Siop ELL - Research Paper Example

Home-School Connections for English Language Learners Introduction It has been proven in many researches that parental involvement in their child’s education yield positive results. Especially in the cases of English Language Learner (ELL) families, parental involvement increases their regard for education, and encourages their children to have the same viewpoint as well. However, problems have been seen because some parents may be discouraged to participate, since they themselves have limited English skills.

Because of these dilemmas, it is important to establish a firm home and school connection with ELL families in order to surpass barriers that could hinder learning. Developing Connections Waterman and Harry (2008) present ten recommendations to guide school staff on how to implement this connection, where we emphasize on: (1) school principals providing explicit support for parent involvement work, (2) offering open-ended meetings involving teachers and parents, and (3) offering parents an English as a second language class or a family literacy program (9-13).

The school principal promotes parent-school collaboration through policy, staff decisions, and behaviors (Waterman & Harry, 2008, p. 9). These can be exemplified by being highly concerned with the parents’ questions in meetings, and hiring staff that could work and communicate well with ELL families. In addition, initiating open-ended meetings for parents and select school staff is an avenue for both parties to discuss questions and concerns, and for parents to familiarize the school system, and for practitioners to be aware of the ELLs experiences (10).

These assemblies would eventually create a trusting relationship between the school and families, increasing parental involvement. Lastly, providing English as a Second Language (ESL) could increase parent-teacher collaboration by supporting the parental abilities in ensuring homework completion, better written communication comprehension, and increased understanding on supporting literacy development (13). These are some ways to encourage parental involvement in their child’s education to promote learning, and the use of Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) model through its components would also benefit the students themselves.

SIOP Components The eight SIOP components are preparation, building background, comprehensible input, strategies, interaction, practice and application, lesson delivery, and review and assessment. Personally speaking, the order of the components as stated above is deemed to be arranged in a way to achieve effectiveness. Preparation involves establishing both content and language objectives for students and having activities integrated with lesson concepts; building background gives importance to the student’s past experiences in line with lessons; and comprehensible input includes appropriate speech according to proficiency level and use of various techniques to make concepts clear.

Strategies pertain to different types of approaches to promote higher-order thinking; discussion concentrates on elaborated teacher-student response; practice and application on hands-on activities to apply knowledge; lesson delivery emphasizes high student engagement; and review and assessment include student feedback to concepts and lessons. As can be noticed, although these components are not steps, the said order also follows certain levels of difficulty for the student. It is possible that students may get more confused when a practitioner haphazardly performs these components.

Home and school collaborations for the entire ELL family are thus important, together with the use of the SIOP model specifically for students. Reference Waterman, R., & Harry, B. (2008). Building collaboration between schools and parents of English language learners: Transcending barriers, creating opportunities. AZ: National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems.