they leave feeling confused and dis-couraged. What is needed to bridgethis gap between teachers and ELs is aframework that fully supports contentinstruction, while utilizing provenmethods of language teaching thatincorporate reading, writing, speaking,and listening. Such a framework existsin the Sheltered InstructionObservation Protocol (SIOP) model.Years of research have proven that stu-dents in classrooms implementing theSIOP model understand what is beingtaught and have experienced successin learning grade-level content while

developing their ability inEnglish language skills.

Sheltered Instruction (SI) isnot a newly developed instruc-tional technique. In fact, SI hasbeen around for more than 20years, but never had the researchbackground to support claims ofreliability and validity. It was notuntil 1993 that the Center forResearch on Education, Diversity& Excellence (CREDE), whichwas a national research centerfunded by the U.S. Departmentof Education’s (U.S. ED’s) Officeof Educational Research andImprovement (since replaced bythe Institute of EducationSciences [IES]), conducted a 7-year research project to studythe impact of SI on ELs. As aresult of this study, the SIOPmodel was developed. The modelwas initially designed as aresearch observation instrumentcalled a protocol, created by

Echevarria, Vogt, and Short in 2000,to determine if teachers were includ-ing effective sheltered instruction intheir lessons. Sheltered instructionmeans that the students receive helpin developing academic English whilethey are learning grade-level contentmaterial. Students are provided extrasupport by including instructionaltechniques that make learning com-

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T eaching English learners(ELs) is not an easy task forregular classroom teacherswho have not received train-ing in how to instruct ELs.

In fact, teaching ELs has become sucha highly specialized field, there areprofessionals who devote their wholecareers to researching and perfectingstrategies for EL instruction. In addi-tion, ELs also face a formidable taskwhen they attend mainstream class-rooms where English is the medium ofinstruction. Although there are pro-grams that assist these students, it is

not enough to simply pull ELs out ofclasses for English as a second lan-guage (ESL) instruction for an hourout of the whole school day. Regularclassroom teachers need to be able toteach content effectively, while at thesame time supporting full languagedevelopment of ELs. In some class-rooms, ELs comprehend fully what isbeing taught, while in other classes

prehensible to students.Although the model began as an

observational tool called the SIOP,through the work of Echevarria, Vogt,and Short collaborating with middleschool teachers, it evolved into aframework that includes eight majorcomponents and 30 features that guidelesson plan development and instruc-tional delivery. The eight componentsare:

• Preparation.• Building background.• Comprehensible input.• Strategies.• Interaction.• Practice and application.• Lesson delivery.• Review and assessment.

Let us take a closer look at eachcomponent and its implications forteaching.1. Preparation: Teachers state the

content objectives that are takenfrom the state or national stan-dards. They plan meaningful activ-ities to meet the objectives. Inaddition, they select languageobjectives for each lesson that aredrawn from language arts stan-dards or ESL standards. Theselected standards for the contentand language arts are posted soboth the students and teachers areclear on the focus of the lessonwith the ultimate goal of the stu-dents mastering the content whilegrowing in academic English.

2. Building Background: Teachersconnect the students’ backgroundand past experiences with the newlearning. They help students com-prehend by teaching the vocabu-lary that is key to understandingof the material. They explicitlyteach the content vocabulary inareas such as ecosystems, coastalnations, and exploitation. In addi-

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tion, emphasis is placed on teach-ing the students the academicvocabulary that is so essential tounderstanding the content.Examples of academic vocabularyinclude such words and phrases as“calculate,” “predict,” “in compar-ison,” and “as a result.” Accordingto Saville-Troike, “Vocabularydevelopment is critical for Englishlearners because we know thatthere is a strong relationshipbetween vocabulary knowledge inEnglish and academic achieve-ment” (as quoted in Echevarria,Vogt, and Short’s 2004 bookMaking Content Comprehensiblefor English Learners: The SIOPModel [2nd Ed.], p. 49). Throughthe SIOP model, teachers utilizetechniques to provide activeinvolvement, personalize wordlearning, immerse students inwords, and provide repeated expo-sure to words in more than onecontext. As a result of the in-depth teaching of the vocabulary,the students are better able tocomprehend the content and fur-ther the development of their aca-demic English.

3. Comprehensible Input: Teachersmake lessons comprehensible byusing vocabulary that the studentsunderstand, stating directionsorally and in writing, and demon-strating what the students areexpected to do. In addition, thestudents are given guided practiceand are involved in a variety oftechniques that provide hands-onpractice. The students are provid-ed with support such as predictionguides, visual aides, and othersupplemental materials. The infor-mation is shared at an appropriatepace and enunciated clearly.According to Echevarria, Vogt,and Short (p. 78), “Effective shel-tered teachers provide explana-tions of academic tasks in waysthat make clear what students areexpected to accomplish and thatpromote student success.”

4. Strategies: Teachers use explicitinstructional strategies, such asquestioning techniques, to sup-port higher-level thinking thatinvolves predicting, summarizing,problem solving, organizing, eval-uating, and self-monitoring. Theinstructional strategies alsoinvolve the students in scaffolding

techniques that provide the rightamount of support and help movethe students to the next level. Thestudents are given the time topractice the strategies with sup-port from their peers and theteacher, as well as opportunitiesto implement the strategies inde-pendently. An example of a strate-gy encouraged in the SIOP modelis the use of graphic organizers toassist students with visuallyorganizing their learning.According to Echevarria, Vogt, &Short (who cite Fisher, Frey, &Williams, 2002; Pressley, 2000;Shearer, Ruddell, & Vogt; andSlater & Horstman, 2002), “Thereis considerable evidence thatteaching students a variety of self-regulating strategies improvesstudent learning and reading.”

5. Interaction: The teacher providesthe students with continualopportunities to interact withpeers through flexible grouping.Sometimes the students are insmall groups, triads, or pairswhere every student has an oppor-tunity to speak and work on proj-ects together. Through the variousgroup activities, students areencouraged to interact with eachother and have time for extendedacademic conversations with theirpeers. Teacher talk is reduced andthe students are encouraged totalk more with such questions as,Tell me more about that, or Canyou tell us why you think that?Students are given adequate waittime so they can communicatetheir answers.

6. Practice and Application: Thiscomponent of the SIOP modelreinforces the importance of usinghands-on material and manipula-tives. Teachers plan small-groupactivities involving hands-on expe-riences that provide students withrelevant information about the

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content and an opportunity topractice what they are learning.Echevarria, Vogt, & Short (p. 118)state that, “Manipulating learningmaterials is important for ELsbecause it helps them connectabstract concepts with concreteexperiences.” The students areprovided opportunities to discussand apply what they are learningthrough integration of reading,writing, listening, and speaking.By integrating all of the languagearts areas, the ELs grow in theirEnglish language ability as well aslearn the content.

7. Lesson Delivery: The teacherfocuses on the content and lan-guage objectives of the lesson andinvolves the students actively inmeeting the objectives. Lessonsare delivered at the appropriatepace so that the students canlearn the material and not bebored. Students are engaged inthe lesson 90% to 100% of thetime through well-planned lessonsthat are understandable to thestudents, create opportunities forstudents to talk about the con-cepts, and include hands-on activ-ities that reinforce each lesson.

8. Review/Assessment: The teachersprovide the appropriate feedbackso that the students can continueto grow, review the key conceptsto ensure long-lasting learning,and provide assessment to trackstudent progress. The teachers areinvolved in the “Effective TeachingCycle for ELs,” which includes thefollowing steps: teach a lesson,assess, review key concepts andvocabulary, make adjustments toimprove student comprehension,and reteach as needed. Thisprocess is a cycle that is recursivein that each of the steps can berepeated as needed.

Each of the above components arewoven into an SIOP lesson that mayspan approximately 1 to 3 days,depending on the lesson design (see

the lesson plan accompanying thisarticle for an explanation of an SIOPlesson with the integration of theeight components).

According to Echevarria,Vogt, and Short, in 1997–1998:

Researchers comparedEnglish language learningstudents in classes whoseteachers had been trained inimplementing the SIOP to ahigh degree to a controlgroup (taught by teachers nottrained in the SIOP Model)using a prompt that requirednarrative writing. They scoredthe prompt using the writingrubric of the Illinois Measureof Annual Growth in English(IMAGE) Test. The Englishlearners in classes whoseteachers had been trained inimplementing the SIOP to ahigh degree demonstratedsignificantly higher writingscores than the controlgroup. (p. 217)

In addition, in 1998–1999, duringa writing assessment requiring exposi-tory writing, “the English learners inclasses whose teachers had beentrained in implementing the SIOP to ahigh degree demonstrated significantlyhigher writing scores than the controlgroup and made greater gains fromthe pre-test to the post-test”(Echevarria, Vogt, Short, p. 217).

The SIOP model includes anobservation tool called a protocol,which is used to measure the imple-mentation of the eight SIOP compo-nents. Each component has three ormore features that outline what mustbe included in an effective lesson. Theobserver assigns anywhere from 0 to 4points, with a 0 meaning the featurewas not implemented and 4 meaningthe feature was fully implemented.

The protocol allows for rating theSIOP lesson, as well as space for writ-ing comments that will help with theinstruction of ELs. The protocol can beused by administrators to provideteachers with feedback; college profes-

sors can use it to coach preserviceteachers; teachers can use it to self-evaluate after reviewing a videotape oftheir lesson, or they can use it as a les-son plan checklist; and it can be usedto determine fidelity of implementationof the model. Findings by Guarino,Echevarria, Short, Schick, Forbes, andRueda indicate that the SIOP is a high-ly reliable and valid measure of shel-tered instruction (as cited in Center forApplied Linguistics, 2005).

If teachers want their students,including the ELs, to grow in theiracademic content knowledge andEnglish ability and leave the classroomfeeling successful and excited aboutwhat they are learning, the SIOPmodel is a framework to considerimplementing. For more informationregarding implementation of SIOP, seethe resources listed in the sidebar.

Susan Hanson, Reading Specialist, maybe contacted at hansons@prel.org.Canisius Filibert, Director of PREL’sTerritories & Freely Associated StatesEducation Grant Program (T&FASEGP)and Pacific Vocational EducationImprovement Program (PVEIP), may becontacted at filiberc@prel.org.

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ResourcesEnglish-Language Development

Standards for CaliforniaPublic Schools Kindergartenthrough Grade Twelvewww.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/el/documents/eldgrd.pdf

Overview of English LanguageDevelopment (ELD)Standardswww.cde.ca.gov/re/pn/fd/documents/englangdevstnd.pdf

SIOP Institutewww.siopinstitute.netThe SIOP books can beordered from this website.In addition, you can down-load lesson plans at thiswebsite.

SIOP Lesson Plan Outline with Guidelines

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STANDARDS: Select standards from your standards andbenchmarks document.THEME: Think of the broad understanding that the lessonincludes, such as cooperation, courage, environment, justice,perseverance, or diversity.LESSON TOPIC: What is the lesson about? For example, pro-tecting coral reefs.CONTENT OBJECTIVES: What will the students know and beable to do as a result of this lesson? For example, Studentswill:

• Understand the fragility of coral reefs.• Form an opinion as to how to protect the reefs.

LANGUAGE OBJECTIVES: How will listening, speaking, read-ing, and writing be included in the lesson? For example, stu-dents will:

• Read information about the coral reefs.• Orally state one or more ways coral reefs can be pre-

served.• Summarize their opinion in writing.

LEARNING STRATEGIES: Select a strategy or strategies thatwill assist and support student understanding. For example,teach the students to use the “gist” method (Muth &Alvermann, 1999), which assists students in summarizing.Steps for this strategy include the following:

• The teacher and students read a section of the texttogether.

• Together, they select 10 or more words that are mostimportant to understanding the text.

• Together, they use as many of the 10 words as possibleto write a summary sentence.

• The process is repeated with the remainder of the text.• At the conclusion, a main idea or topic sentence is

added to the beginning of the summary sentences.• The students now have a summary paragraph.

KEY VOCABULARY: Select a few vocabulary words that areessential to the understanding of the material to be taught aswell as the academic words needed to process the concepts,such as the word summarize. Provide user-friendly defini-tions, examples of the words from different contexts, multi-ple exposures, and active involvement with the words. MATERIALS: List what you will need in order to teach thelesson. For example, paper, pencil, chart paper, pictures.

LESSON SEQUENCEMOTIVATION (Building background; links to background andto past learning)

• What activities, pictures, experience, and vocabularydevelopment do you need to provide the students tobuild the background needed?

• How can you link the new material to something thestudents are familiar with?

• What have you taught them in the past that will helpthem learn the new material? Connect past learningwith the new learning by referring to a chart, a book, ora lesson that the students have done previously.

• How can you get them excited about the new learning? Adapted from Echevarria, Vogt, and Short, Making Content Comprehensible forEnglish Learners, 2004, Pearson.

PRESENTATION (Content and language objectives, compre-hensible input, strategies, interaction, feedback; modeling)

• Place the content and language objectives on the boardfor the students to see as well as state them orally orhave them read aloud.

• Comprehensible input: • Use speech appropriate to the language level of the

students.• Enunciate clearly and speak slowly.• Provide repetition. • Avoid jargon, such as, “It’s like the pot calling the

kettle black.”• Provide hands-on experiences.• Teach vocabulary so they can learn and retain the

words.• Use gestures, body language, pictures, and real

objects when possible.• Model what you want them to do.• Provide step-by-step directions both orally and in

writing.• Strategies: Model the strategies you want the students

to use. • Interaction: Provide a variety of grouping patterns

where students have an opportunity to talk with eachother and learn from each other. For example, smallgroups, pairs, individuals.

PRACTICE/APPLICATION (Meaningful activities, interaction,strategies, practice/application [guided and independent prac-tice], feedback)

• Provide guided practice where the teacher helps leadthe students before they are expected to independentlyapply the new learning.

• Some examples of meaningful activities are:• Writing in a journal.• Participating in discussion circles.• Partner sharing using new vocabulary.• Solving problems in cooperative groups.• Using graphic organizers to scaffold learning.• Conducting science experiments.

REVIEW/ASSESSMENT (Review objectives and vocabulary,assess learning [individual, group, written, oral])

• Review the objectives on the board and ask the class ifthey were met.

• Use Outcome Sentences (complete orally or in journalwriting).• I wonder . . .• I discovered . . .• I still want to know . . .• I learned . . .• I still don’t understand . . .

EXTENSION (this part of the lesson is optional)• Assign “big idea” questions that relate to the topic for

homework, such as, “Why do you think . . ?”