We provide and discuss essential criteria for designing class projects to promote the language acquisition, content-knowledge development, literacy skills, and critical thinking skills of ELLs with limited or interrupted education. We demonstrate how to use these criteria and provide a checklist for teachers to use in preparing their own materials.

1. Designing Successful Projects
for ELLs with
Limited/Interrupted Formal
Education
TESOL Convention
New Orleans March 17, 2011
Andrea DeCapua and Helaine W. Marshall

2. Students with Limited or
Interrupted Formal
Education
SLIFE

3. Needs of SLIFE
• Learn basic & grade-level subject
area concepts
• Develop basic literacy skills
• Develop academic ways of thinking
• Adapt to cultural differences in
learning and teaching

4. U.S. teachers and learners assume that:
1. the goals of K-12 instruction are
a) to prepare that learner for life after
schooling
b) to produce an independent learner
2. the learner brings along
a) an urge to compete and excel as an
individual
b) age-appropriate preparation for
(i) literacy development
(ii) academic tasks
(DeCapua & Marshall, 2011)

5. SLIFE
• Do not always see the immediate
relevance of school learning
• Generally come from collectivistic
cultures
• Do not have age-appropriate literacy
& academic skills preparation

6. (Ibarra, 2001)

7. Mutually Adaptive Learning
Paradigm – MALP©
• Instructional Model
• Elements from students’ learning paradigm
• Elements from U.S. learning paradigm
• Transitional approach to close achievement
gap
(DeCapua & Marshall, 2011)

8. Interconnectedness Independence
Shared Individual
Responsibility Accountability
with
Pragmatic Academic
Tasks Tasks

9. Bringing the two worlds
together:
MALP©
and
Project-Based Learning

10. Mrs. Aquino
• Secondary ESL teacher of SLIFE
• Approached by social studies teacher
concerned about SLIFE in her
mainstream class
• Mrs. Aquino trained in MALP
• Develops Timelines project

11. Mrs. Aquino’s Timeline
Project: Birthdays
• Importance placed on birthdays not
universal
• SLIFE may
• be unaware of actual birthday and/or
• have been assigned approximate one for
arrival in U.S.
(DeCapua & Marshall, 2011)

12. Steps in the Project
1. Background lessons
• months of the year
• cardinal and ordinal numbers from 1-31
2. Word wall
• birthday
• celebrate

13. Steps in the Project
3. Individual small poster with two
sentence frames; students work in pairs
to complete posters
Sentence Frames
My birthday is on the _______________ day of
_________________.
My birthday is __________ ___________.

14. Steps in the Project
4. Standing in a row
• Refer to individual posters
• Partners decide whose birthday comes
first
• All students arrange themselves
physically into class timeline

15. Steps in the Project
5. But teacher, 3 birthdays in
November!”
“Whose birthday comes first? Check your
posters.”
Reinforces:
• cardinal number recognition and practice
• comparing and contrasting

16. Steps in the Project
6. Oral timeline practice
• Students remain standing
• One-by-one say date of their birthday
• Mrs. Aquino enters each date on large
blank timeline

17. Steps in the Project
7. Teacher’s birthday
• Mrs. Aquino tells students her birthday
• Students decide where she should stand
in their timeline
8. Students say dates and months while
looking at & pointing to timeline on
board

18. ©
Mutually Adaptive Learning Paradigm – MALP
Teacher Planning Checklist
A. Accept Conditions for Learning
A1. I am making this lesson/project immediately relevant to students.
A2. I am helping students develop and maintain interconnectedness.
B. Combine Processes for Learning
B1. I am incorporating shared responsibility and individual accountability.
B2. I am scaffolding the written word through oral interaction.
C. Focus on New Activities for Learning
C1. I am focusing on tasks requiring academic ways of thinking.
C2. I am making these tasks accessible with familiar language and content.
DeCapua, A. & Marshall. H. W. (2011). Breaking new ground: Teaching English learners
with limited or interrupted formal education in US secondary schools. Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan Press.

19. More about MALP©?
Our wiki is http://malp.pbworks.com
Andrea DeCapua adecapua@cnr.edu
Helaine W. Marshall helaine.marshall@liu.edu
SlideShare Event: TESOL 2011

20. Selected References
• DeCapua, A. & Marshall. H. W. (2011). Breaking new ground:
Teaching English learners with limited or interrupted formal
education in US secondary schools. Ann Arbor, MI: University
of Michigan Press.
• DeCapua, A. & Marshall, H.W. (2011). Reaching ELLs at risk:
Instruction for students with limited/interrupted formal
education. Preventing School Failure, 55, 35-41.
• DeCapua, A., & Marshall, H. W. (2010a). Limited formally
schooled English language learners in U.S. classrooms. Urban
Review, 42, 159-173.
• DeCapua, A. & Marshall, H.W. (2010b). Serving ELLs with
limited or interrupted education: Intervention that works.
TESOL Journal, 1, 49-70.

21. References (cont’d)
• DeCapua, A., Smathers, W. & Tang, F. (2007).
Addressing the challenges and needs of students with
interrupted formal education (SIFE). Educational Policy &
Leadership, 65, 40–46.
• Marshall, H.W. & DeCapua A. 2010). The newcomer
booklet: A Project for
limited formally schooled students. ELT Journal, 64.
396-404.
• Marshall, H.W., DeCapua, A., & Antolini, C. (2010)
Building literacy for
SIFE through social studies. Educator’s Voice, 3, 56-65.
• Marshall, H. W. (1998). A mutually adaptive learning
paradigm (MALP) for Hmong students. Cultural Circles,
3, 134-141.