Academic Language in Diverse Classrooms: Definitions and Contexts

Ensure your school speaks the language of success! 

With the rigorous content of College and Career Readiness standards, academic language use has moved to the forefront of educational priorities. School leaders and teachers must ensure that academic language becomes the focus of new curricula, instruction, and assessment, with special attention to linguistically and culturally diverse students.

The author’s six-book series on academic language is already the definitive resource on the topic. This companion volume provides a concise, thorough overview of the key research concepts and effective practices that underlie the series. Including:

• Definitions and examples of the dimensions of academic language.
• A step-by-step template to incorporate academic language use into plans for student learning.
• Graphic models that illustrate the construct of academic language and its classroom application. 

Language is the most fundamental building block of education. Be sure your school is as strong as it can be with this indispensable book.

"This book brings language learning in the classroom alive!  Against a backdrop of new standards, the authors skillfully take the reader through detailed vignettes of classroom practice that support students’ development of academic language, while at the same time discussing why the practice is effective." 
―Margaret Heritage, Assistant Director for Professional Development
National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing (CRESST) at UCLA

Margo Gottlieb, Ph.D., has been a bilingual teacher, coordinator, facilitator, consultant, and mentor across K-20 settings. Having worked with universities, organizations, governments, states, school districts, networks, and schools, Margo has co-constructed linguistic and culturally sustainable curriculum and reconceptualized classroom assessment, policy, and practice. As co-founder and lead developer of WIDA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003, Margo has helped design and contributed to all the editions of WIDA’s English and Spanish language development standards frameworks and their derivative products. She has been appointed to national and state advisory boards, served as a Fulbright Senior Scholar, and was honored by the TESOL International Association in 2016 for her significant contribution to the field. An avid traveler, Margo has enjoyed keynoting and presenting across the United States, territories, and 25 countries. Having authored, co-authored, or co-edited over 100 publications, including 22 books, Margo′s 3rd edition of Assessing Multilingual Learners: Bridges to Empowerment (2024) and Collaborative Assessment for Multilingual Learners and Teachers: Pathways to Partnerships (with A. Honigsfeld, 2025) are the latest additions to her Corwin compendium.

In 2025, Margo was inducted into the Multilingual Education Hall of Fame.

Dr. Gisela Ernst-Slavit (PhD University of Florida) is a Professor Emerita at Washington State University with an active program of research. Dr. Ernst-Slavit is a native from Peru who grew up languaging in Spanish, German and English at school. She is the author, co-author, or co-editor of 12 books and over 100 articles and chapters, and she frequently speaks at regional, national, and international conferences on multilingual learner education, with a particular focus on teacher preparation for multilingual youth. Dr. Ernst-Slavit has served as President of the Washington Association for English to Speakers of Other Languages and as an officer in several professional organizations, including the American Educational Research Association, the Council of Anthropology and Education, and TESOL International Association.