To work through proper lesson design we must first understand the nature of the class, who it intended for and the goals of such a lesson. The nature and goals of S.D.A.I.E. lessons are to provide equal access to the curriculum of study. That means simply that the course of study offers full academic credit and is appropriate material for the age and grade of the students. It is not remedial or watered down curriculum but rather the course is presented in a fashion that allows students to comprehend the material through strategies and tactics that the teacher designs to support lectures, activities, reading, writing, questioning and assessment. In essence, the course doesn’t change, only its method of presentation. As it turns out, many of these changes provide meaningful input for a vast majority of students so that teachers find themselves borrowing from many disciplines including multiple intelligences, gifted and talented and even special education. Teachers find a way to allow ALL students an opportunity to participate and learn. For the students acquiring English, it is this context that provides one of the best vehicles for language acquisition. It is however not the focus of the lesson. Unlike ESL, (ELD for some of you), which focuses on language development, S.D.A.I.E. focuses on content comprehension. Language is acquired because of the context it was contained in, the content! Teachers build vocabulary with their students and have high expectations for success of this language and the concepts. Originally S.D.A.I.E. was designed for students that had reached a level referred to Intermediate fluency. That meant that students understood most of what the heard in English in the way of teacher directions and instruction, had a fair command of oral language production but were reading and writing below grade level. But increasing numbers of identified English Language Learners (ELL’s), shrinking numbers of qualified bilingual teachers and most recently legislation all but eliminating primary language instruction has forced districts to place all levels of ELL students in these content classes. Multiple languages, multiple language levels and limited access to primary language instruction lead to teachers searching for answers to solve the content comprehension quandary. Important to the success of teachers and students in their classrooms is a sound understanding of lesson planning and design.

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The first thing for the new S.D.A.I.E. teacher to remember when preparing to work with ELL students is not to panic. Much of what you already do in the classroom is appropriate, powerful teaching. S.D.A.I.E. should add to your skills, improve your presentation and incorporate much of what you already do intuitively. Think of it as adding to your options! That stated lets begin with some of the easiest things to adapt. Since the basis of S.D.A.I.E. is to provide context for language, then easiest way to provide that is to start lessons, units, and concepts with an activity. I like to say that activities are the engines that drive the S.D.A.I.E. classroom. These activities provide the linguistic hooks for students to pin language on. It provides context for complex language and a vehicle to send us to important readings and resources in our text books.

As teachers design their lessons with ELL students in mind, they are encouraged to consider a number of key points. First, as often as possible begin their content from a pragmatic perspective. In other words, a hands-on activity. This provides a context or reference point to build language around. Developing this consistent routine provides a set of non-verbal cues for students to predict what to expect in future lessons. The other three components of lesson design include providing “visual clues” for students, “cooperative learning” strategies where students work together, are held individually accountable, and work on developing positive social skills and finally a sort of catch-all phrase referred to as “guarded vocabulary”. As with all students, teachers will consider developing sound study skills and so organization skills will be demonstrated through a number of ways such as graphic organizers and reading strategies. Another significant factor in the presentation of lessons has to do with questioning tactics. Teachers need to be aware of the different stages of language development, characteristics of these different stages and how to develop questions that students could reasonably answer depending on their linguistic stage. An excellent strategy to expand language experience (simply put how to get the kids to talk to you), is “scaffolding”. This particular strategy has teacher and student or perhaps student and student mutually constructing a conversation. The teacher may invite conversation with a leading question or query. The student responds with a word or phrase and the teacher continues to the process. This take a little practice but is an excellent way to encourage students to actively use their English skills and by doing so improve upon them.

   Let me explore those four major components of S.D.A.I.E. lesson design. They are hands-on activities, visual clues, cooperative learning, and guarded vocabulary. Hands-on activities engage the students in meaningful experiences so that students can comprehend the concepts teachers are trying to convey and make sense of key language components or the content vocabulary. Students learn to link this new vocabulary to the experiential process. Students also acquire the language by understanding their meaning through real experiences rather than artificially looking the word up in a glossary. Realistically, looking words up in a glossary does exactly what we are trying to avoid. It takes language out of context!  Visual clues literally provide a visual way to describe key words and concepts. Teachers may find pictures, models, manipulatives, gestures, and body language realia (the real thing), or demonstrations to visually represent the concept. The idea is to take abstract concepts and make them concrete. uses of these visual clues are as varied as the teacher. They can be used in activities, writing prompts, vocabulary games, concept development, sequencing activities and assessment just to name a few. A great resource to consider as you develop your visual clues is a piece of soft-ware called Inspiration 6.0. This graphic organizer program is an incredible resource to ad graphics to your lesson materials and to develop graphic organizers to visually present you vocabulary and concepts. You can find them at www.inspiration.com  on the web. Cooperative learning strategies takes advantages strengths to build on student weaknesses. Careful planning and team selection are required for successful cooperative lessons. Small teams, which is characteristic of cooperative learning can reduce stress or lower the affective filter. The affective filter refers to the student’s stress level. This has been shown to interfere with language acquisition. Teachers are wise to monitor the students’ “affective filters”. Cooperative teams also provide peer support, expose students to other ways to solve complex problems, develop social skills and provide an excellent vehicle to practice oral language skills. However, none of these valuable items will occur unless the teacher plans carefully and monitors the process.

Part of the peer support students can offer each other is with their primary language. This can be an excellent resource to consider when bilingual aids are not available or the teacher does not speak the student’s primary language. The purpose of utilizing the student’s primary language is simply to make sure language does not get in the way of concept development. It was quite common to hear students in my own classroom discussing complex problems in a language I didn’t understand. It was simply the best way to insure adequate comprehension. You do need to monitor the process. Like all students, the path of least resistance is often the road of choice. Primary language is for help but English is the targeted language in a S.D.A.I.E. classroom.

   The last component is guarded vocabulary. This somewhat misleading title encompasses a wide assortment of teacher behaviors surrounding language. Teachers are conscious of the selection of language used, how it will be introduced, practiced, and incorporated into all components of the lesson. Teachers scan text materials for their content vocabulary and support vocabulary. Support vocabulary are terms that they think may cause problems for their students even though they should have been exposed to this vocabulary before. This would also include language used in giving directions and direct instruction. The teacher provides activities and games to help build and develop the content and support vocabulary. S.D.A.I.E. teachers constantly monitor their rate of speech, syntax, and language structure. They design questions so that they can be answered by students acquiring English at all levels and use scaffolding strategies to extend language experience. Teachers constantly remind themselves that their job is, “to get language out, not to get language in.” Reading and writing activities are generally considered guided activities and the teacher provides tools such as graphic organizers to help students make sense of what they read and prepares them to organize their writing assignments. Included in this category would be a host of verbal and non-verbal cues that students could look for to help them stay on top of the lessons and maximize their comprehension. As one teacher so aptly put it, “These kids are language different, not learning disabled! I just have to provide the right set of clues and they never cease to amaze me.” In essence, all of the elements of the classroom experience are scrutinized to be certain that healthy doses of comprehensible input are available to the students. Ideally, teacher resource materials would be designed to help in this endeavor. Texts would provide hints and suggestions along the way, be activity based and visually supported with pictures, diagrams and charts. Lessons would lend themselves to team work and reading and writing activities would follow hands-on activities to give meaning and purpose to the reading. When appropriate materials would provide multicultural applications and suggestions to expand on those kind of ideas. Students should be able to see themselves in the text. Assessment would reflect an authentic approach as well as standard approaches so that students can show you as well as tell you about what they have learned. All of this designed to meet the rigorous standards and expectations of teachers, districts and states. Unfortunately few such materials exist in today’s market but publishers are working hard to change that. DiscoveryWorks 2000 by Houghton Mifflin stands out as one of the few resources that truly attempts to reach all students. It is their K-6 science program. Visit their web site at www.eduplace.com .