A Resource for Supporting English Learners and ALL Learners

Concentrating on the Japanese conversation flying around me at the year-end meeting of our women’s volleyball club, I decided the other women were discussing two new players who had recently attended a couple of practices. They were clearly comparing two things--goichisan and yonisan. Since in Japanese, san is a suffix attached to a last name, like Mr/Ms in English, but at the other end of the word--Suzuki-san, Tanaka-san--it was plausible that the two women’s names were Goichi-san and Yoni-san. However, suddenly it dawned on me that san is also 3, and what my teammates were comparing was not the relative skills of 2 players, but the relative advantages of 2 different set-ups for our 9-person team: 5-1-3 (go-ichi-san) or 4-2-3 (yon-ni-san). I have first-hand experience of how a language learner can get completely thrown off track by one misinterpretation and be lost for the rest of the conversation. Or class.

I thought of this experience as I’ve been reading a book on teaching English learners. The book is Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP Model (5th edition) by Jana Echivarria, MaryEllen Vogt, and Deborah J. Short. I chose it because I’m moving into a new teaching situation where I’ll likely have even more English learners than I have in the past, and I wanted to find out how I could improve my support for their learning. So I asked my daughter, who has a certificate in ESL, and this was her recommendation. Having finished it, I second her recommendation. 

I had one big epiphany, 2 controversies addressed, and mostly just plentiful reinforcement that all I’ve been learning about good teaching in general is also good teaching for English learners. But it was reassuring to have that affirmation, and helpful to have such a complete list of good teaching strategies with accompanying resources. For example, as I thought about strategies related to providing a variety of supplemental material, it occurred to me that if my volleyball captain had just spread a handful of coins on the table to demonstrate the 2 different set-ups we were discussing, I would have cued in immediately. How can I be even more aware of providing cues like this? After all, a variety of inputs makes information “stickier” for all students.

The epiphany: The importance of clarity. Clarity especially with objectives, assignment directions, and review throughout the lesson. One specific emphasis of the SIOP model is having language objectives as well as content objectives for every lesson. I’ve been teaching this way more and more as I’ve shifted the focus of English language arts class from works of literature to the language skills necessary to understand, discuss, and write about any work of literature and its themes (I expanded on this in "Naming the Arts in English Language Arts"). Still, articulating a language objective brings an even clearer focus for both the students and me. So I tried it out for the poetry lesson plan I wrote for NCTE last week:

• Preparation: Students sit in table groups of 4. Have a copy of “Possibilities” for each student to mark up.
• Essential question: How does a poet use the tools of language to communicate meaning?
• Academic objectives:
• Identify how syntax (parallelism) and diction (simple/literal and complex/abstract) communicate meaning. 
• Make inferences.
• Language objectives: 
• Discuss observations about syntax, diction, and inferences.
• Use parallelism with simple/literal and complex/abstract words to draft a poem. 

Two discussions that seem to surface regularly about teaching English learners are whether students should be allowed to speak in their mother tongue and how/how often to correct English mistakes. Making Content Comprehensible provides authoritative answers.  Answer 1: Providing opportunity for students to use their first language when necessary to clarify understanding is a good thing. Answer 2: Unless an error interferes with understanding, rather than randomly correcting every English error, notice, group, and teach targeted lessons to the class or to small groups. 

“Students engaged approximately 90% to 100% of the period.” That is stunning feature #25 of 30, grouped into 8 components. It’s a long list of good teaching strategies! (See the end of this blog for the entire list.) The list intersects with and contexts all of the strategies I've been amassing over the last 15 years, including differentiation, culturally responsive teaching, and collaborative learning. It's great to have associated resources all in one place (for example, sentence stems for fostering discussion), to have the confidence that I already have many practices in place for helping English learners, and to have the protocol rubric for continuing to reflect on my practice and grow in helping all learners.

Here is a list of my additional observations as I’ve worked through that list:

1. Vocabulary: The work I’ve done with The Vocabulary Book: Learning and Instruction by Michael F. Graves has strengthened by vocabulary teaching.
2. Supplementary materials: I do try to use Google images and videos, acting for drama, and graphic organizers; I may need to work on this even more, including adapting content.
3. Meaningful activities: like writing poems based on models and giving writing audiences.
4. Language practice opportunities: The work I’ve done with Productive Group Work (Frey, Fisher, and Everlove) and Academic Conversations (Jeff Zwiers and Marie Crawford) has prepared me to do this.
5. Building background:  Cris Tovani's I Read It but I Don't Get It originally cued me in to the importance of this, and Robert Marzano's The New Art and Science of Teaching more recently reminded me.
6. Strategies: Book studies that have helped me include Better Learning (Frey and Fisher), How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms (Carol Ann Tomlinson), and Making Thinking Visible (Ron Ritchhart). Since I have gathered my ideas from so many sources, it is wonderful to have a fairly comprehensive list here in this chapter: a list of cognitive, metacognitive, and language learning strategies, 3 types of scaffolding (verbal, procedural, instructional); a list of teaching ideas for strategies (protocols for discussion, information processing, and notetaking); and discussion sentence stems (133-137).
7. Higher order thinking: I appreciated the research-based reassurance that as a teacher has respect and high expectations for ELL students, so will peers. One crucial strategy for accessing higher order thinking for ELLs is wait time between asking a question and getting an answer. I’ve been working on this for all students, and it’s even more critical for ELL students. 

The approach is backed by 30 years of research-based confirmation of its success with language learners, students with learning differences, as well as with native speakers. I will be keeping this book close in the next year, using the protocol for lesson reflections and the resources for strategy reminders.

What are your best strategies for teaching English language learners? 

(By the way, if you are wondering what in the world SIOP stands for, it appears to be like the letters IBM—originating as an acronym that has become less connected with the component words and more connected with the entity is stands for. In this case the acronym is Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol, but it has come to stand for this particular collection of 30 features of effective teaching, especially for ELLs but also for all students, not only in sheltered situations but also in mainstream and bilingual classrooms. It’s pronounced SIGH-op.)   

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SIOP Model

Lesson preparation

• 1) Content objectives clearly defined, displayed and reviewed with students
• 2) Language objectives clearly defined, displayed and reviewed with students
• 3) Content concepts appropriate for age and educational background level of students
• 4) Supplementary materials used to a high degree, making the lesson clear and meaningful (e.g., computer programs, graphs, models, visuals)
• 5) Adaptation of content (e.g., text, assignment) to all levels of student proficiency
• 6) Meaningful activities that integrate lesson concepts (e.g., interviews, letter writing, simulations, models) with language practice opportunities for reading, writing, listening, and/or speaking

Building background

• 7) Concepts explicitly linked to students’ background experiences
• 8) Links explicitly made between past learning and new concepts
• 9) Key vocabulary emphasized (e.g., introduced, written, repeated, and highlighted for students to see)

Comprehensible input

• 10) Speech appropriate for students’ proficiency levels (e.g., slower rate, enunciation, and simple sentence structure for beginners)
• 11) Clear explanation of academic tasks
• 12) A variety of techniques used to make content concepts clear (e.g., modeling, visuals, hands-on activities, demonstrations, gestures, body language)

Strategies

• 13) Ample opportunities provided for students to use learning strategies
• 14) Scaffolding techniques consistently used, assisting and supporting student understanding (e.g., think-alouds)
• 15) A variety of questions and tasks that promote higher-order thinking skills (e.g., literal, analytical, and interpretive questions)

Interaction

• 16) Frequent opportunities for interaction and discussion between teacher/student and among students, which encourage elaborated responses about lesson concepts
• 17) Grouping configurations support language and content objectives of the lesson
• 18) Sufficient wait time for student responses consistently provided
• 19) Ample opportunities for students to clarify key concepts in L1 as needed with aide, peer, or L1 text

Practice and application

• 20) Hands-on materials and/or manipulatives provided for students to practice using new content knowledge
• 21) Activities provided for students to apply content and language knowledge in the classroom
• 22) Activities integrate all language skills (i.e., reading, writing, listening, and speaking)

Lesson Delivery

• 23) Content objectives clearly supported by lesson delivery
• 24) Language objectives clearly supported by lesson delivery
• 25) Students engaged approximately 90% to 100% of the period
• 26) Pacing of the lesson appropriate to students’ ability levels

Review & Assessment

• 27) Comprehensive review of key vocabulary
• 28) Comprehensive review of key content concepts
• 29) Regular feedback provided to students on their output (e.g., language, content, work)
• 30) Assessment of student comprehension and learning of all lesson objectives (e.g., spot checking, group response) throughout the lesson