Lesson Preparation/ Feature 1: Content objectives clearly defined, displayed, and reviewed with students.
1.Reflection:
a.Giving students a clearly defined objective allows them to connect what is taught to what is expected of them in the end. I also use content objectives as a guide during my lesson. When having whole class discussions, I frequently refer back to the objective. I refer back to the objective when a relevant point/comment is made that directly correlates with the objective or when an idea or answer needs to be redirected. As a person who needs to see the whole picture, having someone share the objective with me first allows me to make meaning connections with what is to come following the objective. I also have a more vested interest in the process because I want to see the objective come to fruition.
b. Language objectives that are clearly defined, displayed, and reviewed with students affect both language and content development. They affect language objectives because teachers must decide what academic language relates to their lesson's topic. Afterward, academic language must be isolated and independently taught in order to ensure the success of all students. The English language also contains many anomalies. Parts of the English language such as homophones and idioms must also be explicitly clarified. In addition to explicitly addressing language objectives, English language learners must also learn the content. Defining, displaying, and reviewing content objectives is a way of providing a scaffold to help students acquire knowledge. Students can visually refer back to the objectives while listening to the teachers instruction. Essentially, it provides students with an opportunity to experience the objective in multiple language domains.
SIOP feature 1
Content Objectives Clearly Defined, Displayed, and Reviewed with Students
Choral Reading of Objectives is a great strategy for ensuring that content objectives are clearly, defined, displayed, and reviewed with students. Although simple in its implementation, having students repeat, chorally as a whole class, after you have read the objective helps students remember and internalize the learning goal. Repeating the content objective aloud also give ELs an opportunity to properly enunciate key vocabulary and ask questions concerning difficult academic language.
SIOP feature 2
Language Objectives Clearly Defined, Displayed, and Reviewed with Students
As a language arts teacher, the language objective that stood out to me the most was the objective that invited students to identify the main character, protagonist, and antagonist in the story. I choose to highlight this objective because it helps teacher address the issue of developing academic vocabulary because students are identifying the protagonist and the antagonist.This assignment can be differentiated by having student justify their answer using the word because or using a complex sentence.
SIOP feature 3
Content Concepts Appropriate for Age and Educational Background Level of Students
Know Your Students! is the strategy I feel best allows teachers to connect content concepts with age and educational background level of students. Know Your Students! is a strategy that helps teachers know their students academic and language strengths and needs in order to plan appropriate instruction. With this strategy, teachers give their students a variety of surveys. The surveys are given to students in order to obtain information on students' educational history, parents or guardian. Additionally, as a part of getting to know your students, writing and reading samples are reviewed. According to (Echevarria, pg. 16) Making sure content concepts are age appropriate and aligned with the educational background level of students is important because "even though standards represent the academic goals teachers and students strive for, the educational backgrounds of some English learners may necessitate modifications."
SIOP feature 4:
Supplementary materials used to a high degree, making the lesson clear and meaningful.Pg, 21 This is a great strategy because it allows students to collaborate with their peers which has been proven to facilitate understanding. Additionally, since each partnership is required to only have one answer students must negotiate with one another to determine their final answer. Negotiation is a high-level skill that causes students to expand their depth of knowledge. Students will expand their depth of knowledge by using skills such as comparing and justifying. Skills such as comparing and justifying are interdisciplinary which aids in improving students academic language proficiency. This strategy can be differentiated by ability grouping students. If a student is struggling with the concept a "high-low" ability group my work best. However, the arrangement of the ability group would be strictly contingent on the needs of individual students.
SIOP feature 5
Adaptation of Content (e.g., Text, Assignment) to All Levels of Student Proficiency
Adopted Graphic Organizers are a fantastic way to adapt content for English language learners. Graphic organizer allows students to break content down into smaller more manageable chunks of information. Even as a teacher, I appreciate when information is presented in an easy-to- read format. Graphic organizers can be used in all content areas. There are graphic organizers for research, vocabulary, and essays. Using a graphic organizer can be a great differentiation strategy. Teachers can project a graphic organizer on the board and complete it as a whole class, students can work with partners, groups, or individually.
SIOP feature 6
Meaningful Activities that Integrate Lesson Concepts with Language Practice Opportunities for Reading, Writing, Listening, and/ or Speaking (e.g., Surveys, Letter Writing, Simulations, Constructing Models)
Creating meaningful activities that integrate lesson concepts with language practice and opportunities for reading, writing, listening, and speaking, is in my opinion, is the most important feature in this chapter. In order for students to become proficient in English, it is imperative that they are proficient in all four domains. Circle of Academic Conversations is a great strategy because it allows students to practice becoming proficient in all four domains. With this strategy, students work in groups to investigate a topic. Each group records their findings on a large piece of chart paper. Finally, the whole class forms a circle and each group takes turns summarizing their posters. In this activity, students are engaged in academic conversation and working together in small groups to build background information about the topic. Additionally, with this strategy students have the opportunity to practice with all language domains.
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