Syllabus: Integrating Content & Langauge Instruction

Course Description: 

This is the fifth course in the TELL program, which leads to an ESL endorsement. Working in teacher working groups, teachers explore content-area learning from a second language perspective. Teachers review the conceptual tools and content of previous TELL courses found here (https://equitypress.org/ell_tools). In this course teachers explore their pedagogical practices within their disciplines, learn to attend more strategically to teaching content as they teach language, and developing literacy skills and academic language with their EL students. They revisit sheltered language instruction through reviewing SIOP. Finally, they create multiple, simultaneous learning activities that they can enact in their regular instruction.  

Course Goals and Objectives: 

This course builds on the following ESL standard: 

Know, understand, and use the Utah English Language Proficiency Standards in selection of programs, practices and strategies related to planning, implementing, and managing ESL and content instruction, including classroom, organization, teaching strategies for development and integrating language skills, and choosing and adapting classroom resources. 

The objectives are:

Textbook:

Integrating Content and Language.This is the main textbook for this course, an instructional guide found in an open access online platform developed by Royce Kimmons (EdTech Books). The book  includes all the learning activities, homework activities, and major projects you will be using for the course. 

Making Content Comprehensible for English Language Learners: The SIOP Model. Boston: Pearson, Allyn & Bacon.

Funds of knowledge. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Multimedia 

Digital Resources:

The Lucia Villarreal case: A videoethnography of literacy practices in a bilingual classroom. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University

The Craig Cleveland case: A videoethnography of Mexican American history in a Spanish/ English bilingual classroom. Provo,UT:BYU

The Mara Mills case: A videoethnography of biological science in a sheltered English classroom. Provo, UT: BYU

The Sheri Galarza pre-school case: A videoethnography of developmentally appropriate teaching of language and literacy.Provo,UT: BYU

Learning Activities:

A variety of learning activities and assignments will be used to help students understand course concepts. Students become active participants through the use of self-assessment, reflective writing, jigsaw readings, concept application logs, portfolio work, student profiles, response papers, and technology. Assignments will focus on active learning and require individual, paired, or group work to enrich learning. These activities model the planning, teaching, and assessment strategies that can be used with language minority students. There are also homework activities that, when completed successfully contribute to the points accrued for grading. 

Attendance Policy:

This course is grounded in the belief that learning is a socially constructed process. In fact, active learning is a central feature of the course. Furthermore, the concepts presented through the video segments promote a conversational approach to learning. Concepts are immediately explored and applied through learning activities. As a result, much of the learning will take place through discussion and group activities that ask you to apply the research and theories about the teaching of English learners to your daily practice. Class discussion allows you to learn from your colleagues and to contribute to their learning; the insights of class members will be invaluable in your learning.

The experiences within the classroom cannot be reconstructed outside of class time with the facilitator or independently. Therefore, while attendance in and of itself does not count as part of your course grade, it is an important factor since recovering and reconstructing learning that occurs during class time will be difficult, if not impossible. Further, you will often be given credit for products developed during class time, and your presence is highly valued. In addition, students will usually work with colleagues and will frequently present findings and analysis during class time. For these reasons, it will be very difficult to make up class periods missed.

Grading Policy:

For the above reasons, full credit is only available to those students who attend each session and are present for the entire session. We recommend that if a teacher has to miss more than one of the eight sessions, they should be advised to take the course at another time.

In this course, your grade is based on participation in a learning process (i.e., process points) and the creation of individual and group products (i.e., individual and group product points) that emerge from participation in learning activities and homework. In addition, you will be asked to complete independent major assignments that will be evaluated for evidence of how you are learning and growing as a professional. Finally, you will present your professional development in relation to educating students of cultural and linguistic diversity in the final session of the course.

Grading Summary:

Type of Points Description Points
Process Points for participating in learning activities during class  
Homework Individual Product Points for individual products produced for homework assignments  
Practicum Points for individual or group products produced for practicum assignments  
Total    

In the next chapter in this book, you will find a Total Points sheet you can copy and use to track your points earned throughout the course.

Grading Scale: You must earn at least a B- to pass this class.

Percentage Grade
94-100% A
90-93 A-
87-89 B+
83-86 B
80-82 B-
77-79 C+
73-76 C
70-72 C-

Explanation of the TemplateTotal Points

This content is provided to you freely by BYU Open Learning Network.

Access it online or download it at https://open.byu.edu/language_integration/syllabus_integrating.