Cost of effective instruction

[halsto64]

Reading that there are seven official models of ELL classrooms in elementary and secondary schools makes me wonder which model would be best in my school. Approximately 15% of the students in my K-3 suburban school are identified ELLs. There are even more unidentified, as many of our students initially 'tested out' and do not formally receive services. I believe that a sheltered English model would best serve our students. Our school currently offers a submersion model, where the students are submerged into main content areas with a regular education teacher. Several months ago, a daily pull-out program was implemented. Our ESL teacher spends much time trying to “catch up” her students by teaching them vocabulary, content and language skills needed for the students to succeed in their classrooms. However, if a sheltered English classroom model was utilized from the beginning, the classroom teacher would regularly implement appropriate instructional strategies. The partner teacher could/would provide more in depth support while initial instruction is occurring. I think this would be more effective. Unfortunately, the cost to implement this model would be so much. To help reduce costs, I suppose our school could have all of the ELL students in one classroom, and each grade level could have a partner teacher during instructional time only. Perhaps then only two ELL specialists would be needed a day in my school. I wonder what the legal implications would be though, for having ELL students intentionally segregated in one classroom. Additionally, I am not sure that this approach would truly reach all ELL students in my school, as I mentioned earlier that many of the students who still struggle technically tested out. I wonder about other schools who have successfully implemented sheltered English instructional models and what cost cutting methods they used.