Language Demands

In the context of learning in classrooms, language demands are descriptions of the language students need to effectively participate in classroom tasks. This includes demands related to listening, speaking, reading, writing, and shifting between those modalities. These demands can be vocabulary, features of text-types, and other language demands (e.g., sharing ideas with a partner, listening to instructions). The degree of language demand also varies with the cognitive complexity of the content, a student’s current language development, a student’s relevant knowledge and experience, and the context in which the language demand occurs (e.g., participating in a discussion with or without notes). Teachers can draw upon students’ language strengths (including language abilities in another language or context) and supply scaffolds to enable students to understand or produce language beyond their current level of mastery.