Cultivating a Personal Learning Network that Leads to Professional Change

Page 81

StewartbDIS9322E_Dissertation Proposal

75

collaborate with each other through the development of teaching, learning, or research materials that are being published with an intellectual property license that allows for free use, adaptation, and distribution; that is, open educational resources or OERs (United Nations..., 2011). Since the common thread among all participants of this study is that they teach English language learners, LUISLE is partly based on the SIOP model which is designed to make content more comprehensible to the English language learner (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 2004). The notion of comprehensible content emerges from the Comprehensible Input Hypothesis that stresses the importance of making receptive skills, like reading for example, more beneficial to the language learner (Krashen, 2003). The SIOP model then, includes three aspects to teaching practice: planning, implementing, and assessment. Within each of the three aspects, various techniques are utilized for making content more comprehensible for the English language learner. For example, in the planning stages, teachers plan for both content and language objectives. During the implementing stage, linking new knowledge with prior knowledge (i.e., scaffolding) helps language learners to connect new concepts with old. The assessment phase might include formative approaches that unite instruction and informal feedback loops in order for teachers and students to consider future learning sequences and tactics respectively that best provide learners to achieve lesson objectives. For the purpose of this study, the SIOP model offers a basis for establishing key items to an initial online survey and LUISLE. In doing so, a common lexicon that is generally accepted by the language teaching profession may be used. The purpose for adapting the SIOP model is to provide context with which EFL educators may converse, and is


Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.