The Preparation component of the SIOP Model has the following elements:
- Clearly defined content objectives for students
- Clearly defined language objectives for students
- Content concepts appropriate for age and educational background
- Supplementary materials used to a high degree, making the lesson clear and meaningful (e.g., graphs, models, visuals)
- Adaptation of content (e.g., text, assignment) to all levels of student proficiency
- Meaningful activities that integrate lesson concepts (e.g., surveys, letter writing, simulations, constructing models) with language practice opportunities for reading, writing, listening, and/or speaking
Sources:
Echevarria, J., Vogt, M.E., & Short, D. (2000). Making content comprehensible for English language learners: The SIOP model. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Using the SIOP Model. © 2002. Center for Applied Linguistics.
Setting language objectives for your lesson can be the biggest challenge of the SIOP Model. Here are some suggestions:
Language objectives should reflect the full range of language that you want students to use in the classroom. They should not be limited to vocabulary, but should describe how you want students to use all four language domains.
Language objectives should:
- Show how you want students to use language to acquire concepts, facts, and skills
- Show how you want students to use language to practice concepts, facts, and skills
- Show how you want students to use language to demonstrate acquisition of concepts, facts, and skills
At first, you may want to write your language objectives after planning the rest of your lesson. This is a good way to start -- you will become more aware of how students use language in your classroom. Later on you may observe that certain functions of language are not practiced often in your class, and you may want to create objectives and activities to give students opportunities to practice those functions.
Your language objectives could include the following:
- Language skills or domains
- Language functions, or the tasks you perform with language (telling stories, giving instructions, asking questions, making comparisions, supporting opinions, etc.)
- Language structures (grammatical structures, cohesive devices)
- Language strategies (learning strategies that assist with language development or literacy skills)
These are good resources for setting language objectives:
- National ESL standards by TESOL (see the books in the resource center)
- Nebraska K-12 English Language Proficiency Guidelines (located at Nancy Rowch's website: www.nde.state.ne.us/natlorigin
Your goal should be to:
- Include objectives and activities that require the use of all four language domains whenever possible
- Include a variety of language functions (as appropriate for the students' proficiency levels) in objectives and activities
- Include academic vocabulary and structures needed for content
- Include a variety of language-related strategies