Week 4: Content-based Instruction

Two discussions were covered this week:

I designed a sample SIOP Lesson Plan for a lesson about volcanoes using the example of the Mount St. Helens eruption.
After reading a couple of articles about curriculum design and adaptation, I reflected on how I can adapt my standard English curriculum for my ELL students.

Responses made from March 28-30, 2024.

Discussion 1: SIOP Volcano Lesson

Response to Melinda Oakes:

When looking at the lesson plan you submitted, I do like several things about it. First, I do like how you extended a discussion that would likely be in a Geography class to include standards from ELA and general cultural standards. Additionally, I do like how you have a clear calendar with activities listed that you will do for each part of the Mt. Saint Helens discussion. The one thing I am concerned with is that there are some things about the lesson plan that don't line up with the assignment description. In the description, it brings up our 8 students in the class, which consist of 1 student from the Philippines, 1 student from Vietnam, two students from Russia, three students from Mexico, and one student from Puerto Rico. I don't know how closely our professor will stick to that part of the lesson description, but just in case, that would probably be the only thing that I would revise.

Response to Julia Isbell:

I like the idea of having students use a T-chart to map the pros and cons of Volcanoes. I imagine before even thinking too deeply on the subject students would have some basic reasons why Volcanoes are bad. However, diving into how volcanic soil can be beneficial to plant life among other topics would lead to what I imagine would be quite an enlightening discussion we can carry into a general discussion about Volcanoes as a whole.

Discussion 2: Reading Reflection

My Response

When reading the article from Enchevarria and Graves, I definitely felt that I can adjust my approach in vocabulary instruction. I won't lie, when it has come to introducing to students new vocabulary, I have primarily focused on two approaches: either giving them a list of 10-15 terms to study over the week or encouraging the use of context clue strategies to help students unpack the meaning of a word by themselves. While my intermediate and advanced students tend to do a good job with these, my students who are lower in regards to English skills have struggled a bit in these. The thing is, while giving students shorter lists or having students illustrate these vocabulary terms are good strategies that I will likely incorporate to some degree, I also like the idea of teaching students these vocabulary words using their own language. So here's my thought: in all of my classes, I have a student (or a number of students) who speak Tagalog outside of school and are very knowledgeable in academic English. Perhaps what I could do is volunteer these students to teach what these words mean in Tagalog in small groups? I know the downside to this is that it might put my more advanced ELL students in a bit of pressure (and there is the possibility where they might not be all that certain of the meaning of a vocabulary word), but in theory this could allow my ELL students who are less proficient in English to take the time to understand the vocabulary in the language that they are most proficient in. Additionally, to assess whether this approach worked - both in the fact that the higher-level students were effectively able to describe what the vocabulary is in their Tagalog and in the fact that my lower-level students understand what these words mean - I could couple this with an activity that can help me see their understanding of the vocabulary: such as writing sentences in English using these vocabulary words or drawing a picture for each of these words. In that way my lower-level students can be more successful in class while my upper-level students can have the opportunity to reinforce their knowledge of their heritage languages.

References

Echevarria, J., & Graves, A. (2003). Curriculum Adaptations. In Sheltered content instruction: Teaching English-language learners with diverse abilities (2nd ed., pp. 224-247). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

Response to Melinda Oakes:

You know, as I was working on my SIOP lesson plan, it made me consider consulting our ELL teacher to discuss whether she uses SIOP in her lesson plans for students and how successful they have been in the past. Heck, maybe I could consult her experience while I am working n my SIOP plans for our final project in a couple of weeks!

(On a side note: Our ELL teacher also happens to be our Spanish teacher, which as we saw in the Echevarria and Graves reading could be a successful approach to ELL teaching if our students were primarily Spanish-speakers. However, I doubt she uses this with our current intensive ELL students, who all but one speak Tagalog.)

Response to Julia Isbell:

I am totally with you on the need to simplify instructions for students. Sometimes I've noticed that it takes me a few minutes to break down my instructions because a few students don't initially understand what I am asking them to do. By providing more simplified instructions earlier on, I definitely can see how that might shave off unnecessary class time re-explaining directions to students in a way that is more comprehensible to them. It also will lead to less frustration for everyone involved.

Week 5