Unlock deeper thinking by making the language of your subject explicit

As a school leader, you want students who not only understand subject content but can also express their thinking clearly and confidently. Yet many learners struggle to use the academic language required to explain, justify, analyse, or collaborate effectively. They may understand the ideas, but without the right language tools, their thinking remains invisible. This limits achievement, participation, and confidence across subjects, especially for multilingual learners.

This course gives your teachers a practical, research-informed approach to change that. Built around the Language Triptych — Language OF, Language FOR, and Language THROUGH content, it shows how to integrate language development directly into subject teaching so students learn both the language and the content in meaningful, connected ways.

FOR YOUR SCHOOL, THE IMPACT IS IMMEDIATE.

Stronger academic performance across subjects
When your teachers make disciplinary language explicit, students produce clearer explanations, arguments, and written work. This improves comprehension and assessment results.

More equitable access to learning
The strategies support your multilingual learners, students with lower proficiency, and those who struggle with academic language. This strengthens inclusion and aligns with whole-school equity goals.

More confident and engaged learners
By giving your students the language they need to participate, discuss, reason, and problem-solve, you increase engagement and support deeper cognitive processing.

Coherence across departments
The Language Triptych offers a shared framework for teaching and learning. Your teachers develop consistent practices, scaffolds, and expectations, improving alignment across the curriculum.

Immediate classroom impact
Your teachers leave with ready-to-use strategies, scaffolds, and activities that improve comprehension and communication from the very next lesson.

What your teachers will learn

• How language shapes thinking and understanding in every subject

• How to identify and teach subject-specific terminology and discourse patterns

• How to support students in using language for reasoning, problem-solving, and academic discussion

• How to scaffold reading, writing, speaking, and reasoning tasks to make complex content accessible

• How to design activities that develop content knowledge and language simultaneously

• How to help multilingual learners acquire academic language and subject knowledge at the same time

By the end of the course, teachers will be able to:

• Make key disciplinary language visible and comprehensible

• Strengthen collaboration through targeted language tools

• Improve content comprehension with clear, purposeful language scaffolds

• Build tasks that deepen understanding while fostering academic language

• Support diverse learners with more consistency and confidence

Modules

• Language OF content

• Language FOR thinking

• Language THROUGH content

Audience: Discipline teachers

Duration: 1 day (in person) or 3 hours (online, teacher-led)
Dates: upon request
Certificate: Certificate of Mastery