Thomas and Collier claim the student experiences sociocultural processes while learning a second language. The student is likely enduring dramatic changes at home, school and the social community. These changes may impair self-esteem or cause anxiety or other psychological problems that thwart the student's success in school and assimilation with peers. Also, prejudice and discrimination can have a detrimental effect on his scholastic achievement. English-language teachers should be aware of these factors when teaching students and consider their students' personal and psychological needs.
Language development is another component of the Prism Model. Language development includes both conscious and subconscious aspects of language development. Conscious aspects include formal teaching of language, while unconscious aspects include innate abilities to acquire oral language. Both conscious and unconscious processes are expedited if the student has developed a cognitive level at least through the elementary school years in his first language. Therefore, a young or undeveloped student needs to continue language instruction in his first language to succeed to acquire a second. He should have a strong grasp on the pronunciation system, vocabulary, syntax and semantics of his original language. The student should not neglect his original language, but develop it concurrently with the acquisition of English.
Academic development encompasses all of the student's academic training across subjects including math, science, social studies and other language arts instruction. These subjects expand vocabulary and sociolinguistic levels, helping the student to transfer academic knowledge from the first language to the second. However, a student learns more efficiently if he develops in these subjects in his first language. Importantly, the Prism Model contradicts the immersion technique, by which a student is taught subjects entirely in the language to be acquired. Thomas and Collier maintain that a student's academic development should not be postponed or interrupted while he learns English, as this will result in academic problems in the future.
The final component is cognitive development. Thomas and Collier maintain that this component has traditionally been neglected by English-as-a-second-language instructors. Cognitive development is true proficiency with language and the cognitive tasks that language requires, rather than a mastery of over-simplified, sequenced language tasks. Thomas and Collier argue that language curricula and textbooks are often reduced to cognitively simple tasks, which are easy to master but fail to meaningfully instruct. To develop deep, substantive proficiency in a second language, students have to be challenged to develop cognitively.