I agree with Peregoy and Boyle that group work is imperative in establishing the oral skills of ELL students. I have the tendency to shy away from group work because I have bad memories from group work in High school. My teachers would tell us to get into groups, without providing explicit instruction, and I would often be stuck with the entire assignment. I like the idea of doing jigsaws when there is a lot of reading to be done. Rather than overwhelming ELL students with multiple readings, it helps both their reading and oral skills to summarize and explain the article to someone else. While working at LEAP, I have found that summarizing material is a difficult task for many ELL students. They do not know the key points from their reading. Doing jigsaw activities would help students to become better readers and better speakers. I do think that doing a jigsaw in base groups should be scaffolded and not just thrown at students one day.

I also like the idea of doing collaborative groups. Peregoy and Boyle suggest that each student should have a role in a group. I definitely agree. I think my experiences in high school with group work was negative, because we did not do collaborative group work. In college, I had a Professor who did collaborative work weakly. We had four main roles in the group: devil’s advocate, expert, secretary, and leader. I believe that this sort of group is what Peregoy and Boyle had in mind. Each role had its own positives and negatives, and students were clearly instructed in what their role entailed.

It is interesting to consider how interrelated the three methods of instruction are. Differentiated Instruction, Content Based Instruction, and Sheltered Instruction seem to be very effective when placed in conversation with each other. All three of these methods should be utilized in an effective lesson. Sometimes it is overwhelming for me to think about how much I need to think about as a novice teacher. I am confident that it will get easier as I get more comfortable with the different methods.