Week 5 Response 2: Sheltered Instruction

ELL* students are often predetermined to be less capable of academic success on the micro (classroom-based) and macro (standardized tests) level (2).  Obviously, these assumptions and generalizations are going to impact the way we, as teachers, treat them as students and language learners.  In addition, things that we take for granted in the American school system--such as sitting in desks, raising our hands, taking standardized tests--are culturally determined (4).  Our students, coming from distinct countries and backgrounds, may not be accustomed to these practices.  Adjusting to these characteristics of the American school is another factor that will influence the student's amount of learning, compounded with their language learning goals.  This topic is further developed later in the article, which mentions "the explicit socialization of students to the often implicit cultural expectations of the classroom" (8).  Clearly there is more than just learning grammar or vocabulary that takes place in the ESL context.

I prefer this term over Poole's choice of LEP.  Labeling students as "Low English Proficiency" learners only focuses on what the student lacks as opposed to the various other skills they bring to the table, linguistic or otherwise.

Consider also this statement from Poole's article: "Research has shown that it may take students from 4 to 10 years of study, depending on the background factors described earlier, before they are proficient in academic English" (5).  The first thing I thought of was my own L2 experience and how depressed I would have been to hear the amount of time it might take for me to meet proficiency levels required by certain schools.  My next thought was about the amount of variability in that piece of data.  There's a big difference between 4 years and 10 years of language learning.  This just reiterates the learner diversity that we will encounter in the ESL classroom.  Can we ever appeal to all students at the same time?  Of course not, and we'd be fools to think such a goal could ever be reached.  We can, however, vary the way we present and evaluate material so that we at least attempt to satisfy the multiple and diverse needs of our students.  Similarly, the amount of time needed to reach proficiency can also be attributed to teacher instruction.  Learner preferences and instructional practices go hand in hand, ultimately working collectively to assist the student or competing against one another to the detriment of the learner.

As a result, many have advocated the use of SIOP when planning instruction.  After reading exactly what this was, I wasn't all that impressed.  The entire things seems like standard lesson planning to me, at least from what I experienced during my pre-teacher coursework here at ISU.  Furthermore, the SI model is based on the assumption that language learning increases through meaningful interaction (11).  It seems that this approach shares the main tenets of CLT, but there are important differences.  Unlike CLT, the SI model attempts to maximize language learning opportunities through instruction in the "core" subjects--math, science, language arts, and social studies.  CLT does not place this emphasis on these subjects but instead focuses entirely on the acquisition of the language through "real world" activities.  The role of the teacher in these two approaches is also distinct.  It seems to me that the SI model gives the teacher a far more dominant role in the classroom than does CLT, based on its reliance of visual aids, demonstrations, and "native language support" (11).