Planning For Clarity (Language Learning) - Essay Example

The second step has the students interacting with each other while the tutor monitors this session like a referee. The first step when the tutor engages in teaching and interacting the students find an opportunity to loosen their guards from inhibitive apprehensions and become responsive. This is the time when the tutor holds the fort teaching and instructing, questioning and gingerly allowing students to respond to queries. The tutor/students interactions may begin with the tutor allowing students 10% of the time to answer questions.

The tutor may then increase the number of questions and gradually extend the question/answers hour to 90%, transferring the session to the second step when the students begin interacting with each other using study material and discussions. It is crucially important to organize the interaction sessions with content rich and well designed study material so that the students get exposure to language learning resources. These study material must be condensed and balanced so that the contents appear neither inadequate nor cluttered.

The class must be divided into 3 or 4 groups to allow for group discussions and preparation before the final competition. (Judy Haynes) The SIOP strategy invokes use of first language in the learning process of the second language. This bilingual approach puts the students at ease as they are materially prepared to grasp the second language more easily being acquainted with the lesson contents having understood them from their presentation in their own language. Since the study material are also biliteral, that is, scripted in the first and second languages, all the students have to do is grasp the text and grammar of the second language.

The process of application is a workshop involving reading, writing, listening and speaking. The study material must adequately cover all of these. The tutor must allow time for students to learn on trial and error rote. The exercise must allow ample time for students to stir their mental aptitudes with language learning. (Bilingual/ESL Education Program, p7)ConclusionThe SIOP strategy makes learning simple and user-friendly. Being connected to the mother tongue, its approach is that of a friendly neighbor.

The tutor must adorn the role of the friendly neighbor. It goes without saying that the tutor must be thoroughly conversant with the first and second languages. The students' success totally depends on the tutor's approach with the curriculum and study material providing the vital links in the process. One learns the first language in an informal atmosphere of abandon and care. The process is much the same for the second language. Sources:Bilingual/ESL Education Program, Instructional Model, 15 November, 2005, Updated September 2007, Brownsville Independent School District, Texas, http://www.bisd.us/Bilingual_Education/INSTRUCTIONAL MODEL UPDATED SEPT 2007.

pdfJudy Haynes, SIOP: Making Content Comprehensible for ELLs, everythingELS.net,