Trying Out SIOP

When I first arrived at my school four years ago, the ESOL population was just under 200 students.  We are now at over 300 ESOL students and increasing by the day.  In response to this growing population, I suggested that we group about 150 of our highest need students onto an interdisciplinary team and use the Sheltered Immersion Observation Protocol (SIOP) teaching approach.  Generally speaking, using the SIOP approach means that general content teachers that are not certified to teach ESOL are trained in ESOL-friendly teaching strategies.

This is the first year of what I hope will be a multi-year instructional program.  The students that are in the program have given positive feedback and the teachers that agreed to pilot this "school within a school" confessed that they finally feel empowered to fully concentrate on the needs of their ESOL students.  The preliminary data has also supported this approach.  For those of you currently using or considering using SIOP, I want to share this recently discovered resource: http://ellandsiopresources.weebly.com/.