My district has supposedly been told by our State Department of Education that the SIOP English language development (ELD) class is a violation of students’ civil rights. Since then, we have had many English learners NOT graduate or they have to come back for a 5th year since they lacked English Language Arts (ELA) credit. Can someone illuminate this issue for me?
Recently I have received a couple of questions similar to this one, so I thought it was important to take this opportunity to clarity some misperceptions and misinformation that is floating around. This question, and others like it, reflects two issues: 1) How SIOP is used in schools and 2) How credit toward graduation requirements is assigned in high schools.
First, the SIOP Model is not an educational program, per se. It is a proven approach for teaching English learners (ELs) in a variety of settings. SIOP classes offer EL students opportunities to use language in authentic ways, collaborating with peers around grade-level concepts and information, practicing and applying the material to meet the lesson’s objectives. SIOP provides teachers with a coherent approach for planning and delivering relevant, meaningful lessons that provide ample opportunities for students to interact with one another around content concepts aligned to state and national standards. While doing so, students develop academic English skills across the four domains – reading, writing, listening, and speaking. A fundamental aspect of SIOP teaching is to make lessons culturally relevant by integrating students’ background experiences, language, and culture into lessons.
The very essence of SIOP is to offer English learners equitable access to the same curriculum and instruction as English-speaking students. Application of SIOP teaching includes:
- Sheltered instruction classes. SIOP is used in classrooms of all grade levels and across all content areas. Some secondary schools offer sheltered classes for English learners such as sheltered biology and sheltered social studies. In elementary schools, especially those with large numbers of ELs, sheltered teaching is a part of daily instruction. Research has shown that all students benefit from the strategies and techniques used in SIOP teaching such as posting and reviewing content and language objectives, explicitly teaching vocabulary, using visuals, providing hands-on learning and opportunities to practice and apply new concepts and vocabulary, and so forth. Research studies on the effectiveness of SIOP demonstrate that student achievement in both acquisition of content and language outpaced that of students in control (non-SIOP) classes.
- ESL/ELD classes. English learners receive a dedicated instructional period where the focus is on English language learning using content-based curricula. SIOP teaching can be used during ESL/ELD.
- Newcomer programs. Students who are recent arrivals to U.S. schools require specialized instruction that addresses issues such as orientation to the ways of American schools, interrupted education, and limited formal literacy experiences. These students require intensive language learning beginning with social English in low-risk situations and vocabulary building. SIOP teaching makes lessons comprehensible for these students.
In these three language support programs, the goal is to move English learners through ELP levels so they eventually exit ELD, and to progress through sheltered instruction classes to general education content courses.
- Dual language programs. SIOP can be part of dual language programs when students are studying content through their new language. For example, in a dual language program with English-speakers learning Mandarin and Mandarin speakers learning English, SIOP teaching makes the content understandable for each group of students.
- General education courses. Teachers can also continue to use SIOP, or some features of SIOP, as needed by the English learners in their classes.
Although the SIOP Model has eight components, it is not a step-by-step approach. Rather, it is an integrated system for lesson planning and teaching that ensures that critical features of instruction in combination are present in every lesson. Furthermore, it allows for natural variation in teaching styles and lesson delivery because the SIOP Model is curriculum- and materials-neutral. It has been successfully adapted for use in a variety of settings and cultural contexts worldwide.
Equity and SIOP
The question of equity and SIOP is perhaps rooted in confusion about the federal guidelines. In our work with districts for the Department of Justice, investigations into possible abuses of English learner civil rights vis-a-vis education, it is clear that SIOP is an acceptable model for ELD and for content courses. However, an issue arises if students are in ELD classes exclusively all their time in the EL program and never in regular ELA or supported ELA, such as co-taught ELA. DOJ would suggest that ELP Level 4 students receive general education ELA with supports. Concerns around students’ civil rights are likely based on these programmatic decisions.
The issue is linguistic isolation, not SIOP implementation. Equitable means giving EL students the resources they need to reach parity, and sheltered courses using the SIOP Model is one resource among several to support students in reaching parity.
The second part of the teacher’s question is about credit toward high school graduation. In some states a sheltered ELA course or ELD course might qualify for core ELA credit because it meets the standards; in others it might not. At this time there isn’t a uniform policy regarding how credit is assigned for English learner classes.