Sheltered Instruction for Teaching ESL
Chris ParkerWhen working with second language learners as an English teacher, there may be times when you’ll be teaching other subjects in English, such as Math or Science. Even if you’re only teaching an English course, there will likely be instances where you’ll need to teach content to your students while also teaching English vocabulary. This concept of teaching English through content is known as sheltered instruction and knowing how to apply it to your lessons through learning activities can help both you and your students.
What is sheltered instruction?
Sheltered instruction means providing English instruction in a way where everything that is being taught is being done so within context and alongside relevant content. Instead of simply teaching a word to your students and having them repeat it, you can teach them something where the word is used within context, such as how to solve a math problem while teaching them the word “multiply” or teaching them the word “ecosystem” while going over the many different habitats that animals live in.
Because sheltered instruction involves teaching both content and English simultaneously, it can be used while teaching many different subjects in English, not only in English language courses.
How is sheltered instruction applied?
Sheltered instruction activities can employ many different tactics, but at the heart of all of them, your goal is to present English vocabulary and other concepts to your students in a way that’s easy for them to understand.
When new information is more digestible, meaning easier for your students to process, it’s called comprehensible input. You can make information more comprehensible with various techniques. Scaffolding, which means providing support in different ways, is usually the most effective way to do this.
Sheltered instruction is made possible with:
- Comprehensible input – content or information that is presented in a way that’s easy for your students to understand or relate to.
- Teacher scaffolding – adapting your teaching style to the needs of your students, such as by speaking more slowly or reducing the number of vocabulary words you’re presenting to them during lessons.
- Material scaffolding – using a particular type of material to make content and concepts easier for students to understand, whether it’s images, videos, diagrams, or something else.
- Prior-knowledge scaffolding – considering what students already know and then presenting new information in a way that connects to this prior knowledge.
Example sheltered instruction activities
1. Words within context
If your students are at a level where they can read and understand full sentences, this is a perfect activity that uses flashcards and allows them to find meaning in words based on contextual cues.
Steps for carrying out this activity
1. Provide students with cards that have a sentence on one side with a target vocabulary word underlined and also provide three to four possible synonyms for the word as options on the other side with only one option being the correct one. You can create these cards yourself from scratch or create and print them online for example using this resource.
2. Have students guess which of the words on the card’s backside means the same as the underlined word in the sentence on the front side.
Example
Card’s front side reads:
“The task I was given was uncomplicated, so I was able to finish it quickly.”
Card’s backside shows:
A) difficult
B) lengthy
C) simple
D) heavy
Once your students guess the meaning of each word correctly, you can have them move on to the next card and repeat the process.
Tip: make a game out of this – It’s a good idea to pair this activity with some type of board game or points-based system so they can track their progress or work towards some type of goal or reward, whether it’s a tangible or academic one.
2. Semantic mind mapping
Mind mapping involves connecting words or concepts to associated words, concepts, images, or virtually anything else that you can find common links between. While all of these things can work great in an ESL context, semantic mind mapping, which is purely word-based, can work well for students of all ages and typically involves less explanation on your part, so it’s easier for students to understand the concept.
Steps for carrying out this activity
1. Provide a central keyword or topic to your students and have them write this inside a bubble or square in the middle of a sheet of paper.
2. Have your students think of words or details that may be associated with this main keyword, and have them write these words in smaller circles or squares as they come to mind while connecting these new circles or squares to either each other or back to the central keyword or topic.
3. As more words are being thought of, your students can then create more branches or lines between words based on their associations, and while not every word needs to be associated with every other word, each word should connect to at least one other, and you should be able to trace your path back from the most distance word on the paper to the central one, even if the path isn’t a direct one.
Tip: use worksheets – Instead of having your students draw their semantic mind maps from scratch, you can provide them with a printable worksheet from this resource and then simply ask them to write words in each box. However, while this can work perfectly in some scenarios, you should use discretion as it also restricts the structure they’re working with, as they can branch out even further with more details when making mind maps from scratch.
3. Words within groups
This is a technique that you can use to teach just about any subject to your students, whether it’s Math, Science, or something else while teaching English vocabulary words. It involves grouping items based on their similarities and putting an emphasis on both the words of each group and the words of the items within each group.
Steps for carrying out this activity
1 First, you’ll choose which topic you’ll be teaching, and then organize the words associated with that topic into groups. For these steps, the topic of healthy food in an English-based health class will be used as an example.
2. Show your students a pie chart that represents healthy foods. You can do this by drawing it on the board or in a PowerPoint presentation if you’d rather go with a digital approach. This chart should show not only the word “healthy foods” directly under it but should also contain smaller subcategories of healthy foods inside the chart itself.
So, your chart might contain the words “fruits, vegetables, lean meats, grains” or other smaller categories. It’s a good idea to also include a translation of the English word in your students’ native language (their L2) directly next to the English word, separated by a forward slash symbol or inside parentheses.
Example (with English words and their Thai translations)
3. Elsewhere on the board or in your presentation, you’ll want to then break down the subcategories into specific items. For example, you’d show your students another pie chart or graphic that shows specific items that would fall under the category of fruits, such as bananas, apples, and pears, and include both the English and L2 translation for these as well.
4. Teach this lesson just as you would for any other topic, but make sure you’re having your students repeat the English words aloud as you’re going over them. As you break down each category, subcategory, or word by explaining them to your students, you can then add in other vocabulary words as details to explain characteristics of the items (sour, sweet, ripe, sugar, protein, dry, moist, etc.)
4. Detail discrimination
With this activity, your students are using a comparison chart to learn how to contrast and compare items based on details that may or may not apply to each one. This is a good hands-on activity that’s perfect for concluding a sheltered instruction lesson, as it checks for understanding and whether the information you provided was comprehensible or not.
Steps for carrying out this activity
1. Have your students draw a comparison chart, which is a grid-based table on a sheet of paper with both vertical and horizontal lines and areas for headers or words to be written on both the left side and first row at the top, similar to how a Microsoft Excel document appears (and for older or more advanced students with tech access, you can even use Excel for this if it’s easier). When possible, create this layout yourself as hand-out worksheets for your students or print them out from the resource below, which can save everyone some time.
2. Write or have your students write target vocabulary words in the first boxes that run vertically along the left side, one on each line, and then write different details that may or may not apply to these words in each header space at the top.
3. Your students should then notate which details up top correlate with the vocabulary words on the left by writing a checkmark or using some other type of symbol. This allows them to later look over the table and analyze the differences and similarities between the vocabulary words.
Parting advice: get creative with comprehensible input
Always remember that sheltered instruction revolves around providing comprehensible input to your students, so don’t be afraid to get creative in making content and materials more comprehensible. Think about the culture your students come from, their interests, their backgrounds, and look for ways to incorporate these things into your lessons to make topics more easily understandable for your students.