Teaching Diverse Learners
http://www.alliance.brown.edu/tdl/

Sheltered English Instruction

Since the early 1980's content-area teachers have looked to sheltered English instruction as a way to make content comprehensible for the English language learners (ELLs) in their classrooms. In the days when the term was first used in connection with ELLs, students were considered "sheltered" because they studied in classes separate from "the mainstream" and did not compete academically with native English speaking students (Freeman & Freeman, 1988). Today, the majority of ELLs study alongside their English-speaking peers, are held accountable to the same curriculum standards, and take the same high-stakes tests. Sheltered English instruction has come to mean a set of practices valuable to all teachers in helping ELLs learn English and, at the same time, learn content material in English. Questions frequently raised about sheltered English instruction are answered below.

  1. What is sheltered English instruction?
  2. Where is sheltered instruction used and by whom?
  3. Who is qualified to teach sheltered English instruction?
  4. Is sheltered English instruction effective?
  5. How does sheltered English instruction intersect with school initiatives, curricular programs, and professional development plans?
  6. What are the components of sheltered English instruction?
1. What is sheltered English instruction?

Sheltered English instruction is an instructional approach that engages ELLs above the beginner level in developing grade-level content-area knowledge, academic skills, and increased English proficiency. In sheltered English classes, teachers use clear, direct, simple English and a wide range of scaffolding strategies to communicate meaningful input in the content area to students. Learning activities that connect new content to students' prior knowledge, that require collaboration among students, and that spiral through curriculum material, offer ELLs the grade-level content instruction of their English-speaking peers, while adapting lesson delivery to suit their English proficiency level.

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2. Where is sheltered instruction used and by whom?

Sheltered English instruction is used in English as a second language (ESL) programs with sheltered content courses (e.g., sheltered chemistry, sheltered U. S. history), newcomer programs, transitional bilingual education, developmental bilingual education, dual-language programs, and two-way immersion programs. Sheltered instruction appears in classes that consist of only English language learners and in classes of both ELLs and native English speaking students. The sheltered approach is also used in many foreign language classes in the United States.

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3. Who is qualified to teach sheltered English instruction?

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 calls upon states to place a well-prepared teacher in every classroom. According to NCLB, "a prepared teacher knows what to teach, how to teach and has command of the subject matter being taught." To address the how-to-teach factor, many states have incorporated professional development in sheltered English instruction into their plans to meet the educational needs of English language learners. Each state's department of education should be consulted for information on the licenses, skills, knowledge, and professional development required for the qualification to teach in sheltered classrooms.

Content-area teachers can acquire the skills necessary for sheltered English instruction and may already practice many of the instructional strategies involved. Essential to sheltered instruction are teacher willingness and capacity to learn about and incorporate the prior knowledge of ELLs into instruction, to understand second language acquisition and address the linguistic needs of ELLs, to deliver comprehensible yet rigorous input, and to use spiraling and scaffolding techniques whereby every piece of information learned and every skill acquired provides the next-level substructure for building higher-order knowledge. To the extent possible, teachers also need to learn about students' culture and community and how these contexts affect students' ways of learning.

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4. Is sheltered instruction effective?

The success of sheltered English instruction depends largely on two integrated factors. First, the teacher must provide modified instruction in English without oversimplifying the content. All students, including ELLs, are held to the same high expectations of achievement and must demonstrate that they meet content standards. Second, to avoid fossilization of language skills at the conversation level, the teacher must engage the student in a constant, concerted effort to develop and enhance academic language. In other words, teachers must first simplify their discourse to make class content comprehensible and then gradually make their language more complex, without sacrificing the quality of instruction or depth of comprehension in the process.

Research conducted in 1997-98 and again in 1998-99 showed that English language learners in classes with teachers who had been trained in sheltered instruction under the SIOP model outperformed similar students in control classes. (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2004).

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5. How does sheltered English instruction intersect with
school initiatives, curricular programs, and professional
development plans?

Sheltered instruction is an approach to teaching English language learners. While not a program in itself, sheltered instruction extends the time in which students participate in instruction that explicitly provides language support as well as standards-based content instruction. Sheltered instruction also teaches ELLs how to perform academic tasks, such as writing outlines and making presentations. This focus on building knowledge of academic language, content, and performance helps prepare English language learners for non-sheltered classes, in which they will be expected to achieve to high academic standards alongside their English-speaking peers, a goal of NCLB.

The SIOP Observation Protocol provides teachers with a model of sheltered instruction designed to enhance teachers' practice. The SIOP may be used to enhance other initiatives supporting ELLs or all students. It has become the basis of professional development efforts for teachers of ELLs across the United States. To prepare ELLs fully for academic success, sheltered instruction must be part of a broad school- or district-wide initiative that takes into account many elements of good teaching practice, including culturally responsive teaching; multicultural, theme-based curriculum; effective classroom management; appropriate grading; and meaningful, collaborative involvement of parents.

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6. What are the components of sheltered English instruction?

While teachers of ELLs have used sheltered English instruction for many years, a consistent understanding of the components of sheltered instruction has emerged only within the past five years. In 1999 the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) was developed following intensive observation of sheltered English teaching across the United States (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2004). The SIOP identifies 30 important elements of sheltered instruction under eight broad categories:

  1. Preparation
  2. Building Background
  3. Comprehensible Input
  4. Strategies
  5. Interaction
  6. Practice/Application
  7. Lesson Delivery
  8. Review and Assessment

Critical to effective sheltered instruction is the preparation of learning objectives for every lesson. These include content objectives, aligned with state and local content-area standards, and language objectives, aligned with state language proficiency benchmarks or language arts standards, or the national TESOL standards. Teachers communicate content and language objectives to students, design activities to achieve objectives throughout the lesson, and assess progress toward objectives by the end of the lesson. In this way learning, teaching and assessment are integrated into an ongoing process that provides feedback to students and informs future instruction.

Within each sheltered lesson the teacher seeks to ensure that students have sufficient background knowledge to tackle new curriculum material. Teachers modify their speech and, when necessary and feasible, content text so that English language learners can grasp important content concepts, facts, and questions. Teachers explicitly teach learning strategies – from teacher-centered to peer-supported to student centered – so that students develop a toolkit for accomplishing difficult learning tasks. Teachers also provide ample opportunities for students to interact in the target language around purposeful tasks that are meaningful to them.

Ever mindful of the lesson's framing objectives, sheltering teachers are careful to integrate listening, speaking, reading and writing skills into each lesson. They provide opportunities for students to apply their new knowledge through tasks that involve concepts and skills students have learned. Sheltering teachers work to engage all students at least 95% of the time in instructional activity, at the same time paying attention to pacing, so that no student is left behind.

The following elements are components of sheltered English instruction, as described in the SIOP model:

a. Preparation

WHAT

Content and language objectives, aligned to state and local standards, frame each lesson. Teachers incorporate supplemental materials to assist ELLs in the lesson.

WHY

Sheltered lessons help students make connections between new knowledge and prior experience. Teachers plan meaningful, relevant learning activities to enable those connections.

HOW

  • Consult state and district content standards and state or national language benchmarks.
  • Develop thematic units to lead to essential understandings.
  • Develop content and language objectives, aligned with standards and unit goals, for each day's lesson for content and language.

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b. Building Background

WHAT

Sheltered lessons link new content to students' background experience and prior learning. Special activities build vocabulary related to specific content as well as to general academic language.

WHY

Highly proficient readers activate their schema as they read and listen. Schema is background knowledge of the world that provides a framework for understanding and acquiring new ideas and information.

HOW

  • Through direct questioning, conversation, and shared activities learn about student background.
  • Emphasize key content vocabulary.
  • Help students make explicit connections to personalize new word learning.

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c. Comprehensible Input

WHAT

Sheltered lessons present content information in ways that ELLs can comprehend.  Linguistic input – both teacher speech and text – is adjusted to maximize student comprehension, without lessening content or expectations for achievement.

WHY

ELLs are called upon to process, manipulate, and display large amounts of new material at a rapid pace in a foreign language.  Visual aides, allowances for processing time, and opportunities for clarification provide support in this intense, demanding process.

HOW

  • Speak clearly and slowly.
  • Employ pauses, short sentences, simple syntax, few pronouns and idioms.
  • Use redundancy and discourse markers, keywords, outlines.
  • Provide examples and descriptions, not definitions.
  • Use visuals, hands-on resources, gestures and graphic organizers.
  • Provide content texts at multiple language proficiency levels.

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d. Strategies

WHAT

Strategies have been described as "special thoughts or behaviors that individuals use to help them comprehend, learn or retain new information." (Chamot & O'Malley, 1994). Teachers model and scaffold strategies, working toward independent competence. Teachers also push students beyond content knowledge to higher order skills including critical analysis and inquiry.

WHY

Teaching explicit learning strategies improves reading and learning and helps ELLs acquire the tools they need to approach learning tasks and solve problems with assistance, as part of a team or independently.

HOW

Through careful modeling and scaffolding, teach a range of metacognitive, cognitive, and affective strategies, one at a time. Allow time for repeated practice so that students acquire procedural knowledge of one strategy before introducing another.

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e. Interaction

WHAT

Sheltered lessons provide frequent opportunities for students to interact with different groups of peers and others.

WHY

To acquire language fluency, students need opportunities to produce real, purposeful language and to direct the course of conversations and arguments.

HOW

  • Facilitate frequent pair and small-group activities centered around meaningful tasks.
  • Model and assign tasks requiring turn-taking, questioning, supporting/disagreeing, clarification.
  • Model and discuss ways of communicating respect.

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f. Practice/Application

WHAT

English language learners have opportunities in the classroom to practice and apply the language skills and content knowledge they have acquired.

WHY

Trying out new knowledge and practicing new skills in a safe environment, supported by teacher and peer feedback, leads to mastery. Initially, students can reflect on and adjust their performance initially with assistance and ultimately independently.

HOW

  • Provide hands-on materials for students to use in practicing new content knowledge.
  • Provide opportunities for students to apply new knowledge and use language skills in the classroom.
  • Create activities that call upon students to integrate listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

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g. Lesson Delivery

WHAT

Throughout the lesson, learning activities support and reinforce the content and language objectives established at the beginning of the lesson. Students are actively engaged in the lesson activities. The lesson's pace is appropriate to the students' language ability levels.

WHY

Effective lesson delivery maximizes students' understanding, which increases student participation and enhances the quality of student work.

HOW

  • Refer to and reinforce content and language objectives explicitly throughout the lesson.
  • Engage students in meaningful activity 90-100% of the lesson.
  • Keep the pace of the lesson challenging, but do-able, for all students. Be mindful that students' comfort level varies in terms of pace; use appropriate pacing strategies.

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h. Review and Assessment

WHAT

Teachers of English language learners observe student performance systematically with regard to criteria established in the preparation phase. Both content-based products and language-related processes are taken into account.

WHY

Traditional whole-class methods of assessment may provide no way to showcase ELLs' development. Assessment should be a continuous and interactive process between teacher and student.

HOW

In lieu of or in conjunction with discrete point and objective-style tests, assess through:

  • Conferences
  • Take-home reflections
  • Oral retell
  • Learning logs
  • Graphic organizers
  • Content inventory
  • Cloze exercises
  • Dictations

Use with a scoring guide or performance rubrics, aligned with learning objectives to collect evidence of content learning.

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References:

[return]   Chamot, A. U., & O'Malley, J. M. (1994). The CALLA handbook: Implementing the cognitive academic language learning approach. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

[return]   Echevarria, J., Vogt, M., & Short, D.J. (2004). Making content comprehensible for English learners: The SIOP model (2nd ed.). Boston: Pearson.

[return]   Freeman, D., & Freeman, Y. (1988). Sheltered English instruction (ERIC Digest ED301070). Retrieved January 2005 from http://thememoryhole.org/edu/eric/ed301070.html

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