RUNNING HEADER: THE POWER OF LANGUAGE 1

The Power of Language

Basha Greer

Los Angeles Pacific University

Importance of Language Study

The importance of language study as a means for preparing students for 21st century

citizenship is understanding the way language works. Words have power and according to

Danielle McNamara (2017) “The language we use helps us to express our thoughts, we can use

language to compose our thoughts, to change our thoughts, to recompose our thoughts, it's a

means of understanding our world and interacting in our world.” The proper use of language

allows us to convey our thoughts and feelings we have about the world around us. It allows us to

communicate effectively to the people around us, to express our ideas and new innovations.

Language is the foundation for us to collaborate with one another. In a student setting, an

example of collaboration would be a group project and dictating the different jobs of the students

participating, coming together to put the parts together and allowing it to flow together as one.

Without the use of language this process would be extremely difficult, it would be capable of

completion, but may not be a well rounded project. McNamara (2017) goes on to say “Language

is multidimensional, it allows us to associate, express emotions, and see images by the use of

words. All of our experiences are compact into these words.” We as teachers need to captivate

our students by the use of our words. By doing so, they will want to learn how to use language

effectively, to convey their associations, emotions, and images of their experiences.

Moral Imperative

According to Sara Davilia (2016) our duty as educators for our students is “To inspire

interest and engagement in our own classroom while building 21st century skills in our learners.”

Inspiring our students to engage in the proper use of phonology, morphology, syntax and

semantics is our goal as educators. Breaking down lessons so they are able to comprehend the
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skills we use on an everyday basis. We are challenged to teach rules of communicating and the

importance of language structure to a classroom full of students willing to soak up the

information. The first step is getting them excited about how phonology is the contrastive

relationships among the speech sounds that constitute the fundamental components of a

language. Or the use of syntax by arranging words to best relay information that is clear and

concise. Danielle McNamara (2017) states in her presentation that “Words are tools, and when

we put our words out into the world we are externalizing our thoughts. Being able to explain

text, explain our thoughts, participate in discussions, and even writing essays are ways to

improve students' learning.” By putting these thoughts and ideas into action, we can help our

students to become better citizens.

Future Role as an Educator

After reading the article about 21st century learning by Sara Davilia (2016) it made me

rethink about how I want to go about teaching my students. I really enjoyed the way Sergio

Correra taught his students, by asking what they wanted to learn. The results for this strategy

were astronomical, as a result “he encouraged students to ask questions, to seek out more

information and to find more questions to answer. Over the next year he saw the tests scores of

his students rise, the engagement and enthusiasm improved. With few resources and limited

access to technology he found his students shifting from the lowest testing group in the nation to

being ranked among the highest for their performance on standardised tests in the country. In

fact, one of his students was the single highest performing maths student in the entire country.”

By changing the approach of his students he increased their curiosity in subjects they were

interested in. He allowed his classroom to be student centered, instead of giving them the basic
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teacher centered syllabus speel. I think this is beneficial for keeping students wanting to learn in

a world that is changing rapidly. I see an increasing interest in subjects that new students are

interested in and will want to pursue in the future for their careers. His observations of his

students were concluded to be collaborative, independent and self driven. These are the areas I

hope to imply in my own classroom, I want my students to be excited about learning every day,

to come into my class not knowing what is going to happen next. I want to be the Ms. Frizzle of

the future generations of teachers. In return, I hope my students are willing to think abstractly

and apply the 4c’s which are according to Davila (2016) “Communication, collaboration, critical

thinking and creativity.” This is the main focus for any subject I teach. I will come up with group

projects for them to communicate, collaborate, critically and creatively think. An example of

using the 4c’s in a project is first, having my students collaborate by getting into groups of two,

and pick a president to look up facts on. By having them look up facts about their president using

a computer will allow my students to critically think. My students could think creatively, by

finding pictures of their president, pictures associated with what they did during their presidency,

and put them on a posterboard. For the communication aspect they both will present the

information to the classroom. Using projects that incorporate the 4c’s in my classroom will

benefit my students for their future as active adults in society. My goal is to prepare them to be

successful in their endeavors.

Conclusion

Children are sponges that soak up everything around them, they think and internalize

their experiences and deduct the information. We cannot control their at home environments. We

have no control over how their parents/guardians decide to act or treat others around them. What
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we can control is the way we treat our students and how we act towards our peers and

supervisors. We are setting an example and our ethics are on display for our students to see. We

decide how we handle situations, how we speak when we get frustrated, or how we deal with

complicated emotions that could potentially affect our use of language. We are put on display to

be a beacon of a positive addition to society. How a fully functioning citizen should behave, how

they should treat others, and how they should speak to their peers. It is our job to be a role model

for the 21st century citizen. By our guidance we can help them thrive in their literacy

development, teaching our students how to read, comprehend and carry out the information by

the use of actions. Helping them process hard feelings and emotions, and showing them positive

means to heal. Coming up with the right words, words they recognize, and the application for

future circumstances. It is our duty to help make better humans anyway we know how, to bring

peace to our environments, and make these trips around the sun worthwhile.
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References

Sara Davila. (2016, July 27). 21st century skills and the english language classroom. ​Pearson.

Retrieved from ​https://www.english.com/blog/21st-century-skills/

Danielle McNamara. (2017, May 5). The power of words and the secrets of language. ​TEDxASU.

Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=37&v=bSdJYhID_AQ&feature=emb_lo

go