Language Acquisition

This week the Language Acquisition post will look at Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP).
BICS is the ability to function in everyday situations and CALP is the ability to use academic language. Research shows that children immersed in English can develop BICS in 2 years whereas CALP takes between 5 and 7 years. Non-native speakers who have attained a high degree of fluency and accuracy in everyday spoken English do not, in most cases, have the corresponding academic language proficiency.