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Pinterest has both helped and overwhelmed my brain. I have more than 2,100 pins that I truly believe I will look through. Good grief, I’m a nutcase.

As I read my SIOP book by Jana Echevarria, MaryEllen Vogt, and Deborah J. Short, I realize there are so many in-classroom techniques that I will simply never remember to implement or try in my future classroom if I don’t make a list! Lists, lists! My kingdom for a list!

Image courtesy of [KROMKRATHOG] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

These routines and techniques come from “Making Content Comprehensible for English Language Learners: The SIOP Model.” In paraphrasing their words, I intend only to make note of the great ideas and not to infringe on any copyrights. These are the ideas of the lovely ladies listed above, not my own (unless otherwise noted):

• More than jotting down objectives:
  • Get students to practice (and to make emotional connections) by asking them to find and circle the nouns and verbs (or —Elizabeth’s idea— words that rhyme with another word they’ve already heard today, like “journal” and “infernal” — 😛 )
  • Students paraphrase steps
  • Timed Pair-Share to predict what they might do in the lesson
• Self-Assess:
  • 1, 2, 3 – How well do you know what’s going on? “1. I understand this concept, 2. I have studied something like this before, 3. I don’t know this”
    • At the end, follow it up with a “How well did you meet the objective today?” self-assessment
• Jigsaw it:
  • This is an instructional model that encourages students to become “experts” about a given vocabulary word, topic, person of importance, etc. Students have to teach each other about what they learned, as they’re all experts about different things. Many hands/brains make light work.
• Outline it:
  • If you’re a general education teacher (as opposed to an ESOL teacher), consider giving your ELLs a breakdown outline of what you’re teaching for each lesson or for each day. You’re probably already creating this outline for yourself, so print off another one and give it to your ELL. He or she will be able to better understand what is going on if they have a map of it!
• Let them hear it:
  • Many sites have audio or video support tools for their content. Let students hear or watch supplementary tools to support their learning. No, I don’t think technology is always the answer, especially if your students are easily distracted, but if you can show them you trust them to stay on task while scaffolding their learning, this is a good option.