupposing means assuming that the person you are talking to already has some information that you have, but they may, in fact, not have it.

Next, Dr. Ishii-Jordan discussed the five registers of language—frozen, formal, consultative, casual, and intimate—and cognitive strategies such as the ability to understand sequences, predict, think ahead and plan, understand cause and effect, identify consequences, and control impulses.

She then went on to discuss the connection between language and behavior disorders, the fact that students with behavior disorders very often have some difficulties with language, and the importance of including language assessments when a student is being evaluated for a behavior disorder. In addition, students with these problems often have difficulty attracting and being around students who are more successful in school.

Finally, she discussed the situation of non-native English speakers. These students have an easier time learning English if their first language is similar to English and a harder time if they have not had formal schooling in their first language. In addition to learning a new language, they have to understand a new culture. These factors all impact on their ability to access the curriculum and succeed academically and socially.