SIOP 8 Components and 30 Features

With many ELL students in in classrooms this article was both helpful and incredibly informational. It reinforces, more than ever, the importance of group work, the fact that it is not only the English teachers goal to teach English, and give numerous amounts of tools to help ELL students grasp the language and learn not only the subject they are studying, but the skills to become a better speaker/writer of English. I found the group configuration section very useful. It showed how a variety of group styles can positively affect the classroom, environment, the students, and ELL students. It helps model good English for students, as well as, positively effects all students’ abilities. ELL students benefit from group work in multiple ways including, building their speaking skills in the English language, helping them make points and clarify ideas, and most of all practice the English language. There are many great teacher strategies for full class instruction in the article as well. Sometimes we forget that ELL students may need words repeated, read to them/explained to them, or simply require additional wait time to build their own comprehension. Wait time can be difficult and I hadn’t really thought of allowing students to use think-pair-share before replying to the prompted questions. This helps ELL students formulate their point with a peer first and allows for them to work through language and answer the question to the whole class. This is one of the few strategies that can be implemented to help ELL students. Previously, I have just given my ELL students shorter sections for in class reading, or asked them to be the speaker of their group, but after reading the SIOP I have found a wealth of additional tools I can use to help my four ELL students become a bigger part of the classroom, become better English speakers, and feel comfortable as students of language arts and language development.