1. Pulling them out of their classes makes them feel dumb. They are isolated from their peers and they are made to feel that they have disabilities.
2. They benefit from interactions with native-English-speaking peers. If they are in sheltered ELD classes all day, they have little time for this benefit, and copy each other’s linguistic errors.
3. Every classroom would run more efficiently with two certified teachers in the room to help all students. So the ELLs are not the only students who benefit.
4. Content-area teachers need more support on sheltered instruction techniques. How is any administrator or ELD teacher supposed to support them without being able to regularly participate in their classrooms?
5. The ELD teacher becomes more familiar with the curricula that the ELLs struggle with, therefore is better able to assist them with assignments and make appropriate testing modifications.
6. Speaking of testing modifications, when the ELD teacher is in the content area classroom with the ELLs, s/he can pull the ELLs out to read tests aloud to them, one of the most effective accommodations of all, and one that ELLs rarely benefit from receiving because there is just one classroom teacher and thirty students to watch.
7. The ELD teacher can work with the classroom teacher in parallel teaching scenarios, each working with small groups and focusing on different skills. This benefits lower-level students, such as special education students and ELLs, as well as higher-level students who rarely have the benefit of being challenged.
8. All teachers become more effective when they regularly observe and work with other teachers who may or may not have different approaches and teaching styles. Since teachers are rarely given opportunities to view their colleagues’ styles, co-teaching helps each of the co-teachers improve his/her skills and gain new ideas.
9. ELLs are confronted with a more challenging curriculum from day one. While at first they will be behind their native-English peers, in the long run this will benefit their education because they will not be pulled into a sheltered class with only other ELLs that is often dumbed down. This way, when they exit out of the ELL program, they don’t feel that they are grade levels behind their peers.
10. ELLs will be ETERNALLY grateful to actually have help from their ELL teacher in their content classes where they would otherwise be swimming upstream. This helps build rapport and trust that will last years.