The SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) Model remains one of the most researched, classroom-tested frameworks for supporting English Learners in K–12 settings. It gives teachers a clear roadmap for planning, delivering, and assessing instruction that is both rigorous and accessible.
This guide breaks down the essentials—what SIOP is, how it works, what each component includes, and practical ways to implement it tomorrow.
The SIOP Model is a research-based framework designed to ensure English Learners can fully engage with grade-level content while developing academic language. It includes eight components and 30 features that help teachers plan effective lessons, scaffold appropriately, and create a classroom where every student can participate and succeed.
At its core, SIOP blends content, language, and interaction. It supports the belief that English Learners should not have to choose between “learning English” and “learning the content.” They must do both—and teachers have the tools to make that happen.
Below is an overview of each component with key strategies educators can use immediately.
1. Lesson PreparationHigh-quality instruction begins long before students enter the room. Teachers plan for both content and language.The language focus is the one that boosts student participation and production.
Key Strategies:
• Write content objectives in student-friendly language.
• Write language objectives aligned to the lesson’s speaking, listening, reading, or writing demands.
• Choose supplementary materials that make concepts more concrete.
• Plan intentional opportunities for interaction.
Students make meaning by connecting new information to what they already know. It also encourages teachers to review important vocabulary. This stage is critical for multilingual learners. Avoiding this step often leaves students behind.
Key Strategies:
• Activate prior knowledge using quickwrites, polls, or discussion starters.
• Teach academic vocabulary explicitly and revisit it daily.
• Bridge new learning to familiar experiences, languages, and cultural backgrounds.
Content is only accessible when students can understand it. Teachers make input clear through pacing, modeling, visuals, and linguistic adjustments. SIOP can help teachers make listening and viewing more comprehensible.
Key Strategies:
• Speak clearly and at an appropriate pace for learners.
• Use modeling, gestures, visuals, and realia to reinforce meaning.
• Chunk instructions and check for understanding frequently.
• Use sentence stems and frames to support output.
Students learn more when they can apply strategies independently. This component emphasizes teaching students how to learn. It also encourages teachers to scaffold (e.g., teach in digestible chunks).
Key Strategies:
• Model metacognitive strategies: predicting, questioning, summarizing.
• Teach cognitive strategies: note-taking, graphic organizers, chunking text.
• Scaffold with sentence starters, word banks, and guided notes.
• Gradually release support until students can apply strategies on their own.
Language grows through meaningful use. Interaction is not optional—it’s essential. Students learn far more from one another than they do their teachers. Using plenty of turn and talk, student-student activities, and cooperative learning boosts language development, content comprehension, and community.
Key Strategies:
• Use structured partner and group work.
• Rotate partners to build social language and academic confidence.
• Build in discussion routines (Think–Pair–Share, Numbered Heads, Jigsaw).
• Ensure every student speaks, listens, reads, and writes every class.
Students must apply new learning in authentic, hands-on ways.
🔑 Key Strategies:
• Include manipulatives, labs, role-play, and simulations.
• Give students time to practice using academic vocabulary.
• Use tasks that integrate all four domains of language.
• Require students to demonstrate understanding through real tasks.
Even a beautifully planned lesson can fall flat without intentional delivery.
Key Strategies:
• Align delivery tightly to your content and language objectives.
• Use student engagement techniques every 10–12 minutes.
• Keep instruction appropriately paced—not rushed, not dragged.
• Monitor engagement and adjust instruction in real time.
Ongoing assessment ensures that learning is visible and that instruction is meaningful.
Key Strategies:
• Review vocabulary and concepts before closing the lesson.
• Use quick formative assessments (exit slips, fist-to-five, whiteboards).
• Give feedback that is immediate, actionable, and language-aware.
• Use assessment data to adjust future instruction.
Implementing SIOP is not about memorizing the 30 features—it’s about making small, intentional shifts that compound over time. Here are several ways teachers and teams can begin.
1. Start with Objectives Every DayPost and unpack content and language objectives with students. Revisit them during the lesson. Return to them at the end to check learning. This habit alone transforms instruction.
2. Choose One SIOP Feature to Focus On Each WeekImplementation builds best through focused practice, not perfection. For example:
• Week 1: Write stronger language objectives
• Week 2: Increase student talk time
• Week 3: Add visuals to every lesson
• Week 4: Build vocabulary routines
A monthly cycle of improvement keeps teachers motivated and growing. Also, making it more digestible for yourself ensures you’re making things more digestible for your students.
Teams can collaborate on shared objectives, common graphic organizers, discussion structures, vocabulary routines, and lesson design templates. SIOP becomes more powerful when the whole school uses common tools.
4. Integrate SIOP With Your Block ScheduleLonger periods allow for more interaction, deeper practice and application, multiple modalities of learning, and built-in formative assessment. SIOP and 90-minute blocks pair beautifully.
Dr. John Kongsvik and his team of TESOL Trainers can show you how to design and deliver your block schedule classes in ways that maximize the engagement and learning.
5. Learn From Peer CoachingTeachers grow exponentially when they observe one another, give descriptive, nonjudgmental feedback, and focus on just one or two SIOP features at a time. This aligns closely with peer-coaching models like iCOACH™.
Why SIOP WorksThe SIOP Model is not a script. It is a professional decision-making framework grounded in decades of research.
It works because it:
• Integrates language and content
• Promotes equitable participation
• Supports high expectations
• Boosts student engagement
• Makes lessons more comprehensible and accessible
• Gives teachers clarity, structure, and flexibility
• Helps English Learners thrive in any content class
When schools treat SIOP as a compliance tool, it stalls. When they treat it as a shared mindset, instruction transforms. When SIOP is something, “I’ve got to make sure I put in my lesson plan so I don’t get dinged,” more than likely that’s where it remains - in the plan. When SIOP is something, “I use to make teaching and learning more effective,” more than likely it becomes a useful part of your toolbox.
Great implementation begins with clear goals, consistent routines, collaborative practice, reflective coaching, and a belief that multilingual learners can do incredible things. This is how our multilingual learners thrive.
TESOL Trainers offers SIOP professional development for schools. We provide onsite SIOP training, customized online PD - The English Learner Institute, coaching cycles, administrator walkthrough training, and full implementation support.
Learn how TESOL Trainers can show you how to implement the SIOP Model in K-12 classrooms.
TESOL Trainers’ staff development programs are experiential professional development that educate and empower. Participants leave our K12 workshops ready to implement the strategies we model and inspired to change their approach to teaching and learning.
Learn more about our professional development programs here or register for our world famous English Learner Institute here:
