Planning, Implementing, and Managing Instruction
This domain covers program models, standards-based planning, and the instructional moves that make grade-level content accessible without simplifying it. Items ask you to choose the scaffold, objective, or grouping that best supports English learners at a given proficiency level.
Programs and planning
- Program models: ESL pull-out, push-in/integrated co-teaching, sheltered content (SIOP), transitional bilingual education, dual language, newcomer programs. Selection follows student need and available qualified staff, not scheduling convenience.
- Two objectives every lesson: a content objective and a language objective naming a function (compare, explain, summarize, justify) plus the language needed (Tier 2 terms, sentence frames).
- SIOP components: lesson preparation, building background, comprehensible input, strategies, interaction, practice/application, lesson delivery, review and assessment.
- Scaffolds: visuals, realia, gestures, modeling, graphic organizers, sentence frames, word walls, L1 support and translanguaging.
- Vocabulary tiers (Beck): Tier 1 everyday, Tier 2 general academic (evidence, compare, sequence), Tier 3 domain-specific (evaporation). Tier 2 deserves the most instructional time because it transfers across subjects.
- Interaction: 3–5 seconds of wait time after a question, structured or randomized participation rather than volunteer-only, Total Physical Response for beginners, cooperative structures, CALLA strategies.
Worked example
Grade 4 water cycle. Content objective: students will describe the stages of the water cycle. Language objective: students will explain the stages in order using sequence words (first, next, then, finally) and the terms evaporation, condensation, precipitation. The lesson uses a kettle and ice as realia, a labeled diagram, posted Tier 2 words, a paired retell with sentence frames, and an exit ticket combining a labeled diagram with two spoken sentences. The science content stays at grade level; only the language demand is scaffolded.
Traps that cost marks
- A language objective like students will understand the water cycle - that is not observable and not language.
- Simplifying the text instead of providing access to it.
- Calling only on volunteers, so the students who most need output stay silent.
- Translating everything, which removes the need to negotiate English at all.