A blended approach is necessary to reach each student at the level they are currently at. This multifaceted approach allows us to reach each student’s varying language needs as well as to develop their speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills simultaneously. With the composition and class size it is important to vary the activities to maintain interest, which is what we have strived to do with our SIOP lesson delivery. We have chosen a principled eclecticism view as it is focused on creating “a desirable, coherent, pluralistic approach to language teaching” (Mellow, 2002, para 1).The following approaches will be utilized to teach our past tense grammar lesson.
Not only does our combined teaching experience tell us that a blend of approaches reaches more learners and helps learning sink in more deeply, research also supports the use of a variety of approaches. Skehan (1989) has found evidence that “different types of instruction may be effective with different types of learners” (cited in Othman, 200, “Enhancing the Abilities of L2 Learners,” para. 4). This view is also supported by Liu and Shi (2007) and Ellis (2006) in that they each conclude that as no one method as been found, it is most effective to use a combination of methods for teaching grammar. Kaufman (2004) notes that "[l]earners benefit from multiplicity of approaches and learning experiences as they extract salient information in acquiring new knowledge" (p. 305). A blended approach is the most rational approach as each method we are combining has its own strengths and our learners have a variety of needs and learning styles. Thus, they need different approaches to meet these needs and styles. We have nestled these approaches into a lesson using the SIOP approach to lesson planning. See the various approaches below.
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Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) has been proven through a number of research studies to be highly beneficial way of lesson delivery to reach ELL learners. As our class is composed of all ELL learners we saw this approach as the most advantageous to meet all of our students needs alongside implementing a blended instructional approach. As stated earlier, our class has various levels of English proficiency and the SIOP lesson delivery approach allows for necessary adaptations to be made for our learners. SIOP has 30 features, which are categorized into 8 components. Each component brings a value to the students learning and aids in their success. Below we will look at each of the 8 components and why we believe these are necessary for our grammar lessons on irregular past-tense verbs and their use.
Background Knowledge - During our lesson we encourage background knowledge right from the beginning. This allows us to “to learn what students already know, identify misinformation, or discover when it’s necessary to fill in gaps” (Kareva & Echevarria, 2013, p. 241). We not only do this to learn where the students are at, but also to have them immersed and engaged in the lesson. In our lesson we do this through the following:
Comprehensible Input - We understand our “L2 learners cannot learn as if they were majority language speakers and they require instruction which includes a variety of SIOP techniques so students comprehend the lesson’s key concepts” (Kareva & Echevarria, 2013, p. 241). Throughout the span of our four-day lessons, our SIOP lesson delivery allows time for review at the beginning and end of each lesson. This allows for an appropriate amount of repetition of what is being learned by our students. We have also made necessary adaptations to ensure the input is comprehensible even for our beginner learners by providing visuals, hands on activities, adapted activities/instruction and differentiated groups. Strategies - We have chosen to take an explicit grammar instruction approach with scaffolding instruction. We have chosen this approach as “some students aren’t familiar with learning strategies and benefit from receiving explicit instruction in how to use learning strategies flexibly and in combination” (Kareva & Echevarria, 2013, p. 241). We are working on developing the students Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) through explicit teaching of tenses. Our goal is to have our learners “master the skill and remove the supports that were provided and add new ones for the next level. We want teach our lessons to allow for gradual release of responsibility so that second language learners can work independently by achieving independence one step at a time” (Kareva & Echevarria, 2013, p. 242). Interaction - Interaction is vital to students learning. Providing multiple interactions is a must. We have allotted time for this in each of out four-day lessons of teaching tenses. Interaction is valuable with the teacher, but also with peers. We see the that “in SIOP classes, oral language practice helps students to develop and deepen content knowledge and support their second language speaking, reading and writing skills” (Kareva & Echevarria, 2013, p. 240). Interactive activities in our lessons:
Lastly as there are multiple levels of English language proficiency in our class we have ensured differentiation in our groups when students are interacting. SIOP encourages “a mixture in groups in second language learners and more-proficient second language learners (or majority language speakers) and involve carefully structured tasks to produce effects on language-learning outcomes (Saunders & Goldenberg, 2010)” (Kareva & Echevarria, 2013, p. 242). Practice and Application - Our SIOP lesson presentation has allowed us to give time to incorporate various activities the practice both the content and language objectives, which are presented to students at beginning of each lesson. We have ensured that we provide all areas of language processing such as reading, writing, listening and speaking, as “for second language learners to learn the language, it is imperative that they practice and apply content information as well as literacy and language processes” (Kareva & Echevarria, 2013, p. 242). We strive to provide multiple opportunities to have students practice the tenses for successful retention and understanding. Lesson Delivery - SIOP lessons clearly have content and language objectives made visible to the students. This gives students awareness of their learning along with understanding what they are learning, “content and language objectives that are clearly defined and orally reviewed with students. These objectives are linked to subject area material and the academic vocabulary and language that students need for success” (Kareva & Echevarria, 2013, p. 240). We have developed these objectives as we understand it “is particularly important since second language learners need much richer and more extensive teaching procedures than majority speakers (August, Carlo, Dressler, & Snow, 2005; Blachowicz, Fisher, Ogle, & Watts-Taffe, 2006)” (Kareva & Echevarria, 2013, p. 242). Review and Assessment - Review and assessment is crucial throughout lessons to check for understanding of the lesson with students. We do this by providing frequent activities to reinforce and informally see if students understand our lesson objectives. It allows us to see if more or less time should be spent on the lesson depending on students understanding. We also have interactive class work where we can “provide feedback on correct and incorrect responses, a practice shown to benefit second language learners (August & Shanahan, 2008)” (Kareva & Echevarria, 2013, p. 242). At the end of our lesson we have a formal assessment where students are to write a narrative with no more than a couple of errors. This will allow us to see if the grammar lesson has been successful through our blended approach. Where it’s used in the lesson: In the opening warm-up when students are asked about what they did on their weekend and the class discusses the topic. As well, during the practise/application when students use their words in sentences while working in a small group. It is also used when students contribute their ideas to the shared narrative and again when students share their narratives with the teacher and peers.
Why: The communicative approach emphasizes fluency and aims to foster communicative competence (Chang 2011). We feel that this is of utmost importance when learning a target language. Particularly when it is the language used in the country one lives in. Benefits:
Where it’s used in the lesson: In the presentation of content it is used to teach the form and vocabulary of regular and irregular verbs. It is also used in the practise/application activities when students look up the words to match the verb pictures.
Why: When presenting content on regular and irregular past-tense verbs, we use a combination of explicit and implicit teaching. We teach explicitly with the grammar-translation method to bring attention to language and develop their language awareness. We also wished to allow students to use their first language to support them with understanding the verbs we were discussing to ensure no confusion on what the word might mean. Benefits:
Where it’s used in the lesson: In the opening warm up when we list the verbs used in the
students’ conversation into two columns and again during the presentation of content when we prompt students to look for patterns and summarize what they notice. Why: We feel that this method will keep students more engaged as they inductively construct the patterns with scaffolding. Benefits:
Where it’s used in the lesson: Students glue their action pictures onto a blank bingo card and play the game of bingo in groups. Students are then given the task to write their own narrative
Why: “A task is an activity which learners carry out using their available language resources and leading to a real outcome” (Richards and Renandya, 2002, p. 94). We believe providing task based activities is essential for learners to develop “processes such as negotiation of meaning, paraphrase and experimentation, which are thought to lead to successful language development” (Richards and Renandya, 2002, p. 94). Benefits:
Where it’s used in the lesson: When students play bingo, they repeat the verb that is called out.
Why: In certain situations students must be given the opportunity to practice what they have learned through repetition, which is also termed “drills”. As we believe repetition is important to develop correct pronunciation and memory of new words, we have incorporated the audio-lingual method into our lesson. We snuck it into a game to make it less boring. Benefits:
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