benefits of sheltered english instruction

Though students describe different topics and phenomena in different classes, the structure of a descriptive text remains unchanged.

While a history class might describe the causes and effects of the Black Plague, a science class might describe the environmental implications of the meat industry. The text structures that are used across the disciplines are: One way to teach academic language is to teach text structures.

Instead, Ben would say, “The graph goes down” or “The lines go up”. Without this deliberate instruction, ELs revert to social language when talking about academic topics.Īnd how would they? How would Ben (a 7th grader) know to describe his science experiment about the neutralizing capabilities of toothpaste using the words decrease or increase? He wouldn’t. In order for ELs to develop the language used in each discipline, content teachers can offer language mini-lessons that model how science language or history language is used. It’s in history classes that students learn to talk about the reliability and bias of a resource. It’s in science classes that students learn to communicate like scientists by talking about data, forming hypotheses, and validating of an experiment. Foster Language DevelopmentĬontent classes can be the context for ELs to develop academic language (Cloud, Genesee, & Hamayan, 2009 Goldenberg & Coleman, 2010). In under-resourced schools, there simply aren’t enough English language teachers to help, so the content teachers can call on these strategies when teaching content. Developing comprehensible input is the core of sheltered instruction because content teachers want to help ELs access content. You do not need to be a language acquisition teacher to use these strategies these strategies help all learners access content. Graphic scaffolds: offering graphs, tables, and infographics to learn content.

Interactive scaffolds: allowing students to learn through social interactions.

Sensory scaffolds: incorporating images and models to teach content.

Strategies that scaffold instruction can include : Without strategies that develop comprehensible input, ELs won’t be able to access the content. Develop Comprehensible InputĪs content teachers are planning instruction, they employ various strategies that help ELs understand both the instructions and the content. With sheltered instruction, content serves as an avenue to language proficiency. Pulling ELs out of content classes actually deprives them from being held to the same expectations as non-ELs. ELs are not pulled out of content classes to be given extra English lessons. Instead, sheltered instruction dictates that ELs learn the same content and be held to the same expectations as non-ELs. They are not dumbing down the rigor or limiting ELs’ access to the content. In sheltered instruction, the content teacher is still the one designing the lessons using grade-level standards. In essence, the philosophy behind sheltered instruction is that content is both essential to learn and perfect as a meaningful purpose to use academic language.

use strategies to help students understand content (comprehensible input).

design instruction derived from grade-level curricula and.

In Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP Model (5th Edition) (SIOP Series), Echevarria, Vogt, and Short recommend that teachers It empowers English learners (ELs) to access content while developing language skills (Freeman and Freeman, 1988). Sheltered instruction wrangles these two competing priorities into one powerful force.

Likewise, language morphs from being social to academic when used to talk about content. In truth, access to content cannot exist without effective literacy skills. Likewise, English language teachers often prioritize learning a language over access to content.

Yet most teachers are still teachers of topics. Many teachers have heard the aspiration that all teachers are teachers of language.

Benefits of sheltered english instruction