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This website lists the benefits of providing ELL-structured formative assessments.

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The terms summative and formative assessments may be words typically associated with traditional schooling. However, they don't need to stay in traditional subject classrooms. Summative and formative assessments can be used to facilitate English language acquisition. They offer benefits to both English language students and teachers toward accomplishing language goals. We'll explain how in today's blog.
About us: Established in 2003, OnTESOL offers accredited online TESOL courses with unique lesson plan lab assignments and live workshop sessions.

Summative Assessments

Summative assessments are those typical end-of-course, end-of-semester, end-of-term tests we encounter in elementary and high school. These tests tell teachers, administrators, educational authorities, and parents whether learners achieved educational objectives during the term or course of study.

Summative assessments typically used at the end of a course of instruction to determine if the goals of a curriculum were achieved. They can be anything from the end of term assessments, research papers, standardized tests, and the like. As such, they measure longer periods of time and cover multiple learning objectives.

So, how can we, as English teachers use summative assessments to our advantage in ESL classrooms? One way is using them to determine how well learners acquired the language within a course. If, for example, the goal of a six-week English language program is for learners to be able to use English in six everyday activities (e.g., shopping at the mall, going to the dentist, flight travel, going to the doctor, eating out, and taking public transportation), they can be used to measure if learners have met this course goal.

Along those lines, summative assessments can also be used to measure learning for each element of the same course. The bottom line is, summative assessments are formal tests used to understand and quantify learner achievement of objectives. Summative assessments provide those grades and or percentages we see after student names. And, they're often cause for stress in these same students. But it doesn't have to be that way if we're aware of and can convey the benefits.

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Benefits for Students

1) Summative assessments offer an opportunity to refresh students' memories of what they previously learned.

2) Summative assessments reinforce the overall learning objectives of the course.

3) Summative assessments provide a snapshot for class members to see if they know the collective language points or not.

4) Summative assessments can tell learners if they should proceed to the next level.
By helping learners understand these points, we may be able to reduce their apprehension. Then, class members may be more apt to look forward to these times. As they prepare, remind learners of areas they may have forgotten or that need a little more focus.

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Benefits for English Teachers

1) Teachers and academic managers can use the results of summative assessments to guide their decisions for future curriculum development.

2) Summative assessments can help indicate overall progress and show if moving forward is practical.

3) Use summative assessments to demonstrate if learning has been achieved quantitatively. Use those measurable numbers to provide facts and figures to anyone who may want to inquire as to the effectiveness of a course of instruction.

Formative Assessments

Formative assessments, on the other hand, are tools that we can use to check how well students learned the material. They can be in the form of quizzes or assignments, games, group activities, projects, reports, presentations, progress checks, simple question and answer sessions, and so on. They help teachers measure in micro terms whether individual lessons, modules, goals, or short-term objectives have been met.

As English language teachers, we can use formative assessments like surgical instruments in language learning. They help us keep learners on the path toward language acquisition goals of the curriculum. We can also use results from formative assessments to make adjustments.
Finally, we can use formative assessments to enhance language acquisition by helping learners check individual progress within individual lessons.

Benefits for Students

1) Use formative assessments with regularity (e.g., a quiz every Friday). This way you can use them to provide an element of stability for learners.

2) Since formative assessments can take many forms, they can also break up the monotony of traditional classroom environments where the teach-test-teach system prevails.

3) Formative assessments do not require traditional numbered or lettered grades. They can simply be pass or fail, or even labeled with colors, stars, or other indicators. This takes some of the stress from learners and allows them to simply focus on language acquisition instead of grades.

4) Formative assessments reinforce language acquisition.

Benefits for English Teachers

1) We can use formative assessments to adjust our teaching methods or strategies.

2) Formative assessments can help us recognize weak areas. Since classrooms are groups, not all learners are at the same place. And, a private class is only one of many. So, we cannot put every learner into a one-size-fits-all approach. Formative assessments help identify those individual weak areas.

3) Formative assessments can help us identify problem areas more immediately than summative assessments - before it's too late to adjust.

4) Formative assessments can take any form. As such, they allow a great amount of flexibility for you, the teacher.

5) Formative tests help paint pictures of learning in a course of instruction. This allows you to make adjustments. And, they are different than summative tests which are more like taking photographs - it's too late to change anything once the photo's been taken.

6) Formative assessments help us see patterns in instruction that may need to be adjusted.

7) Formative assessments can help us decide whether to move forward or stay a little longer on a particular language point.

Read: Assessment and Evaluation in the ESL Classroom

Parting Thoughts

Which one is better? Formative or Summative Assessments? As English teachers, we don't always need to shy away from traditional classroom methods of assessment. We can put them to good use. English language learners could benefit more from strategically utilizing formative assessments. On the other hand, summative assessments are quite useful in determining if language acquisition has indeed taken place over the course of instruction. Read: What Is the Difference Between Formative and Summative Assessment?

Related Posts

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Benefits of Using Summative and Formative Assessments in ESL Classrooms | OnTESOL

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The terms summative and formative assessments may be words typically associated with traditional schooling. However, they don't need to stay..

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This website from ColorinColorado gives classroom tools and examples for formative assessments.

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Using Informal Assessments for English Language Learners

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Informal assessments (also called authentic or alternative) allow teachers to track the ongoing progress of their students regularly and often. While standardized tests measure students at a particular point in the year, ongoing assessments provide continual snapshots of where students are throughout the school year.

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This resource provides assessment strategies for ELLs.

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This week's new question-of-the-week is:
What are effective assessment strategies for multilingual learners?
Assessment is a key element of teaching-we need to know where our students are in the learning process, how effective our instructional strategies have been, and if there are additional challenges we need to be aware of as we plan future lessons and student support.

Assessments, however, cannot be used in a one-size-fits-all strategy.

Today, Margo Gottlieb, Vivian Micolta Simmons, Cindy Garcia, and Karen Nemeth, Ed.M., share strategies educators can use to effectively assess English-language learners. Margo, Vivian, and Cindy were also guests on my 10-minute BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

Maximizing 'Linguistic and Cultural Equity'

Margo Gottlieb, WIDA co-founder and lead developer, introduces assessment as, for, and of learning in her 2016 book, Assessing English Language Learners: Bridges to Equity, and expands on the approaches in subsequent books, chapters, and articles. Her most current publication is Classroom Assessment in Multiple Languages: A Handbook for Teachers (Corwin, 2021):

When thinking about effective assessment strategies for multilingual learners, what if we switched our attention away from school or district scores generated from testing that leave "gaps" in student performance and revisit data through the lens of stakeholders? Let's start with a series of questions about multilingual learners, our most important stakeholders, to help position their centrality in the assessment process and provide a context for interpreting assessment data.

What are the languages, cultures, and educational backgrounds of your multilingual learners?

To what extent does your language program leverage your multilingual learners' languages and cultures in curriculum and instruction?

To what extent do your multilingual learners connect their personal interests and their home/community life to school?

The first step in planning classroom assessment is to determine its purpose. How might you prioritize the primary reasons for assessing multilingual learners in one or more languages?

Do you want to get a pulse on multilingual learners' thinking, how they are feeling, and their self-reflection on learning? Being more inclusive of students' views and encouraging student agency are features of assessment as learning.

Do you want to provide feedback to multilingual learners to move their learning forward? Acting on insight from the interaction between students and teachers during instruction reflects assessment for learning.

Do you want to contribute to programmatic or schoolwide accountability? Using student projects, performances, and products, along with uniform criteria for success formulated by teachers with input from students, are representations of assessment of learning.

Now that you have a purpose and a corresponding approach to assessment in mind, let's explore their associated effective strategies.

Assessment as learning as a classroom practice is a student-driven activity that broadcasts multilingual learners' voice, empowerment, and identity. Assessment as learning can occur face to face or online when multilingual learners interact with their peers in the language(s) of their choice to:

explore topics or issues of mutual interest

contribute to crafting classroom activities or tasks

engage in self- and peer assessment

pursue learning from their own perspectives

select preferred mode(s) of communication (e.g., oral, written, graphic, visual) for processing information and expressing learning.

Assessment for learning might begin with teacher and student conversations leading to collaboration in making mutually agreed upon learning goals. Both are keenly aware of where multilingual learners are in their learning that is anchored to grade-level academic content and language proficiency/development standards. In assessment for learning, multilingual learners interact with their teachers in English or their shared language(s) to:

co-construct criteria for success and types of acceptable evidence for their work

apply criteria for success to give criterion-referenced feedback

plan differentiated instruction for content and language learning

give feedback in real time to student performance or needs.

Assessment of learning at a classroom level is shaped by teachers, individually or as a department or grade-level team, with input from students. It represents what students have accomplished at the culmination of a period of instruction, such as a unit of learning. Assessment of learning is geared to determining student growth over time and centers on collaboration among teachers with support of school or district leaders to:

match evidence for assessment with learning targets

document extent of meeting standards for units of learning

share of learning for products, performances, or projects

guide student production of capstone projects or portfolios

Together, assessment as, for, and of learning offers a comprehensive system that optimizes opportunities for multilingual learners to participate as educators strive to maximize linguistic and cultural equity for their students.

'Formal and Informal Assessments'
Vivian Micolta Simmons was born in Colombia and has been in the U.S. for seven years. She has been a teacher for 14 years and is currently working as a ESL/DLI lead teacher for the Iredell-Statesville schools in N.C:
When assessing my culturally and linguistically diverse students, I always like to think about my own experience as a language learner. We all function differently; we are all smart with certain dominant areas or language skills. For instance, I consider myself good at speaking and pronunciation, but writing is an area where I need extra help. That does not mean that I cannot produce in a second language. It only means that I need to polish specific language skills.

I like to rely on both formal and informal assessments and make my recommendations-to homeroom teachers and parents-based on the data I can gather from these instruments.

Listening and reading activities, writing prompts (that provide sentence starters), formal and informal conversations (my favorite), and role-plays are some of my preferred activities to assess my students.

Pop quizzes, games, note-sketching, prior knowledge questions, video recordings (like Flipgrid), and formal pretests and post-tests are all part of my assessment arsenal. You can pick and choose from a great selection of data-collection options. For sure, I loathe paper-pencil assessment as the only performance measurement (for children and adults). They do not show what we are all capable of in terms of language production.

Rubrics, Portfolios, & Conferences
Cindy Garcia has been a bilingual educator for 15 years and is currently a districtwide specialist for PK-6 bilingual/ESL mathematics. She is active on Twitter @CindyGarciaTX and on her blog:
When assessing multilingual learners, teachers have to keep in mind both content and language. Teachers also have to be focused about what they assess and academic-language development might not always be something they need to assess.

Rubrics can be an effective way to assess student understanding because there are multiple indicators that students are trying to meet. Rubrics are also a good tool for assessing multilingual learners because they provide a consistent criterion for grading when tasks or projects might be subjective. This criterion helps teachers ignore other factors and use only the criteria in the rubric to assess student learning. Instead of multiple-choice type of assessment where there is only one correct response, a rubric allows the teacher to pinpoint what the student is understanding and what the student has yet to master. A rubric has a rating scale that provides the teacher with a way to provide feedback for students that will help them think about their work, ask questions, seek clarification, and improve their work. Rubrics also help students take ownership of their learning, because they are able to use the rubric to evaluate their work before they submit it for grading.

Portfolios are another great way to assess multilingual learners because the teacher is able to see evidence of student work and learning for a longer period of time than an end-of-unit assessment. This allows the teacher to see if the students "got it" right away and have they been able to "keep it" for longer than the length of the unit of instruction. When compiling a student portfolio, there are usually multiple pieces of evidence or student work for each concept, standard, or topic. Student-work samples could be writing prompts, a project, multiple-choice test, etc. This means that student portfolios also show a clearer picture of how a student learns.

Another effective strategy to assess multilingual learners is student-teacher conferences. Conferring with students provides students the opportunity to explain and share what they have learned without the usual stress of completing a formal test. Conferring also allows the teacher to provide more authentic feedback because it's real-time feedback that addresses student questions, wonderings, or misconceptions. Conferring makes it easier for the teacher to focus the conversation just on content, academic-language development, or another area. The goal of each conference can be focused on the precise needs of each student and provide the specific data that teachers need to plan for instruction.

'Portfolio-Based Assessment'
Karen Nemeth, Ed.M., is an author, consultant, and advocate focusing on early-childhood education for ELLs/DLLs. She has leadership roles in NAEYC, NABE, and TESOL. She hosts a resource website, Language Castle:
Developmentally appropriate assessment strategies for young English-/dual-language learners do not focus on one-shot test scores. The truth is, 4- and 5-year-old children are just not that interested in displaying their knowledge on demand. Terms like portfolio, sampling, and multiple measures guide best practices for the early years.

Children who are developing multiple languages have separate language systems for each of their languages. They learn some content in one language and some content in the other language. Even if they seem very strong in English, they may not have English words for all of the knowledge they've developed in their other language(s).

It is important to provide all screening and assessment in both of their languages. Further, the bilingual brain does not function the same way as two monolingual brains. According to research, the best screening and assessment tools would be designed specifically for bilingual thinkers and would capture what they know and can do in both of their languages. These kinds of tools are not available with sufficient quality and in the variety of languages needed. Kindergarten-entry assessments and other district-mandated monolingual assessments are not very accurate for young children who are multilingual learners. The best approach is to gather data about a child's skills and knowledge through a variety of measures over time. I like to say that, in the early years, assessment is not a score, it's a folder. Scores might be in the folder along with lots of other information that teachers can use to chart a child's progress and determine their learning needs.

The solution recommended by most experts is to practice portfolio-based assessment. Instead of focusing on a snapshot or numeric score, portfolios allow teachers to gather authentic evidence about what each child understands and talks about. Portfolio-assessment software is available with some curriculum models or as independent products. They may include prompts, benchmarks, and a variety of ways to enter data on an ongoing basis.

It is very important that teachers should be allowed to use phones or tablets to record language and activity at any time during the day. This is critical for multilingual learners because it is the most accurate way to fully capture what the children actually say when they are talking in a language that is unfamiliar to the teacher. It is also critical that teacher assistants who are bilingual must be carefully prepared to participate in the assessment process as they may be the only adults who have home-language interactions with some of the bilingual children.

Information obtained from families can be another important component of the assessment process. A teacher might not ask the parents of a 7 th grader about how they are doing with algebra at home, but many preschool and kindergarten children show advances in language and learning at home that may not be evident in the classroom. For example, a shy English-learner may not participate in singing activities at school but the family might send a video of the child singing happily with sophisticated lyrics at home. Young children may not always perform on demand or in expected ways at school. Families can also provide cultural context and information about the young child's interests that help the teacher scaffold learning for each individual child. Multiple measures over an array of activities and times of day will make it possible for young children to show more accurately what they know and can do-and what they are ready to do next.

Thanks to Margo, Vivian, Cindy, and Karen for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.
Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email (The RSS feed for this blog, and for all Ed Week articles, has been changed by the new redesign-new ones won't be available until February). And if you missed any of the highlights from the first nine years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. I am also creating a Twitter list including all contributors to this column.
You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo.

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It's titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching.

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Four educators share practical assessment strategies to support English-language learners.

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This LinkedIn website gives six helpful steps for how to give summative assessments to ELLs

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How can you use summative assessment to help ESL students succeed?

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Learn how to use summative assessment effectively in your ESL classroom. Find out how to choose, communicate, provide, use, celebrate, and involve summative assessment.

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This website gives good examples of what vocabulary to use when teaching english language learners math.

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Designing Productive Mathematical Talk: Supporting English Learner Students

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Experts from WestEd’s Quality Teaching for English Learners initiative describe why incorporating opportunities for effective dialogue with peers is essential for effective math teaching and learning.

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This website gives useful and helpful tips to help elevate ELL math achievement.

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Math has often been called "the universal language." While it's true that numbers work the same way regardless of the language you speak, teachers cannot assume that their English language learners (ELLs) will automatically excel in math for this reason alone.

Language proficiency is also closely related to the development of strong mathematical skills. Kristina Roberston writes, " Solving word problems, following instructions, understanding and using mathematical vocabulary correctly - all of these skills require a language proficiency...We tend to think of mathematics as a subject that does not require a strong command of language. In reality, however, mathematical reasoning and problem-solving are closely linked to language and rely upon a firm understanding of basic math vocabulary (Dale & Cuevas, 1992; Jarret, 1999)."

This blog will discuss specific ELL math best practices and math instructional strategies that you can use to boost student learning.

4 Best Practices for ELL Math Instruction

According to data from the US Department of Education's Academic Performance and Outcomes for English Learners, overall ELL performance in math has been significantly below the performance of native speakers.

For ELL students to fully participate in the math classroom, teachers must employ strategies to promote both their academic and linguistic development. The following best practices can help you support your ELLs' mastery of math skills.

1. Scaffold your instruction

As you consider how to engage students in math lessons, it's important to provide your ELLs with support in navigating the linguistic challenges of math. Jeanine Harvey, director of multilingual learner academics at The New Teacher Project says, " We know from our work that multilingual learners do not have the same access to grade-level assignments as their peers...All students could engage with grade-level assignments with the right supports. "

Scaffolding instructional strategies for math may involve the following:

Providing visuals.

Allowing students to work in pairs or small groups.

Modeling and thinking aloud during instruction.

Using manipulatives.

Giving students word banks.

By providing intentional and strategic instructional scaffolding, your ELL students will be more engaged and experience more growth.

All students benefit from instruction that incorporates a variety of learning modalities. Research has shown that when auditory, visual, and kinesthetic methods are combined, students retain information better.

Though all students benefit from hands-on learning activities, they are particularly important for ELLs. According to The National Math Foundation, " By 2009, Mulalic (et al.) discovered that the kinesthetic learning style was the most preferred learning style among ESL students. Studies in 1987, 1990, 1993, 1997, and 2001 reported that adult L2 immigrants and ESL students in the US favor kinesthetic styles over all others (Gilakjani, 2012)."

While there are many ways to incorporate kinesthetic activities in your ELL math instruction, manipulatives are one of the most powerful tools you can use to support your ELLs. Although they are often thought of as math tools for elementary students, they can be used with students at any level.

Manipulatives provide a common language for students to communicate their thought processes. This is especially important for newcomer ELLs, whose expressive English language skills are starting to develop.

When you're teaching math to ELLs, it's important to consider how you can deepen their understanding of math concepts as well as encourage their language skills.

However, your ELL students face a significant cognitive load during instruction in content areas- they're simultaneously learning a new language and new skills. It's important to minimize their cognitive load while maintaining academic rigor.

A student's proficiency in a language is dependent on both production and comprehension. ELL students' receptive language skills generally develop more quickly than their expressive language skills.

Teachers need to intentionally help them increase their language production. You can do this through scaffolding and supportive language practices, like those below.

Allow students to use their native language alongside English.
Doing so can help you gain an understanding of what students know in their native language and will help in making connections with prior knowledge.

Provide students with sentence frames for a math discussion.
For example, "I know that this is a ______ because it has ______ line segments and _____ vertices."

Create opportunities for low-stakes discussion through activities like think-pair-share.
Jeff Zwiers, a senior researcher at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and the director of professional development for the Understanding Language initiative, stresses the importance of giving ELLs time to talk with each other and ask questions. Zwiers states, "Very few kids will raise their hand and say 'Can you explain that?' to the teacher, particularly multilingual learners, who need it the most, they won't do that. But with one other person, it's a safer setting."

4. Focus on word problems

As word problems become increasingly difficult over time, it's important to note that reading skills play a vital role in math.

Brenda Krick-Morales writes, " Word problems in mathematics often pose a challenge because they require that students read and comprehend the text of the problem, identify the question that needs to be answered, and finally create and solve a numerical equation - ELLs who have had formal education in their home countries generally do not have mathematical difficulties; hence, their struggles begin when they encounter word problems in a second language that they have not yet mastered (Bernardo, 2005)."

When using word problems with ELL students, it's important to consider the following questions:

What background knowledge do my students need to have to understand this problem?

Are there any multiple-meaning words or phrases that my ELL students may not be familiar with in this problem?

Will my students need to distinguish between necessary and unnecessary information in this problem?

High-Impact Strategies to Teach ELL Math Vocabulary

Vocabulary instruction plays a key role in ELL math achievement. ELLs need explicit, intentional vocabulary instruction to successfully gain math skills.

Focus on academic vocabulary

Math is full of challenging words like quadrilateral and vertices -and your ELL students may or may not have a prior understanding of these concepts in their native language.

ELL students benefit from pre-teaching academic vocabulary terms in a lesson, as it provides them with a foundation of understanding. It is also important to give them multiple exposures to math words-research on vocabulary development shows that students retain vocabulary better when they learn words in context rather than in isolation.

The following ideas can help you develop and reinforce academic math vocabulary:

Use a math word wall with visuals for ELLs.

Create personal "word walls" customized for math vocabulary.

Use precise vocabulary when discussing terms AND give a kid-friendly definition.

Incorporate graphic organizers to help students develop and expand their understanding of word meanings.

Get creative with teaching definitions-give students numbers and have them line up from least to greatest or give students string and call out different shapes for them to create. You can have a little fun while engaging your students in different learning styles.

Teach "tricky words"

Math vocabulary includes both specific terminology and everyday words that have different meanings in the context of math. Take a look at the example below:

Did the student "find x"? Technically, yes!

Words like "face," "table," and "carry" (and even the word "and!") have different meanings when they're used in math. Provide your ELL students with many opportunities to practice using these tricky words in the context of math.

Don't forget about homophones

Whether you're a native speaker or new to English, homophones can present a challenge. Many math vocabulary words are homophones: some and sum, raise and rays, won and one, wait and weight...the list goes on!

Consider creating a chart for your ELLs to reference to help them differentiate between common homophones.

Math and language skills are inextricably linked. By keeping language in mind when you plan your ELL math instruction, you can help your students develop important math skills.

Check out our Marvelous Math Pinterest board for engaging math ideas and support for students in all grades!

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Elevate ELL Math Achievement With These Top Tips and Strategies | Continental Educational Publisher

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This blog will discuss specific ELL math best practices and math instructional strategies that you can use to boost student learning.

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This website helps give preparation an engaging social studies lesson for ELLs.

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Consider the following scenario:

A fifth-grade teacher was preparing her class to learn about the American Revolution. She enlisted the students' help in acting out the events that led to the Revolution with elaborate props and exercises. When the class ended, the students were told they would read more about the Revolution the following day. As they left the room, an ESL student stopped and asked urgently, "But who won?"

This situation highlights some of the challenges that teachers face when helping English language learners, or ELLs, master social studies content:

Background knowledge
ELLs may not have the same background knowledge that their peers have or that textbook authors take for granted, as explained in this video clip with ELL teacher Amber Prentice.

Different perspectives
ELLs bring their own valuable and important experiences to the classroom. Often those experiences can be connected to the content in meaningful ways; however, if different points of view or ideas aren't expressed or identified, students may miss key concepts and ideas in the lesson.

Academic language and vocabulary
ELLs must learn the academic language and vocabulary needed to comprehend and produce new content - all while learning the new content and concepts at the same time!

For content-area teachers with limited experience working with ELLs, planning a lesson that engages them and helps them learn new material may seem daunting. The good news is that there are a number of ways to engage ELLs with social studies content and draw on their own unique background knowledge and perspectives. This article will describe some strategies for planning social studies lessons with ELLs in mind.

In addition, I recommend taking a look at the following resources:

Note: Lesson Planning to Ensure Optimal Engagement of ELLs (Chapter 2 of Teaching English Language Learners Across the Content Areas), is available online and provides a number of helpful resources, including a checklist for modifying lesson plans for ELLs. In addition, Appendix Two of the book (not available online) provides a lesson modification worksheet.

Lesson Planning Strategies

Identify key concepts necessary for understanding the lesson

When choosing your key concepts, keep in mind the following:

Background knowledge
ELLs with limited or interrupted schooling may not have that same level of knowledge as their peers, especially when it comes to historical or cultural topics. When starting a new lesson, look for references or concepts that may need to be explicitly explained.

Language proficiency
Students may already possess content knowledge that they cannot yet demonstrate in English. Look for opportunities to make associations between students' experiences and new content.

Perspective
Students may have a different perspective on the content than their peers. These differences provide an important opportunity for class discussion and learning as long as they are handled in a sensitive and respectful ways.

In addition, plan to find out what students know about the topic you are teaching before getting started. This will help you fill in gaps and build on prior knowledge. A great tool for this activity is a Circle Map, in which you place the main topic in a small circle and add student ideas in a bigger circle around the topic. You may wish to allow ELLs to use their native language with peers for a quick brainstorm before presenting their ideas to the whole class.

Identify content and language objectives

These objectives are a great way to focus on the most important information and language structures you want your students to master. Content objectives focus on the material while language objectives focus on vocabulary or language structures that students should be able to use throughout the lesson (Haynes and Zacarian, 28).

Think about how you are going to:

introduce these concepts using simple language,

break the concepts down into the most basic elements,

keep the objectives visible to students during the unit (i.e., post them on the board or provide a simple outline to keep in binders).

Identify key vocabulary and academic vocabulary

Identify key terms, words, idioms and phrases - TWIPS, according to Dr. Zacarian (19). Choose the vocabulary that your students need to know in order to support their reading development and content-area learning, in addition to key content vocabulary. Remember to prepare student-friendly definitions for TWIPS ahead of time. It may be helpful to look at other social studies vocabulary lists as well.

In addition:

Look for problem areas
Clarify potential areas of confusion, such as homonyms or words with more than one meaning.

Include signal and directional words
Remember that students may also need explicit instruction in signal or directional words ("because" and "explain"), especially those words that are likely to appear frequently in the content materials or activities.

Don't overlook the basic words
There may be many words used through a lesson that native English-speaking students will understand but that ELLs don't know. Keep an eye out for these words, no matter how basic, and make a list of words that your students have questions about so that you can refer back to it when teaching the lesson in the future.

Use visuals and manipulatives when possible
Having a visual reference for new words is particularly helpful for ELLs.

Keep words visible and accessible to students
Post words on a word wall, or try using a "portable word wall" chart that students can put in their binder. The chart might include categories such as new words, old words, people, everyday words, words to review, etc. (Haynes and Zacarian, 59-60).

Remember to include lots of student practice
For students to really know a word, they must use it - or they will lose it. Use new words in class discussions or outside of class in other contexts if appropriate, such as on field trips. Give the students as many opportunities to use and master the new vocabulary as possible, both in writing and speaking activities. You may find this six-step process for teaching academic vocabulary from Dr. Robert Marzano helpful.

Prepare to preview the text

One strategy is a "chapter walk", where students predict what the chapter will be about based on pictures and highlighted features of the textbook.

An activity like this may take some time at first because it's time-consuming to teach. If you use it with regularity, however, it will become easier and quicker, and students will be able to do this on their own at the beginning of a new chapter.

You can also use the "BIG FOX" strategy, published by McGraw-Hill. This graphic organizer helps students pick out important terms and pieces of information before reading. I recommend practicing this strategy with some simple readings about familiar topics before jumping in with the textbook. The students will understand the strategy better if they start out with concepts that they understand.

Prepare multimedia, visuals, and related readings

These resources can be used to build background knowledge and provide context for ELLs, especially when students are learning new concepts and words. Ideas include:

Using photos from books, magazines, or the Internet to supplement textbooks.

Showing brief, focused video clips of history or social studies programs.

Listening to a short podcast or radio clip of an interview or speech.

Discussing additional readings such as related articles, poems, letters, and graphic novels.

Enlist native language support when possible

These strategies can help students identify content they already know, or master new concepts before transferring those ideas and learning how to express them in English:

Collaborate with a bilingual paraprofessional and identify areas where bilingual language support will be most helpful.

Look for related content materials in the students' native language from publishers like Scholastic or National Geographic/Cengage.

Plan group work in which students can use their native language with peers to discuss main ideas or vocabulary words.

Plan to include group work throughout the unit

Peer learning activities such as Reciprocal Teaching and Think-Pair-Share can be powerful tools for engaging ELLs with content learning.

Use modeling and clear instructions to ensure students understand:

how the activity works

their role in group work

the objective of the activity

any key vocabulary or phrases they should be using.

Here are some other tips on group work for ELLs from Haynes and Zacarian:

Assign students group roles that match their language ability (37).

Promote students to new roles as their language skills improve (42).

Make sure that mainstream students understand that they will be working in diverse groups, and that everyone's contributions are important (41).

Keep an eye on the balance of student participation; if some students are speaking more than others, ask them to think of some ways to even participation out (42).

Ask students to reflect on their group work after they have finished an activity. Haynes and Zacarian include a chart in their book with some guiding statements for student reflection (48).

Plan plenty of opportunities for students to interact with the content

Give students lots of opportunities to engage with and review the material in different ways:

Graphic organizers
Use graphic organizers to review key concepts and vocabulary words.

Flash cards
Have students make their own flash cards with pictures, definitions, key facts, etc.

Working with the text
Teach students to underline, highlight, and make notes. You may also find that sticky notes, Wikki Stix, and highlighting tape are a big hit with students (68). According to Haynes, some school districts order extra textbooks for their ELL classes so that teachers can keep a highlighted copy on hand as a student reference.

Use acting
Have the students write skits about the material they are learning, or create an activity in which students provide a physical representation of a particular event or vocabulary word.

Be creative and flexible with writing assignments

Writing can be an important way for students to show what they've learned:

Be creative and flexible
When choosing writing activities for students, be creative and open to different ways for students to express their new knowledge. I have seen students successfully convey what they learned by writing letters, poems, news articles and mosaics with vocabulary key points. Writing an essay may be more difficult for ELLs, and although they need to learn how to write a good essay eventually, they should be allowed to demonstrate their learning through a variety of writing activities.

Look for writing exercises that relate to the topic at hand
This may include a biography or autobiography, a letter from the point of view of a historical figure, or a short news article about a famous event.

Provide models
Give ELLs explicit structures and sentence frames to follow. Frames may vary in complexity and specificity, but they will help students to model correct structures and usage from the beginning.

Plan to adapt homework and assessment as needed

While it's important to have high expectations of ELLs, it is also important to have realistic expectations of the amount of work they can do. Haynes and Zacarian note, "The teacher's goal should be to making learning accessible and meaningful for every student without lowering expectations or sacrificing rigor" (104-105).

They continue in Chapter 7 of their book to provide a number of helpful rubrics and step-by-step procedures for evaluating your homework and assessment activities with ELLs in mind. In Twenty-Five Quick Tips for Classroom Teachers, Haynes suggests that teachers "adjust homework assignment to your ELLs' English language proficiency (and) modify assessment so that your ELLs have an opportunity to show what they have learned."

As you look for ways to help your students learn this new content, remember that you aren't just teaching them required social studies standards - you are helping your students adjust to a new life and country. That preparation has a potentially significant ripple effect because your students may be helping their own parents navigate this new country as well, and they may need to prepare for a U.S. Citizenship exam one day in the future.

Through social studies lessons, you also can prepare your students to be engaged and well-informed participants in our society and democracy, an opportunity they might not have had in their own country due to their religion, gender, or ethnicity. When you think about it that way, teaching ELLs to master new social studies content is so much more than adapting a lesson plan - it's a chance to prepare a new generation of young people to lead us into the future.

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Preparing an Engaging Social Studies Lesson for English Language Learners

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Consider the following scenario: A fifth-grade teacher was preparing her class to learn about the American Revolution. She enlisted the students' help in acting out the events that led to the Revolution with elaborate props and exercises. When the class ended, the students were told they would read more about the Revolution the following day.

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This is a good source because it gives 3 langue strategies to bolster social students instruction for ELLs

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3 Strategies to Support English Language Learners in Social Studies

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Scaffolding such as visual guides and templates can make it easier for ELLs to grasp material in courses with complicated vocabulary.

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I chose this website because it shows me tips for teaching ELL science and it gives me resources and examples.

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This guest blog post was written by my friend Becca over at Science Rocks! She is a terrific teacher with a lot of experience working with ELL students in her science classroom and I collaborated with her in writing this post. I think her ideas are full of fantastic tips for teachers who teach English Language Learners.
If you've been teaching for a while, chances are you have had some ELL (English language learner) students in your classroom. I've known many teachers that have panicked and asked me "how can I teach them science if they don't speak English?" I think many teachers tend to think they need to dumb down the content for these students. They aren't dumb! Your job is to make the content accessible. It's been my experience that ELL students are amazingly hard workers and are a blast to work with. My friend Bethany Lau over at Science with Mrs. Lau and I have created a list of best-practice tips for working with ELL students. We also have some helpful resources to share with you!

Tip #1: Get them talking! A quiet classroom is not conducive to learning a new language. Many students are scared to speak out loud in English, especially in front of the entire class. To help build their confidence, try small group discussions first. To ensure that every student has spoken to his or her group, give each student something color-coded (I use colored popsicle sticks from the dollar store). When a student speaks, they place their popsicle stick in the center of the table. It is easy as a teacher to walk around and monitor who is speaking and who isn't. Make it a requirement that each student has to speak at least twice during group discussions.

Tip #2: SLOW down when you are talking, and use nonverbal cues. This is much easier to do when you have all your ELL students together in one class, but when they are mixed with native English speakers we often don't realize how fast we are talking. It is really difficult for ELL students to process when you are speaking a mile a minute. So take a deep breath, slow down, and use your hands and other nonverbal gestures. Don't be afraid to act things out! Yes they will giggle, and yes they will love it.

Tip #3: Build vocabulary. When you teach new words, always make your students repeat the word out loud after you say it. And if they aren't loud, make them do it again. If you have a word wall in your classroom, go down the list frequently and make your students say them with you. To help students remember the definitions, discuss prefixes and suffixes to help them decode meanings.

Find fun ways for students to practice those new words. Instead of doing vocabulary worksheets, do vocabulary games instead! Bingo is an awesome way to review vocabulary words before a test. Create a bingo card from a free online bingo-card maker such as http://osric.com/bingo-card-generator/. Type in the words you want your students to learn and print a class set. Instead of calling out the words, say the definition and the students need to cover up the correct word. If they get a bingo, they need to say the words out loud in order to win a prize.

Tip #4: Utilize pictures. I used to try and translate parts of my power points into Spanish before the lesson thinking I was doing my students a favor.

I quickly realized that:

1. Google translate is frequently wrong

2. Many of my students could speak fluent Spanish but couldn't read it.

3. Even if they could read most of it, they didn't know the content specific terms in Spanish. Why would I want my students to learn the word "homeostasis" in Spanish AND English? Let's just stick with English.

Instead of translating, stick with visual pictures. Pictures are understood in all languages. Include them as much as possible in your lessons and power points. Make students draw pictures in their notes. Include pictures in all your articles you want students to read. A great pre-reading activity is to have students look at the pictures and captions in an article before they read the body paragraphs. Have them guess what the article is about based on the pictures and discuss with their neighbors (get those popsicle sticks back out). If you have a word wall in your classroom, make sure it includes pictures too! The more they see a picture associated with a new word, the more likely they will remember what it means.

Tip #5: Learn about their language and culture, and include it in your lessons when applicable. Students will have more buy-in to your lessons when they feel like their language and culture is valued. If you can connect their language to the content, chances are they will remember it better. For example, students use the term "liga" in Spanish to mean rubber band or hair elastic. When teaching "ligaments," discuss how they are stretchy unlike tendons. Students won't forget!

Tip #6: Use Manipulatives! Sometimes students need help learning how to structure their writing into logical paragraphs (even native English speakers need this too!) If you have sample paragraphs for them to learn from, you can print separate sentences out on separate lines, and cut them into strips. Then you can mix the sentences up and have students order them in how they should logically appear in a sentence! You can also do this for other parts of a lab report, like the procedure section or even the proper labels for a graph!

You could create your own writing structure manipulatives, or you can check out Bethany Lau's Lab Report Writing Activity Bundle found here. She has a set of activities with manipulative for each and every part of the lab report with a lot of examples for students to learn from.

Tip #7: Get them writing as much as possible. Data shows that when students take the state language proficiency tests, they struggle the most with writing. Find ways to get students writing on a daily basis. This could work in many different formats- just find one that works for you. Daily bellwork is a great place to start, as well as having students keep writing journals.

What should you have them write about? Check out these writing prompts from Science Rocks' store!

These were designed to be used before new concepts are taught, and allows the teacher to assess prior knowledge and check for misconceptions. When students are first learning English, allow them to write in their native language if they are able to and plug in English words that they know. Throughout the year as their language improves, you will see their writing transform from fragmented to fluid sentences.

Another great writing strategy for ELL students are sentence frames. For students still learning how to write a complete sentence, give them half the sentence first and have them fill in the blanks. For example, a hypothesis on a lab report for an ELL student could look like this: "If I change ___________, then I think ___________ will happen, because __________.

Tip #8: Model. And then model some more. As science teachers we tend to think of "modeling" as meaning "I'll show them how to do a lab before it's their turn." Modeling applies to so much more than labs.

1. Model reading strategies. As you read through articles out loud, stop and discuss. What was the main idea? What did you highlight and why?

2. Model writing strategies. When you assign those writing prompts, work through one with them first. Show them what a quality answer would look like.

3. Model behaviors. Many students will enter your classroom from different backgrounds. Behaviors that may have been acceptable where they grew up may not be acceptable in your classroom. If you want them to give a verbal presentation with eye contact, show them what a good presentation looks like first.

4. Model word pronunciation. Sometimes if students are nervous to say things in English, I have them teach me how to say the phrase in their native language first. Once they have giggled at my horrible pronunciation, they aren't so embarrassed to pronounce things in English.

Tip #9: Modify. Yes, one more thing to add to your to-do list. But it can honestly be as simple as cutting down the number of questions for them to complete, or adding pictures to an assessment. One of my favorite websites to find nonfiction science articles on is newsela.com. Not only is it free to use, but once you find an article you can change the lexile! That means all your students can be reading the same article but at a reading level that is assessable to them.

Tip #10: Use formative assessment frequently, and celebrate gains. It's important to check in with ELL students often. Many of them will take notes, smile, and nod during class, but only understood 20% of what was discussed. Exit tickets and note summaries are great ways to check in and see where they need help and what they have mastered. Make your exit tickets specific. Don't just say, "One thing I still need help with is..." but instead ask them to answer a specific question related to the lesson. This will help you group them by mastery and focus on the students that really need your help. Once they have mastered a new concept or learned new vocabulary, don't forget to celebrate! Let them know you are proud of them, and they will work harder in the future. If students feel like their hard work is recognized and celebrated, they will continue to work hard!

We'd love to hear stories from you about what helps your ELL students! Let us know in the comments!

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Ten Tips for Teaching ELL Science - Science and Math with Mrs. Lau

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This guest blog post was written by my friend Becca over at Science Rocks! She is a terrific teacher with a lot of experience working with ELL students in her science classroom and I collaborated with her in writing this post. I think her ideas are full of fantastic tips for teachers who teach English Language [...]

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I chose this resource because it is great for knowing how to scaffold for ELs with sensory, interactive, and graphic tools.

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This map shows where the dialects of english are from.

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This picture shows the many complicated and complex types of english.

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This video teaches the different structure types of sentences.

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SENTENCES in English | Everything you need to know about TYPE & STRUCTURE

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ABOUT THE LESSON 📚Sentences are essential for us to express our thoughts and ideas. Understanding the different types of sentences and their structure will ...

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This picture shows 7 of the language learning principles.

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This video is a short explanatory video about the different theories of First Language Acquisition

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This YouTube video is a crash course for language acquisition.

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Language Acquisition: Crash Course Linguistics #12

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This chart shows the differences between first-language and second-language acquisition.

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This link shows the ESL and Bilingual programs in Texas.

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The Emergent Bilingual Support Division provides direction and leadership with the implementation of Bilingual and English as a Second Language (ESL) Programs for emergent bilingual (EB) students/English learners (ELs).

Announcements

Check out the Emergent Bilingual Student Web Portal TXEL.ORG for continuously updated resources for Teachers, Leaders, Parents and families of Emergent Bilingual Students, and Community Partners.

Language Proficiency Assessment Committee (LPAC) Guidance and Resources

Current School Year

2022-2023 Emergent Bilingual Support Update Meetings with LEAs and ESCs

The TEA Emergent Bilingual Support Division welcomes Local Education Agencies (LEAs) and regional Education Service Centers (ESCs) to join our English Learner Support Update Meetings. See our EL Portal for dates, meeting links, presentations, and recordings.

Program Requirement Resources

These resources, tools, and web pages provide guidance on bilingual and English as a second language (ESL) program requirements:

Program Requirement Resource Web Pages

Program Implementation

The TEA Emergent Bilingual Support Division has developed program implementation rubrics and associated tools to support LEAs with evaluating and enhancing their bilingual education and English as a Second Language (ESL) programs.

Program Statutes

The following statutes relate to bilingual and English as a second language (ESL) programs:

Title III, Part A - English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement, and Academic Achievement Act

Title III, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as reauthorized under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), aims to ensure that English learners (ELs) and immigrant students attain English proficiency and develop high levels of academic achievement in English. Title III will also assist all English learners meet the same challenging State academic standards that all children are expected to meet.

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Bilingual and English as a Second Language Education Programs

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The Emergent Bilingual Support Division provides direction and leadership with the implementation of Bilingual and English as a Second Language (ESL) Programs for emergent bilingual (EB) students/English learners (ELs). Check out the Emergent Bilingual Student Web Portal TXEL.ORG for continuously updated resources for Teachers, Leaders, Parents and families of Emergent Bilingual Students, and Community Partners.

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This chart shows the similarities and differences between ESL and Bilingual learners.

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I chose this quote because it reminds me to accommodate to ELs. It also shows how I can accommodate to them.

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I selected this tool because it reminds me of what the acronyms mean.