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.
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