Bics/Cals Linguistic Theories Bics/Cals Theory

BICS/CALS

Linguistic Theories

BICS/CALS theory in teaching ESL students

Educational theorist Jim Cummins has proposed a two-pronged model for linguistic assimilation. According to Cummins, students attain linguistic fluency based on the acquisition of BICS and CALP. BICS stands for Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills. This involves "face-to face conversational fluency…mastery of pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar (Ledbetter & Seo 6). Language proficiency in this arena usually begins to develop around ages 1-3 (Ledbetter & Seo 8). CALP is the type of language proficiency associated with schooling, and the abstract language abilities required for academic work. It is a more complex and conceptual understanding of language and academic work demands this type of high-level synthesis, analysis, and evaluation (Ledbetter & Seo 7). Language proficiency in this arena usually begins to develop around age 5 (Ledbetter & Seo 8).

Abstraction is inherent to CALP-level linguistic understanding. For example, someone functioning on a BICS level might understand that a circle is a physical object or that circling means to proceed in a circle-like fashion around an object, like when playing 'duck, duck, goose.' The idea of drawing a representation of a circle on a piece of paper, or the concept of circumnavigating the globe demands a CALP-level of English (Ledbetter & Seo 12). ESL students may develop academic proficiency or CALP in English and vastly different rates. "Prior schooling and experience" in the use of complex language in the individual's first language will determine the individual's ability to engage with concepts in English on an abstract level (Ledbetter & Seo 13). "Reading achievement in English is more dependent on reading achievement in their native language than it is on relative oral proficiency in English (Ledbetter & Seo 13). However, some critics allege that this is a dangerous aspect of the BICS/CALP distinction: "The notion of CALP promotes a deficit theory" that "attributes the academic failure of bilingual/minority students to low cognitive/academic proficiency rather than to inappropriate schooling" (Ledbetter & Seo 14).

However, many teachers of ESL point out that for students to excel in school, including on exams they will face, such as the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) required for admittance to American universities, students must be able to grasp the use of English as an abstract, academic language. Advocates of the BICS/CALS dichotomy suggest that methods of teaching ESL students in the past concentrated too much on low-level, informal fluency. Students were not taken seriously as academic learners, and merely gained practice in the type informal English they could pick up from peers. CALS literacy is also essential, and can only be accomplished in a scholastic setting. "New theories, such as SIOP are helping teachers to include all four language functions in every lesson so that students are catching up" with peers who speak English as a first language at an acceptable pace (Ledbetter & Seo 17).

SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observational Protocol) programs are specifically designed to help ESL students acquire language while simultaneously become advanced in higher-level linguistic skills so they can compete with other students intellectually when they return to mainstream classrooms. In "model sheltered instruction courses, language and content objectives are systematically woven into the curriculum of one particular subject area, such as 4th grade language arts, U.S. history, algebra, or life science" (Echevarria & Short 5). Students receive academic support in abstract-level reasoning as well as instruction in ESL. SIOP classrooms are extremely individuated, to take advantage of different levels of academic as well as linguistic proficiency.

Perhaps the most valuable insight of the BICS/CALS model is that it highlights how "problems arise when teachers and administrators think that a child is proficient in a language when they demonstrate good social English" (Hayes 2004, cited by Hernandez). For example, the child of Cambodian immigrants might have great experience in interpreting for their parents, and know how to speak English at a high level to order in a restaurant or to talk to customers at their parent's store, but they may have had little education in conventional academic subjects. In contrast, some ESL students have "strong academic backgrounds before they came to the U.S." And are even above equivalent grade levels in the school's curricula, in math and science" (Echevarria & Short 3). They are comfortable with abstract thinking, even if their English may be weak on a spoken level -- perhaps even weaker than students whose grammar and academic education needs far more substantial support.