This is a description of 6 items that make up a Language Based
Class. Students should be grouped by learning needs and not by
diagnoses.
1. Small (3-7 students) classrooms where
instruction and class discussion are teacher-directed, with the teacher
modeling language and performing the function of questioner; the
teacher continually encouraging students’ responses to elicit,
elaborate and model language. Students are active participants in
the learning process with the teacher ensuring that each student is
comprehending and interacting with the material, rather then passively
trying to memorize it.
2. The highly structured small group interaction is essential to the
language-based program. It is necessary for the student to be
placed with others of similar intellectual abilities, with similar rate
of processing and linguistic skills.
3. Class instruction and information is presented in a highly
structured, organized manner, using oral and visual methods to support
comprehension and to emphasize important concepts and main ideas.
4. All of the previous day's lessons should be reviewed the following
day with new information integrated and related to old
information. Lessons spiral back to previously learned material
for review to ensure continue mastery, and to relate to new information.
5. Reading, writing, spelling, and oral language strategies should be
taught and reinforced across the curriculum to facilitate continuity,
generalization and internalization. These are intensive,
rule-based, highly structured, systematic, explicitly-taught
specialized programs, delivered by certified, trained teachers with and
experience in these specialized programs.
6. A certified Speech and Language Pathologist should provide direct
therapeutic services and provide consultation to the classroom teacher
on how to present the information in a language-based manner.
Modified from a Neuropsychology Evaluation Report by Dr. J. Fahey,
Ph.D., Neuropsychologist, Floating Hospital for Children at Tuffs
New-England Medical Center, August 2006.
What is Language-based? Landmark College
Language-based instruction is an umbrella term for a teaching approach
that explicitly builds skills in each of the four overlapping areas of
language: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
A language-based classroom is a formal part of a school's educational program.