BICS/CALP

The literature on 'academic language' draws heavily on Jim Cummins' (1979, 1996) binary of BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills) and CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) to explain a number of phenomena in language acquisition--like why a student might be able to recite an entire Jay-Z song but not write a complete paragraph in English class. It's a useful distinction in some ways, particularly in advocating for immigrant students who may be unfairly assessed in school. If it generally up to two years for someone to reach conversational and fluency and five to seven years for academic proficiency, then educational policies and classroom practice should distinguish between these very different time periods.

But the insufficiency of this model to capture the sociocultural context of language use became evident to me during this election season. Traveling up to nearby the battleground state of New Hampshire to organize for Obama, we'd get sent off in pairs to canvass a neighborhood and talk to people about the presidential and senate races. The idea was to find out where people stood on the issues, if they'd made up their minds how to vote, and persuade undecided voters why they should vote democrat. Clearly, this type of exchange demands a high degree of CALP, right? Well yes and no. The issues are complex, and there is some specialized vocabulary you need to talk about taxes and health care plans. But for the most part, the people answering doors I knocked on didn't want fancy talk. A lot of them didn't want to talk at all but if you start in sounding all academic-y, you can rest assure they'll probably close the door in your face. It's like the example of a bar that Jim Gee uses. Walk into a neighborhood bar, it would be completely inappropriate to ask, "Pardon me. Could any of you good lads spare a match?" You'll likely get ridiculed; you might get your butt kicked.

Talking to folks while canvassing was exhausting and hard, cognitively demanding work. A lot more difficult for me than talking about politics with a colleague. But it certainly wasn't academic. Far from it. It was barely about policies and certainly not policy nuances, but about trying to connect on a human level with a stranger in a few seconds so maybe they'd be willing to talk for a few minutes.