Developing students’ academic writing for content language learning

This paper discusses how a knowledge structure – text structure approach can be used within an education context where English is used as the medium of instruction in school subjects. In such contexts, the requirement for teachers is to support students’ learning of both English as a second language and the subject content. The knowledge structure – text structure approach provides pedagogical support to teachers in developing students’ English, particularly in academic writing, for content-language learning. The paper exemplifies the approach with a detailed description of how it can be implemented with a unit of science learning and how students’ English can thereby be developed for successful content-language learning. The major role of the ESL teachers within the approach is also explored. Copyright © 2017 Stella Kong, Philip Hoare.