High challenge, high support: Integrating language and content instruction for diverse learners in anEnglish literature classroom

Abstract

This study presents an argument for a high-challenge, high-support approach to meeting the requirements
of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. To back up my claims, I used a public
high school English literature curriculum in Australia that was created for a class of seventh grade males.
Although they were competent academically, the students in the program needed continuous English
language assistance due to their varied socio-cultural and linguistic origins. They were all members of a
"mainstream" class and were required to engage in full content teaching of all important curriculum areas,
even though they were all ESL students. This paper delves into the ways in which a teacher used socially
orientated theories of language and learning to describe the difficulty students encountered when
attempting to use academic language in a mainstream curriculum unit on Romeo and Juliet. The methods
in which the instructor integrated linguistic and subject instruction into her classes are what I'm referring
about. Students were able to grasp and emotionally interact with the Unit's cognitively demanding
curricular material because of her abilities to teach language explicitly and to integrate theatre into the
Unit. Instead of the usual reaction of changing the curriculum to accommodate ESL students, I think the
teacher's strategy of incorporating ESL learning into the regular curriculum was a good and productive
alternative.