CTEL CTEL ELD and SDAIE Methods 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which instructional scenario BEST exemplifies the SDAIE principle of 'meaningful interaction'?
- Students complete vocabulary matching worksheets independently
- ELLs are paired with English-only peers to practice academic dialogue about course content (Correct answer)
- The teacher lectures while ELLs copy notes from the board
- Students watch a video and answer multiple-choice comprehension questions
Correct answer: ELLs are paired with English-only peers to practice academic dialogue about course content
Meaningful interaction in SDAIE involves purposeful, content-focused communication that promotes both language acquisition and academic understanding through authentic dialogue.
Question 2: A teacher uses sentence starters such as 'The author argues that...' and 'Evidence from the text shows...' during a literature discussion. This SDAIE scaffold BEST supports:
- Social conversational fluency development
- Academic discourse and disciplinary language use (Correct answer)
- Phonemic awareness and decoding skills
- Assessment of reading fluency rates
Correct answer: Academic discourse and disciplinary language use
Sentence starters like these scaffold academic discourse structures and disciplinary language patterns that ELLs need to participate in content-area academic conversations.
Question 3: Which statement BEST describes the difference between BICS and CALP in the context of ELD instruction?
- BICS refers to written academic language; CALP refers to spoken social language
- BICS is conversational fluency acquired quickly; CALP is the academic language proficiency needed for school success, which takes longer to develop (Correct answer)
- BICS and CALP are interchangeable terms for English proficiency
- BICS applies only to native English speakers; CALP applies only to ELLs
Correct answer: BICS is conversational fluency acquired quickly; CALP is the academic language proficiency needed for school success, which takes longer to develop
Cummins' distinction: BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills) develops in 1-3 years, while CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) takes 5-7+ years to develop.
Question 4: A teacher notices that an ELL student speaks fluently in social settings but struggles with academic writing tasks. This student MOST likely needs support developing:
- BICS through more social interaction opportunities
- CALP through explicit instruction in academic language and discourse structures (Correct answer)
- Phonological awareness through repeated oral drills
- Conversational repair strategies for informal talk
Correct answer: CALP through explicit instruction in academic language and discourse structures
Social fluency without academic writing proficiency indicates a gap in CALP, which requires explicit instruction in the vocabulary, syntax, and discourse of academic language.
Question 5: In a SDAIE lesson, a teacher uses a KWL chart before instruction begins. The primary ELD benefit of this strategy is to:
- Assess students' grammar and writing mechanics
- Activate prior knowledge and build schema to contextualize new language and content (Correct answer)
- Organize student seating by proficiency level
- Introduce the lesson's grammar objective before reading
Correct answer: Activate prior knowledge and build schema to contextualize new language and content
KWL charts activate prior knowledge and help students connect new academic content and language to what they already know, making input more comprehensible.
Question 6: Which of the following is the MOST accurate description of Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English (SDAIE)?
- A pull-out program that removes ELLs from mainstream classrooms for English support
- An approach that makes grade-level academic content comprehensible to ELLs through scaffolding, while developing academic English (Correct answer)
- A bilingual program where content is taught equally in two languages
- An assessment system used to measure annual English language progress
Correct answer: An approach that makes grade-level academic content comprehensible to ELLs through scaffolding, while developing academic English
SDAIE is an instructional approach that uses scaffolds, modifications, and language development techniques to make grade-level content accessible to ELLs in English-medium classrooms.
Question 7: When teaching academic vocabulary using the Frayer Model in a SDAIE classroom, students are asked to provide a definition, characteristics, examples, and non-examples. This approach BEST develops:
- Phonemic awareness and decoding of new words
- Deep conceptual understanding of words and their relationships (Correct answer)
- Memorization of words for vocabulary tests
- Speed and automaticity in word recognition
Correct answer: Deep conceptual understanding of words and their relationships
The Frayer Model builds deep word knowledge by requiring students to think about multiple dimensions of a word's meaning, including what it is and is not.
CTEL CTEL ELD and SDAIE Methods 4
Which instructional scenario BEST exemplifies the SDAIE principle of 'meaningful interaction'?