ABSTRACT
The tide of immigration in the last three decades has brought a rich cultural diversity to American schools. Many school age children come to school speaking a language other than English (Diaz-Rico & Weed, 1995). Diaz-Rico and Weed (1995) report that the U.S. Department of Education estimated that 2.3 million students out of the 40.5 million students in public and private schools have limited English proficiency. In response to this demographic shift of the student population in the public schools, multicultural education is intended to provide equal opportunity for students to achieve academic success regardless of their ethnic, cultural, or linguistic backgrounds. This paper specifically focuses on using the sheltered instructional approach, within the framework of multicultural education, to address the linguistic and cultural needs of students who do not speak English as a first language. A tropical rain forests thematic unit, discussed below, was developed to illustrate how K-12 classroom teachers can incorporate a multicultural curriculum in teaching academic content and English to second language learners. The first part of the paper presents a theoretical framework for using the sheltered instruction approach from a multicultural perspective. The second part discusses the steps of instructional sequences referred to as Into, Through, and Beyond. Examples of instructional strategies will be utilized at each stage. In addition, their rationale in supporting the theoretical framework will be provided.
