Sheltered English
Techniques
| Preview the lesson in the students' first language. This preview may be done by a para-professional, a parent, or an older student. If students come from a variety of language backgrounds, the preview may be given is small groups. | |
| Use visual and real object. Pictures, charts, graphs, and objects help students understand the concepts being presented. This allows learning to proceed from the concrete to the abstract. | |
| Use written language. Even for your students, being able to both see and hear language makes learning easier. In many cases, writing, which is fixed, is more comprehensible than speech, which is transitory. | |
| Use gestures and body language. These help students understand the words. It is for this reason that face to face conversation is easier to understand than a telephone conversation in a second language. | |
| Use clear speech. With frequent natural pauses. This is more effective than trying to slow down the pronunciation of individual words, which often distracts students. | |
| Say the same thing in different ways. When teachers paraphrase, students are given more chances to comprehend the message. | |
| Make frequent comprehension. Rather than asking comprehension questions, watch your students to be sure that they are following the ideas being presented. Students will generally show you if they understand or not with nonverbal cues. | |
| Have students explain main concepts to one another. Working in pairs or small groups. Students can do this in their first language and then report back to the class. This also serves as a comprehension check. | |
| Connect the concepts. Being presented to events in the students' own lives. see the relation between what is being taught and their own experiences, they understand the academic concepts more fully and also are more apt to see their relevance. | |
| Keep oral presentations or reading assignments short. Lectures and reading are difficult for second language students. | |
| Cooperative activities. In which students explore key concepts in small groups are more effective than lectures or assigned readings. | |
| Whenever possible, review the content. By allowing students to ask questions and talk about the concepts in their first language. | |
| Conclusion The goal of sheltered teaching is to help students develop both content and language proficiency. The instruction includes a variety of techniques to help classroom teachers make instruction comprehensible for second language students. |