Term
Summer 2022
Capstone
Capstone Project
Degree Name
MAESL
Facilitator(s)
Tia Clasen
Content Expert
Brandon Wolfe
Abstract
While secondary English learners face barriers to learning across all content areas, social studies courses are especially linguistically complex, and have a high level of expected prior knowledge. In the author's experience as a high school EL teacher, economics is often a particularly challenging course for EL students. This prompted the research question: How can a high school economics curriculum be designed to help English learners gain a deep understanding of the course topics while improving their academic English proficiency? A review of the literature found that features of a sheltered instruction model will validate, engage, and benefit a diverse range of English learners as they simultaneously learn content and increase English proficiency. The project is a Sheltered Economics Course Plan, with a scope and sequence of five units for a semester-long economics course, and lesson plans to launch each of these units. The unit overview includes academic content benchmarks and English language development expectations, which provide the basis for lesson-level content and language objectives. A sheltered instruction (SIOP) lesson template was used to create the detailed lesson plans. The lesson plans each include key features of sheltered instruction, with an emphasis on developing academic vocabulary, using multimodal techniques that support comprehension, grouping students intentionally for interaction, and reviewing key vocabulary and content concepts at the end of each lesson.
Project Type
Curriculum
Keywords
Curriculum, ESL/ ELLs, Graduation Standards, Sheltered instruction/SIOP
Recommended Citation
Weddell, Jennifer, "A High School Economics Course Curriculum That Effectively Integrates Language and Content Instruction for English Learners" (2022). School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects. 841.
https://digitalcommons.hamline.edu/hse_cp/841
dc_type
text
dc_publisher
DigitalCommons@Hamline
dc_format
application/pdf
dc_source
School of Education Student Capstone Projects