SIOP* Component #7:
Lesson Delivery

"Only awareness is educable." Caleb Gattegno

After 6 SIOP components, we are now talking about teaching the lesson.  The Lesson Delivery component of Sheltered Instruction invites the teacher to consider how every step in the lesson moves the students closer to the lesson's objectives.

TESOL Trainers provides teacher training on strategies and techniques to make lesson delivery more efficient and effective.

SIOP's four features found under Lesson Delivery relate to what students are doing and how they are interacting with the content, the language, and one another.  The first two features ask that teachers make sure what their students are doing is moving them towards owning the lesson's objectives.  There are times when we get lost taking a tangent or time gets eaten up doing something that doesn't necessarily move the students any closer to owning the objectives.  This component also challenges teachers to make sure that students are engaged 90-100% of the time.  Measuring student engagement is an important feature of lesson delivery as is the pacing of the lesson.  The latter can have a positive or negative impact on both engagement and learning.

1. Support content objectives clearly
2. Support language objectives clearly
3. Engage students approximately 90-100% of the period
4. Pace the lesson appropriately to the students’ ability level

Time is the most precious commodity we have in teaching.  One way to manage time effectively is to insure that every step in your lesson belongs.  Whatever the students do (or don't do) either leads them towards or away from the SWBAT.  This is a good rule of thumb to use when planning and evaluating your lesson plan.  If the step or activity we chose doesn't get the students closer to owning the lesson's objective, it's taking them further away from it.  SIOP, especially this Lesson Delivery Component, helps us determine whether our lesson plan is the most effective and most efficient. 

The right kind of delivery sets the students up for success. Making sure that every step (or nearly every step) supports the objective, engages the students, and is paced appropriately is where the teacher's control ends. From there, the learners have to do their part. As Gattengo reminds us, teachers can only teach awareness; every other subject falls beyond their control.  This makes every step in our lesson a precious opportunity to boost student awareness and nudge them toward owning the objectives of the lesson.

There are plenty of reasons to invite TESOL Trainers to provide professional development on SIOP to your teaching staff. 

The biggest reason is that your teachers will thank you for choosing such an interactive approach and your students will thank you for making your teachers more engaging.

We create an engaging, empowering experience that gives teachers everything they need to implement the strategies immediately in their own teaching contexts.