Jim Cummins (professor)

In 1979 Cummins codified a couple of terms to help teachers qualify student's language ability. The acronyms are ===BICS=== (Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills) BICS refers to the basic communicative fluency achieved by all normal native speakers of a language. It is cognitively undemanding and contentextual and is better understood as the language used by students in informal settings, say, on a playground or cafe.

===CALP=== (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) CALP refers to the ability to manipulate language using abstractions in a sophisticated manner. CALP is used while performing in an academic setting.

Bilingual educational environments, Cummins tells us, should be mindful of a student's apparent ability to interact at a high cognitive level on the 'street' does not necessarily match their cognitive or communications ability in the 'class'.

It is tempting for teachers and administrators to move students with a high BICS level into a 'mainstream' class because they 'sound' like the other kids on the playground.

Cummins insists that a more thorough assessment of the students' academic language abilities be performed before moving the student out of a 'sheltered' language development environment.