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1. strategies for Oral/Aural Development

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1. strategies for Oral/Aural Development

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1. This site has provided ways to overcome challenges ELLs may face during language development. This includes scaffolding through modifying texts (visual), creating grouping structures that set students up for success, and Targeting the amount and nature of student support. These aspects are great scaffolding strategies to help oral development.

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In this article written for Colorín Colorado, Dr. Lindsey Moses Guccione shares five key challenges related to the oral language development of ELLs, as well as tips for addressing each of the challenges.

Dr. Moses Guccione is the co-author of Comprehension and English Language Learners: 25 Oral Reading Strategies That Cross Proficiency Levels ( Heinemann, 2009).

Getting Started

As a former elementary teacher in a bilingual school, I developed a love and passion for finding effective ways to support oral language and oral reading development of emerging English language learners (ELLs). I discovered this passion when I began my first year of teaching in a second-grade classroom, where I encountered a handful of challenges related to my students' oral language development.

Many students were transitioning from a classroom with Spanish instruction into my classroom with instruction provided in English. I had students ranging from monolingual English speakers to students who had just recently moved to the U.S. from a Spanish-speaking country. The range of language proficiency levels crossed the entire spectrum. Having minimal experience with this range of diverse students and needs, I began reading, researching, and implementing new instructional ideas into my classroom. With each challenge I encountered, I gained new information about my students and their parents. I also began learning more about my own methods of instruction, and I learned a great deal each year about new challenges and successes.

Currently, I am fortunate to work with many teachers who have the opportunity to impact the lives of children and families who speak more than one language. As I work with these teachers and families, I have found five common and reoccurring challenges that they seem to face in the area of oral language development that parallel my own experiences. I detail these challenges and questions below, as well as suggestions for addressing each challenges based on strategies I used in my classroom.

Questions and Classroom Scenarios

1. What do I do if they don't know ANY English?

Understanding the characteristics of language learners at different proficiency levels helps to think about how we can best support students in their oral language and reading development. Below is a chart that gives a description of the first two levels of language proficiency as well as implications for using oral reading. This is a nice place to start when thinking about how to interact with and support our Starting and Emerging English speakers.

Levels of Language Proficiency

Description

Implications For Using Oral Reading

Level 1: Starting
Students are in a silent period in which they listen, but do not speak in English. They may respond using nonverbal cues in attempt to communicate basic needs.

The teacher and other more advanced students should model oral reading. Students in the silent period should not be forced to speak, but should be given the opportunity to participate in a group activity where they won't be singled out.

Level 2: Emerging
Students are beginning to understand more oral language. They respond using one- or two-word phrases and start to produce simple sentences for basic social interactions and to meet basic needs.

Teacher and students should continue to model oral reading. Students should be encouraged to begin taking risks with simple, rehearsed oral reading in non-threatening situations.

Opitz & Guccione (2009). Comprehension and English Language Learners: 25 Oral Reading Strategies that Cross Proficiency Levels.

2. How do I provide instruction and support for the ELLs without holding back the students who are fluent in English?

Differentiation is the key to effective instruction for all students. Students of varying proficiency levels can learn the same content when the teacher provides a wide range of learning opportunities for students with different academic and linguistic needs. Three key strategies for this approach include differentiating or modifying the texts, creating grouping structures, and targeting the amount and nature of support based on students' needs (Opitz & Ford, 2008).

Modifying the text: Teachers can differentiate the text by selecting various levels of text difficulty on similar content, or they can also divide the text up into smaller portions appropriate for certain groups/individuals for a jigsaw activity. Another idea is to summarize text that might be too difficult and provide ways to make the text more accessible (such as vocabulary support, visual support, connecting to background knowledge, etc.).

Creating grouping structures that set students up for success: While some grouping structures can be established according to language or literacy skill levels and needs, it is also important to think about providing students exposure to interact with peers who demonstrate a wide range of different language and literacy skills. Additionally, teachers can improve engagement and motivation by creating choice/interest groups where students gather, read, discuss and work together on topics of common interest.

Targeting the amount and nature of student support: It is important to think about scaffolding the experience and using comprehensible input to make it accessible for all students. Comprehensible input means that students should be able to understand the gist of what is being said or presented. There are many ways to do this, such as selecting key vocabulary, using context or visual cues, building background knowledge, building on experiences the students have had, using consistent language, and providing images or visual representations to support vocabulary and content. Teachers can support their students by embedding comprehensible input into their whole-group instruction, but this also becomes particularly effective when used in the different grouping structures. Teachers can also modify the amount of support and interaction between teachers and students depending on their individual and group needs.

3. This student knows English - I hear him talking to his friends and on the playground. He just doesn't want to try in class.

I have heard many teachers discussing variations of this same idea. However, I would caution teachers and parents about jumping to this conclusion. Academic language (or the language specifically related to school and/or academic content) can be complicated to acquire. Students often first develop social language and demonstrate near proficiency or proficiency in English in social settings. A student may be demonstrating sophisticated use of social language, but they may have difficulty using language in more formal settings such as school.

Much of the academic language required to be successful in school - everything from instructions to expectations to content-specific vocabulary - requires assistance in acquiring. Students hear and use their social language in various settings from home, community, and school, but academic language is often only used in the school setting. These students need specific instruction and support surrounding their language development in this area.

The same children who appear to be functioning at a high level of English proficiency in social settings may actually be functioning at a beginning stage in other settings, depending on how they are called on to use language. The students need to feel safe and in a low-anxiety environment in order to begin to feel comfortable taking risks with their oral language. When they have less exposure and instruction related to academic language, this can often cause students to feel intimidated and less likely to be willing to share in class.

One idea for reducing anxiety and encouraging students to experiment with language might include allowing students to read, practice, and discuss their responses in partners and small groups before sharing out to the entire group. This allows students an opportunity to hear language modeled by peers, practice what they want to say, and possibly revise their original thought and/or language before sharing it in a public way. As students find more success with their language production and classroom participation, they will be more likely to share and take risks, and in turn continue building their confidence.

4. How is the child ever going to learn English if they don't speak it at home?

It is important to celebrate being bilingual and biliterate. Research has shown that development of a students' first language can facilitate development in the second language (Genessee, Geva, Dressler, and Kamil, 2007). Understanding this helps parents, teachers, and children to encourage the use and development of the students' home language while they are at home. All of the home literacy activities that we recommend for English speakers, such as reading aloud, making lists, discussing books, reading environmental print, etc., should also be encouraged for the English language learners in their home language. Students can begin to use more English as they feel comfortable in different settings, but it is important to note that speaking two languages will not hinder their English development.

Another important idea to remember is that we want to invite parents to feel confident in their interactions with their children regardless of their English proficiency level. As they begin to read or retell stories and discuss them at home, they are developing vital oral language and comprehension skills, and these skills will transfer over into their school language.

5. What kinds of activities should I be doing to help the student develop their oral language and oral reading?

McCauley and McCauley (1992) report four factors as necessary for acquiring a second language: a low-anxiety environment, repeated practice, comprehensible input, and drama. These are all important components of setting children up for success and language development.

A low-anxiety environment includes a setting where students feel nurtured and supported by their teacher and peers, and in turn, they feel safe to take risks without the fear of being laughed at or made fun of.

Repeated practice is just like what it sounds! Students need repeated practice hearing and using a new language. They need multiple opportunities to comprehend and express their ideas in a new language. Like with anything new that we learn, practice helps us get better.

Comprehensible input, as explained above, means finding different ways to make what is being said comprehensible and easier to understand. Things to consider with comprehensible input might include using speech that is appropriate for students' language proficiency, providing a clear, step-by-step explanation of tasks, and using a variety of techniques to support their understanding.

Drama, or a sense of excitement and engagement, can be found in activities like Reader's Theatre, dramatic play, puppetry, narrating wordless picture books, etc. All of these activities also have the other three factors embedded within them. These activities assist in the development of oral language in addition to introducing students to oral reading and rich literacy experiences and responses in a classroom setting.

Closing Thoughts

As you can see from these questions and examples, there are a lot of different approaches to helping ELLs build their oral language development skills, and you may have to try different activities until you find what works for your students. The most important thing, however, is to build your students' confidence while giving them new words and phrases to practice. Don't be afraid to try something new - and most of all, don't be afraid to have fun doing it!

About the Author

Dr. Lindsey Moses Guccione is a coauthor of Comprehension and English Language Learners: 25 Oral Reading Strategies that Cross Proficiency Levels. She is an assistant professor at the University of Northern Colorado and teaches courses in Early Childhood Education, Literacy, and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Education. She is a former elementary teacher of English language learners and is currently researching how ELLs make sense of texts.

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Oral Language Development and ELLs: 5 Challenges and Solutions

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In this article written for Colorín Colorado, Dr. Lindsey Moses Guccione shares five key challenges related to the oral language development of ELLs, as well as tips for addressing each of the challenges. Dr. Moses Guccione is the co-author of Comprehension and English Language Learners: 25 Oral Reading Strategies That Cross Proficiency Levels ( Heinemann, 2009).

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1. strategies for Oral/Aural Development

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1. strategies for Oral/Aural Development

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2. This video includes three great interactive strategies that will allow students to practice their oral language/speaking skills. the first activity she includes is "question of the day" where she asks fun questions at the beginning of class and students go around sharing their answers. She then shows game-based activities that require students to collaborate with peers and support their oral language skills while focusing on vocabulary instruction. These activities Help students develop their oral/speaking skills through interactive discussions with peers and game-based activities which make the learning process exciting!

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3 Activities to Promote Oral Language // How to Develop Oral Language and Vocabulary in K-2

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2. Strategies for reading and writing development

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2. Strategies for reading and writing development

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1. One of my favorite strategies is readers' theater where students get to 'perform' a skit or play with their peers. this activity helps students with their reading fluency development, oral development, and social development. working with peers can allow students to follow along with the advanced proficiency-leveled students through homogeneous grouping. This teaches them how to read with prosody, rate, and accurate speed which are key components of reading development. By working in groups, students are working on their speaking skills and social skills with one another.

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2. Strategies for reading and writing development

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2. Strategies for reading and writing development

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2. This site provides many scaffolding tools that can support EB/EL students at all levels of language proficiency. for example, sentence structures/frames are great when guiding students' thoughts and helping them formulate complete sentences. By giving students a prompt or a beginning statement, students can answer with open-ended responses but is still offered structure throughout the writing activity.

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Why is writing so hard? This is a question that teachers hear on a daily basis from students. There is no denying that writing is difficult. However, for English Language Learners (ELLs), writing is made even harder because they are doing a task outside of their native language.

We have compiled a list of the best activities and writing strategies for ELL students that are designed to alleviate your ESL students' struggles.

Before You Begin

To determine which strategies will work best for your students, ask these four questions before they start writing:

1. Do they already know how to read in their first language?

2. How similar is the student's home language to the English alphabet and syntax?

3. How often does the student have the opportunity to practice reading and writing in English?

4. How much background knowledge does the student have about the writing topic?

The Importance of Scaffolding Writing for ELLs

In education, scaffolding is a teaching method where teachers help students complete tasks just beyond the point that they could achieve by themselves. It was developed by Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, who theorized that children learn best when an adult helps them expand upon what they already know and can do.

His theory birthed the concept of a Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)-the area between what is known and unknown where students can achieve a task with guidance from a knowledgeable teacher. Over time, teachers gradually reduce support until the students can do the task themselves.

There are many benefits to scaffolding instruction for students:

Tasks are simplified to make them more manageable.

Student frustration is reduced.

Students are better able to focus on learning objectives.

Students build confidence in their abilities.

Scaffolding your instruction is key to the success of all students-especially ELLs. When you make connections to what students already know, learning becomes more meaningful. Determining where and when scaffolding techniques are to be used (and later removed) is crucial in helping students reach their learning goals.

ELL Writing Strategies for Scaffolding

ELLs benefit from scaffolding throughout the writing process. Below are a few types of scaffolding writing strategies for ELL students that can be used at any grade or language level.

1. Model Texts
All ELL students need to see plenty of examples of the kind of writing you want them to produce. Model texts could be selected from high-quality literature, teacher-generated, or student-authored pieces. Whatever text you select, make sure that it clearly demonstrates your learning objective.

2. Sentence Frames
Sentence frames are sentences with strategically placed blanks for students to fill in. These are helpful for newcomers who are in the earlier stages of language proficiency, or for introducing a new type of sentence structure.

3. Sentence Stems
Similar to sentence frames, sentence stems provide a prompt for students to begin writing. Sentence stems are more open-ended than sentence frames, but still offer structure and guidance for the writing activity.

4. Word Walls
Word walls are an excellent scaffolding technique, as they can be customized to your language objectives. You may utilize a word wall for academic vocabulary terms or other important writing elements like signal words. You can make your word wall a more powerful teaching tool by making it interactive.

5. Graphic Organizers
Beginning a writing task can be daunting for ELLs. Graphic organizers are effective teaching tools that help students visually organize information and break down writing into more manageable steps. Consider pre-filling parts of graphic organizers to scaffold for your ELLs.

Writing Activities for ELL Students

When teaching writing to English language learners, it's important to use authentic writing activities that allow them to write about their experiences. We've compiled a list of engaging writing activities along with scaffolding techniques to help each of your ELLs build their writing skills.

Journaling
How to Journal with ELLs

Student journaling can be an effective activity to help ELL students build confidence and develop writing skills. There are many different ways that teachers can use journaling in the classroom. Personal journals, dialogue journals, and content-specific journals such as science or math notebooks are all helpful teaching tools. For a more in-depth look at how journaling can benefit ELL students, read our article here.
Benefits for ELLs

Journals can be used by ELLs of any proficiency level.

Students have the opportunity to write in their native language.

When used intentionally, journals can expand students' vocabulary and higher-order thinking skills.

Strategies for ELLs

For newcomers or those who have limited proficiency, consider allowing them to draw in their journals and label their pictures.

Use picture dictionaries or other visuals to help students bridge their understanding between words that they know in their native language and English words.

Provide sentence starters or writing prompts to help students get started with their writing.

Sequential Writing
How to do Sequential Writing with ELLs

Have the students write the steps to do a familiar task like getting ready for school or making breakfast. Students can practice using new and unfamiliar words along with a routine activity.
Benefits for ELLs

Sequencing is an important skill for reading comprehension and scientific inquiry.

By selecting a familiar activity, you will ensure that ELL students have the background knowledge necessary for the activity.

Students' home cultures can be incorporated by including the activity as homework for ESL students-have students ask their parents to tell them the steps for making their favorite meal.

Strategies for ELLs

Provide pictures for students to put in the correct order for a familiar activity. Have students practice labeling or matching words with the pictures. Reinforce keywords like "first," "next," "then," etc.

For students with progressing language skills, divide a paper into four sections. Have the students draw and label pictures for each step.

Provide a sequence graphic organizer for ELL students to write the steps to the activity.

Creative Writing
How to Use Creative Writing with ELLs

Short, creative writing activities can provide ELLs with engaging written expression examples and ideas.

Have students write a social media post, like a tweet, about a current event or even as a book review.

As part of a social studies unit, give ELL students an assignment to write a postcard from a country that they have been learning about in class or their native country.

For students with more advanced language skills, have them create a fictional ad to introduce and practice persuasive writing.

Benefits for ELLs

Incorporating social media activities can enhance ESL students' digital literacy.

Short, engaging activities reduce the cognitive load for ELL students while increasing their motivation.

Strategies for ELLs

Use model texts so that students are familiar with the type of writing you assign.

Create a word bank or personal word wall for students to reference relevant vocabulary words.

Poetry
How to Use Poetry with ELLs

Begin by discussing the difference between stories and poems. Read many different types of poetry to familiarize students with the genre, and include poetry across the curriculum where relevant. Consider the best type of poem for your instructional needs:
Benefits for ELLs

The text in poetry is both purposeful and brief, so ELL students can understand the main point without becoming overwhelmed.

Poetry offers opportunities for students to engage with language in a playful way.

Poems are an excellent way to incorporate your students' native cultures into your classroom.

Strategies for ELLs

To scaffold, first create a poem as a group, then have students work in smaller groups or pairs to write independently.

Have students create word maps to help them generate relevant vocabulary or varying adjectives to make their poetry more interesting.

Writing Programs for ELLs from Continental

Continental understands there are many different writing programs to choose from when teaching writing to English language learners. Our ELL writing programs are developed with the latest research and teacher-backed activities and feature the best writing strategies to support language development.

My Language Journal

My Language Journal is a series of personal journals that provides ELLs with opportunities to practice their writing skills and develop their vocabulary through visual learning activities. My Language Journal can be used for grades K-12.

Uses personal writing prompts to engage ELLs

Customizable word logs help make learning meaningful

Topics for social-emotional learning (SEL) and content areas

Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary support

The Write Track for English Learners

The Write Track for English Learners focuses on writing development to help ELLs develop their written communication skills. It also helps students gain confidence with classroom writing assignments and state testing requirements. It's designed for grades K-12 and English language proficiency levels 2-5.

Provides complete instruction for a variety of writing areas

Step-by-step instruction with guided practice and peer review

Correlated to English language development (ELD) standards

Interactive eBooks with online answering, instant scoring for immediate feedback, and performance reports

Writing can be difficult even for native English speakers. Thankfully there are many ways to help ESL students not feel overwhelmed and discouraged. By using these writing strategies, you can help your students begin to feel more confident in their English language skills.

Looking for more writing or teaching strategies to support your ELL students? Visit Continental's ESL Resource Center for ideas and free downloads.
Thank you to Ellen Richardson, our ELL contributor, for consulting on this blog post.

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Writing Strategies for ELL Students | Continental Educational Publisher

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We have created a list of the best activities & writing strategies for ELL students that are designed to alleviate their writing struggles.

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2. When creating summative assessments, it is important to apply equity and support to students in need. accommodations and modifications offer students a fair chance to assess their skills by simplifying the task to meet their needs. This list offers many ways to modify assessments to support EB/EL students.

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1. this site offers 5 effective strategies that make summative assessments more accessible and comprehensible for EB/EL students. One strategy I noticed was performance-based assessments which provide a more interactive and supportive form of evaluations. This helps educators assess various academic skills the EB/EL students have to offer through active learning.

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5 Effective Assessment Strategies for ESL Learners

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As this subpopulation grows, it is important to consider the unique needs of English Language Learners when creating and administering assessments.

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1. This site offers tips to incorporate visual scaffolding into lessons to enhance EB/EL comprehension and support their learning needs. Visual components like graphic organizers, pictures, and diagrams all give a more clear idea of the content. By incorporating visual scaffolding into teaching practices, educators can create a more inclusive and effective learning environment for EB/EL students.

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Here are some tips for scaffolding language for your language learners, while ensuring your important content objectives are met simultaneously.

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1. This article expressed that the 5E model is a planning tool for inquiry teaching that provides a structure for students to connect science ideas with their experiences and apply their learning to new contexts. This strategy uses hands-on learning to gain a richer understanding of science concepts and provides guidance to EB/EL students.

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An inquiry-focused method gives students a way to connect scientific ideas to their experiences and apply their learning.

Try to recall the last science class you taught. It probably had many components over the course of 50 minutes, such as a video, a mini-lecture, an assessment, discussion, or a demonstration. What were all the components? Did your students discuss a question in small groups? Was it a whole-class discussion? Did you introduce a new concept? In what order did you introduce these components? How did you decide what came first? What is the optimal order of activities in an inquiry-based science classroom?

Engage Students' Curiosity

Teaching science using an inquiry approach requires instructional planning that encourages students to engage their curiosity to ask questions, explore solutions to socio-scientific issues, use evidence-based explanations to justify their reasoning, elaborate on possible effects, evaluate their findings, and predict potential outcomes based on different variables. In inquiry science, students are cognitively challenged as they engage in authentic problems while learning content, practicing reasoning skills, and communicating their ideas.

One approach to inquiry science is the 5E instructional model (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate). The 5E model is a planning tool for inquiry teaching that provides a structure for students to connect science ideas with their experiences and apply their learning to new contexts. The 5E model comprises five phases that help teachers build a sequence of coherent and engaging learning experiences for students.

How the 5E Model Works

1. Engage. The teacher uses short activities to promote curiosity. The activity must connect prior knowledge to new learning experiences in order to expose any misconceptions and prepare students for new learning.

Novel questions, discrepant events, demonstrations, or a powerful visual are ideal ways to engage students and ascertain their prior knowledge or any misconceptions that might interfere with constructing new knowledge. For new concepts to become meaningful, students use their prior knowledge to connect their past and present learning experiences.The engagement phase doesn't have to be part of the class time. It can be structured as a homework assignment where students can read an article related to the new topic to be introduced, explore a website, watch a video, or answer a question related to their prior knowledge.

For example: Why are acidic drinks stored in a cold place?

2. Explore. A lab investigation or hands-on activities are usually introduced in this phase as students attempt to investigate a problem. Conflicting ideas, questions, and confusion are common and help students identify what they need to know before new terms or concepts are introduced in the Explain phase.

What is the problem I am trying to solve?

What do I need to find out?

What do I know already?

Students are provided with two identical soda cans, a bottle opener, hot water, and an ice bath. Students perform the activity in pairs or groups, write down their observations, and discuss their results in the group.
Encourage students to think of the following questions:

For example: Which soda, the warm or the cold one, had more dissolved carbon dioxide? List all the ways that you know.

3. Explain. With the teacher's guidance, students explain the concepts they explored in the previous phase and demonstrate their understanding of the new terms that were introduced. Depending on the topic and the grade level, teacher-led instruction might be necessary to address any confusion and questions that came up in the Explore phase. Questions can make learning more meaningful, interactive, and participatory.

Students provide a tentative explanation as they present their results to the whole class. The teacher may pose additional questions to support the discussion. It is recommended that the teacher introduce a formative assessment in this phase to identify if the students are ready to start the Elaborate phase and determine if additional instruction or assistance is needed.

For example: What is the best way to store an opened bottle of soda so that it doesn't go flat quickly?

4. Elaborate. Students apply their knowledge to new experiences and extend their conceptual understanding as they solve a problem in a new context before evaluation in the last phase of the 5E model. Elaboration activities can take place during classroom time, or they can be a homework assignment.

For example: Decompression sickness (DCS) occurs when divers swim to the surface too quickly (rapid ascent). What causes DCS to occur?

5. Evaluate. Students evaluate their learning and demonstrate their understanding and mastery of key concepts. Evaluation doesn't have to be limited to a quiz or test. It can be a product such as a presentation, a poster, a pamphlet, a journal article, or a final paper.
Many power plants condense steam by pumping cool river or lake water around the steam pipes. The steam cools and condenses as its heat is transferred to the water, which is then returned to the river or lake. What impact does this warm water have on the fish in the lake or river?
For example: In your opinion, why do fish wash ashore on hot summer days?

You may already be using these elements without being familiar with the 5E model's formal structure. Consider the phases discussed above and reflect on the activities you planned for the last science lesson you taught. Which component would you classify as an Engage activity? Explore? Explain? How well does the order you have planned reflect the 5E model?

The goal isn't to plan every science lesson according to the 5E model-it's to consider the order and sequence of activities to align with the model to maximize student learning.

Here are some final suggestions:

Start small. You might design a lesson with only two components of the 5E model. If your lesson already has a hands-on activity, you may want to start with Engage to get the students thinking about the hands-on activity they're going to complete in the Explore phase. A simple 3- to 5-minute activity such as a current events story, a video, an advertisement, a problem scenario, or a challenge statement based on a common misconception can engage students.

Explore before Explain. Lab investigations or hands-on activities in the Explore phase, no matter how simple, may be time-consuming. Yet, you can allow at least some exploration before explanation to prepare students to receive new information. They might attempt to solve a problem, make a prediction about an experiment or demonstration, or answer a complex question. Consider starting instruction (Explain) in the middle of the class session, as opposed to the beginning, after students have had time to do some exploration.

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How to Use the 5E Model in Your Science Classroom

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An inquiry-focused method gives students a way to connect scientific ideas to their experiences and apply their learning. Try to recall the last science class you taught. It probably had many components over the course of 50 minutes, such as a video, a mini-lecture, an assessment, discussion, or a demonstration.

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1. This PDF offers ways to identify EB/EL students with disabilities and highlights supportive ways we can meet their academic needs. Being able to identify signs of Learning disabilities in EB/EL students can allow us educators to accommodate their needs through lessons/activities. the supportive tools in this article highlight the importance of equity and how it can positively impact our student's education experience.

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2. Diagrams are a great scaffolding tool to use in science. They provide a visual explanation of complex concepts that make it easier to understand. Diagrams are often used to help EB/EL students retain information's and make connections.

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2. This site offers numerous ways to support the needs of EB/EL sped students. Including classroom management styles that offer Learning disabled students a structured/guided environment and ways to scaffold materials, presentations, and assessments that support all levels of needs.

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Response: Ways to Support ELLs With Special Needs (Opinion)

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Today, Maria Montalvo, Beverly Maxwell, Ann Wilson, Jennie Farnell share their suggestions on how to support English Language Learners with special needs.

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2. This tool is a story board where students draw out the parts of a story after listening to it. provide students with opportunities to express their thoughts through drawings and visual art. This allows students to apply creative thinking while connecting the story to their drawings. EB/EL students can culturally express themselves and present what they are thinking related to content.

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1. This expressed the importance of incorporating art into content and in the classroom. It allows EB/EL to visually express their thoughts and provides opportunities to be creative. This tool can also allow students to culturally express themselves and feel confident in their work!

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1. This site provides different ways to make math more comprehensive for EB/EL students. A strategy I plan to use in my classroom is manipulatives. This is a hands-on scaffolding tool that allows students to visualize word problems and math concepts.

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2. Academic vocabulary knowledge in math is a huge component of understanding concepts. Creating math vocabulary books enhances conceptual understanding, supports language development, and fosters independent and active learning. This allows students to be creative and apply their interests.

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14. family and community engagement for EB/ELs

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14. family and community engagement for EB/ELs

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2. Community engagement can significantly benefit EB/ELs by providing additional support, resources, and opportunities for learning beyond the classroom. By fostering strong community ties, educators can create a more supportive and inclusive environment that helps EB/EL students thrive academically and personally.

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Engaging ELL Families Through Community Partnerships

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The following strategies offer tips for thinking creatively about how to work with community partners and identify the most effective partnerships for your school community. Supporting immigrant families For related ideas, see the following: A.

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2. I will create a word wall with essential vocabulary terms and their definitions. Incorporate pictures and student-friendly explanations. This tool supports language development, enhances comprehension, and boosts confidence among EB/EL students.

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1. This site provides ways to identify Gifted EB/EL students and how we can support their needs or even challenge them. This includes ways to accommodate their assignment to meet their current level of knowledge. For example, providing open-ended questions challenges students to apply critical thinking skills and respond with insightful responses.

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English Language Learners

An inclusive framework for finding gifted and talented students can ensure that English language learners don't slip through the cracks.

English language learners (ELLs) have historically been underrepresented and underserved in U.S. gifted and talented (GT) programs. To move the needle in a more promising direction, we can begin by asking ourselves how we can increase the visibility of diverse learners in GT screening. What does equity look like in identifying language learners for gifted services? And how can we actively improve culturally responsive supports for exceptional ELLs in our classrooms?

Traditional concepts of giftedness cast a narrow net-narrow enough, in fact, to silo giftedness into nearly homogeneous compartments. Outside of far-East Asian subsets, most of those boxes are reserved for white, English-speaking students.

Gifted screening protocols can reinforce these perceptions. Conventional markers for giftedness are rooted in assessment data and previous high academic achievement. This can be especially inequitable for ELLs, whose language output and cultural orientation may mask exceptional promise.

Reframing Conceptions of Giftedness to Support Inclusivity

A comprehensive definition of exceptional ability that encompasses a spectrum of cognitive, social and emotional, artistic, linguistic, and logical-reasoning capabilities,

Multiple avenues and entry points-such as student interviews, performance-based evaluations, or nonverbal instruments-that reach beyond standardized assessment data for GT identification, and

A system for mindfully growing the exceptional talents and gifts of all learners, including ELLs.

To change this, we've got to be uncomfortably honest about what our collective picture of giftedness looks like. What are our perceptions and expectations of exceptional students? Do we-as teachers and as schools-lean in to certain student types, ethnicities, or socioeconomic groups, or to one gender? How are we influenced by a child's parents or other educators?

Acquire the new language at a faster than typical rate,

Demonstrate an ability to code switch or translate at an advanced level,

Show aptitude for negotiating between cultures,

Display inventive leadership and/or imaginative qualities,

Read significantly beyond grade level in the heritage language,

Effectively assume adult responsibilities at a young age,

Exhibit notable street smarts and/or rapid integration into American culture, or

Problem-solve in creative, nonconforming ways.

At a minimum, a more inclusive framework should include three vital components:

Now we can critically evaluate the degree to which our definition is also culturally responsive. Map a full learning day for a new-to-English student. Where can we find expressions of gifted characteristics? Language learners can-and do!-demonstrate exceptional content-specific talents. Additionally or alternatively, the promising gifted ELL may:

A Culturally Responsive Process of GT Identification

Nominations or referrals from parents and school staff,

Summative data, including English language evaluations and nonverbal GT assessments,

Formative data, such as student work samples and problem- or project-based portfolios, and

Anecdotal data, including behavior and acculturation scales, classroom observations, home visits, and interviews with parents, teachers, and peers.

Even high-flying ELLs are not likely to be detected through traditional GT screening, as I mention above, because our screening protocols are not designed to detect them. Widening our net and moving toward a realistic representation of marginalized populations in gifted programming requires that we break with our dependence on convention.

One reasonable solution is to move beyond isolated quantitative data points and toward qualitative portfolios of potential. Inclusive GT portfolios of potential may include:

Ensure that curriculum is culturally responsive: Culturally responsive practice seeks to recognize, value, and authentically represent students' heritage virtues in the school setting. Wondering how to connect this pedagogy to GT programming? Begin learning units with background knowledge surveys or embed multicultural connections and community engagement as a means of enrichment.

Provide opportunities for self-directed learning: Self-directed learning is an effective tool for student engagement that supports higher-level thinking. By introducing the element of choice, we draw out a learner's natural curiosity through creative problem solving and experiential learning.

Start slowly as you navigate this territory. Begin with a maximum of three choices. Hold students accountable for rotating through stations, centers, or learning tasks, but place the onus of control on the student to choose the order in which the learning goals are completed.

Capitalize on student interest surveys, flexible seating, and kinesthetic learning. These are all low-prep, low-cost, high-yield means of promoting self-directed, student-invested learning.

And consider exploring multiple pathways of discovery. Try embedding social and emotional learning skills practice into a social studies lesson, or incorporate STEAM learning into a literature experience. These types of activities foster low-risk opportunities for expression and encourage students to demonstrate abilities in innovative ways.

Use assessments that allow for diverse expressions of understanding: Offer choice in how students demonstrate knowledge, skills and understanding. Project-based learning (PBL) works exceptionally well in this context. PBL "is a dynamic classroom approach in which students actively explore real-world problems and challenges and acquire a deeper knowledge." This type of open-ended learning allows ELLs to show what they know in ways that are less language dependent, such as tactile design, sketching, computer programming, or art.

Consistently work toward the elimination of educator bias: Teachers and parents play a critical role in the gifted identification process-they are most likely to nominate students for consideration and are directly involved in a child's day-to-day endeavors. We can better prepare both groups to advocate for ELLs who demonstrate exceptional gifts and talents.

Parents are often the first to note a child's gifted potential, even if it has not presented at school. This may be especially true of students who have not yet gained linguistic confidence or students from collectivist cultures, who typically avoid standing out in the classroom. Caretakers-especially those whose cultural experience with school involvement differs from Western norms-can be explicitly encouraged to recommend their child for GT screening and review. Educators, meanwhile, can benefit from training to reduce bias and spot latent talents in underrepresented populations.

Like all successful school programming, achieving effective and equitable GT services is a collaborative effort.

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An inclusive framework for finding gifted and talented students can ensure that English language learners don't slip through the cracks.

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2. Kahoot is a fun and interactive site that helps students learn academic content through games, challenges, and quizzes. Students can work in groups or independently to complete the tasks. this is also a free site that is accessible to all students. This technological tool offers an active learning experience while supporting their comprehension of the material.

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Kahoot App ESL Conversation Activity | Kid-Inspired Classroom

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Get your ESL students practicing academic vocabulary, sentence structures and concepts with this fun and engaging app.

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2. In the classroom, providing a library that includes a variety of reading levels can allow GT students to challenge themselves when they feel comfortable enough to do so. You can also encourage students to bring reading materials from home, but make sure the materials they bring challenge them to learn new words and increase their reading skills.

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2. KWL charts are a versatile and effective tool for supporting EB/EL students in social studies. This strategy helps students organize their thoughts, set learning objectives, and reflect on their learning. This supports EB/EL students by activating prior knowledge, supports language development, promotes critical thinking, and enhances comprehension.

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1. This site offers many formative assessment ideas that are more accessible to EB/EL students while supporting their academic needs. Many of the assessments listed include peer support, teacher guidance, structure, and highlight the use of oral language. These assessments allow educators to monitor their student's progress and offer more comprehensive material.

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By Sarah Ottow
The Latin root word for "assessment" is assidere which means to sit beside. In my work as an English Language Learner (ELL) specialist, I advocate for educators to intentionally sit beside their students to more deeply understand and support their learning trajectory at the classroom level. That is to say, I strongly advocate for an intentional formative assessment approach for ELLs.
Schools can go beyond traditional summative and interim measures to ensure a more balanced assessment approach that brings to light the nuanced and complex process of academic language development. By implementing formative assessments for ELLs, educators can develop a "language lens" that uncovers and showcases the growth of this culturally and linguistically diverse population.

Where do we start?

First, we can examine what comprises our current assessment systems in place. We have large-scale, "big data" summative assessments that give us "big data" once a year on student proficiency. We also have interim assessments that measure growth against benchmarks periodically throughout the year, often with the audience largely being district and school-level stakeholders.
These summative and interim assessments provide "snapshots" of ELL performance and are not always reliable or valid on the ELL population. Therefore, we need to ask ourselves if we have systemic, systematic formative measures in place that provide feedback on teaching and learning specifically for our ELLs? Do we have a "photo album" approach of ELL development? If not, we can add specific formative practices into our assessment system that celebrate student growth and provide next steps for instruction at the classroom level.

What are some effective formative assessment practices for ELLs?

What's important to remember is that formative assessment is flexible and intended to focus on feedback for both the teacher and the student. As an initial step, I highly recommend that teachers keep portfolios of student writing samples to show individual student growth over time. Through portfolios like journals and learning logs, student work can be the centerpiece in conferences and school data meetings.
Next, I suggest that teachers work with students to co-create appropriate goals for using more sophisticated academic language. It's critical to promote student ownership of the assessment process through goal setting, self-assessment as well as peer assessment opportunities.

How can collaboration strengthen formative assessment?

A critical step in strengthening ELL formative assessments is to create and sustain collaborative time to analyze student work. Evidence-based conversations between educators about what students are producing can directly lead to ideas for effective student feedback and instruction. Professional learning communities are also opportunities for collaboration with ELL specialists to deepen content teachers' understanding of language and literacy. One final tip is to consider building data walls of multiple measures of ELL data quarterly to facilitate data-driven coaching cycles and team planning. In these ways, we can offer a "photo album" approach to show progress over time, celebrating students' journey of academic language development.

We know that ELLs are a diverse group of students with unique assets and varying factors affecting academic performance. Many educators need support in reaching ELLs and teaching academic language yet they often don't know where to start. By implementing more formative assessments for ELLs with the appropriate language supports, teachers can better understand their students and become stronger teachers of academic language. After all, all teachers are indeed language teachers!

Formative Assessment Ideas

Journals or learning logs to show growth over time in a portfolio

Academic conversations to explain new learning

Cornell notes or graphic organizers to structure note-taking

Student-teacher conference or small group discussions to recount learning

Exit slips to show "I think..", "I wonder...", "I still want to know..."

Fill-in-the-blank or "cloze" activity using sentence frames

Reciprocal teaching

Recording student language through technology

Drawing or role playing

Gallery walk of student work where students give each other feedback on stickies

Word or concept sorts based on unit themes or student-created categories

One word or one phrase response using whiteboards

Self-checklist or peer-checklist

Label or sequence visuals like pictures, photos or realia (real life objects)

Student-generated questions for peers

This blog is part of the Supporting English Language Learners Series with support from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. For more, stay tuned for the culminating podcast, infographic and publication.
For more, see:
Sarah Ottow is the founder, director and lead coach at Confianza: Educating for ELL Equity. Follow Confianza on Twitter: @ELL_Confianza Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update. This post includes mentions of a Getting Smart partner. For a full list of partners, affiliate organizations and all other disclosures please see our Partner page.

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Supporting English Language Learners with Formative Assessments

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By Sarah Ottow - By implementing formative assessments for ELLs, educators can develop a "language lens" that uncovers and showcases their growth.

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2. Engaging ELs in interactive read-aloud, where they can predict outcomes, ask questions, and discuss the text will help them connect with the material and practice language in context. Read-alouds allow students to apply listening, speaking, and critical thinking skills.

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2. Think-pair-shares is a great formative assessment tool that includes the student's critical thinking skills, listening skills, and speaking skills. Peer engagement can be very supportive because students can confidently share their thoughts while also acknowledging new ideas from their partner.

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"Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen."
John Steinbeck, US novelist (1902 - 1968)

Background

When I mentored student teachers I told them, "If I could offer one piece of advice for every teacher - it would be to do think-pair-shares in the class every day." The think-pair-share is a very simple, yet effective technique that allows ELL students time to process their thoughts - often in two languages - which takes more time.

To understand how this works, imagine you are an ELL student and the teacher has just asked the class a question such as, "Why did the ancient Egyptians create pyramids?" Immediately students around the room shoot up their hands and offer answers. As an ELL student, you are still searching your memory banks to translate the words "ancient" and "pyramids." You've finally got the meaning, now you are thinking about the possible answers - again searching your memory for what you've learned in class and read in the textbook. You think you have a viable answer, but you're not sure if it's right or exactly how to say it, and if you make a mistake others might laugh at you.

At this point you may decide to offer an answer, but the teacher has already moved on and asked two new questions. The average wait time for teacher questions is one second! For an ELL student it may become a habit to sit back and listen while others engage in class discussion. While listening to the discussion, the ELL student may or may not understand what is said, and the teacher may be hesitant to call on the student in order to avoid embarrassment.

Steps of a Think-Pair-Share

This kind of situation, where both the student and teacher are hesitating to increase interaction, is the reason why think-pair-share is so effective!

In a think-pair-share, students are given think time to reflect on a question silently, so that they have more time to process the question, the language, or think of the language needed to convey the answer. By then discussing their answer with a partner and the class, students have the opportunity for increased interaction, and teachers can monitor comprehension. In order to use this activity, follow these steps:

1. Ask a thought-provoking question of your class.

2. Give students some time to think about the question on their own, as well as the language they will need to respond.

3. Have students share their thoughts with a partner; this gives the students the opportunity to 'check out' their answer with another student or hear another possible answer. If confused, the students can ask their peers for help.

4. Finally, ask students to share thoughts with the whole group, which serves as a form of accountability for the students. In this discussion/explanation, the teacher gets feedback on what the students do or don't know though informal assessment.

In the example given above, the teacher asks the class,
"Why did the ancient Egyptians create pyramids? Let's do a "think-pair-share." Everyone take a moment and think about the question."
The room is silent for a minute while everyone reflects. At this time the ELL students may be putting together language and content concepts. Next the teacher instructs the students,
"Now turn to the person next to you and tell them what you are thinking."
The ELL student has an opportunity to offer his/her idea in a relatively comfortable setting - perhaps with grammatical errors - or to get more information from his/her partner. This can reinforce the student's confidence in his/her thinking and provide modeling for how to say the idea correctly in English. The teacher lets students share for a couple of minutes and then brings their attention back.
"Okay, I heard lots of good ideas. Who would like to share what you talked about?"
At this point, when students offer an answer, they have had some time to work with the concepts and also may feel that they are not offering the idea "on their own" but as part of a pair, which may not seem so intimidating.

Benefits

A benefit of the think-pair-share is that the teacher has an opportunity to hear from many students - including the "quiet" ones. I have seen some of my shyest students offer wonderful answers after they had an opportunity to do a think-pair-share. It also gives the teacher the opportunity to observe all the students as they interact in pairs and get an idea of whether all students understand the content or if there are areas that need to be reviewed.

Circle Chat

A "circle chat" is another activity for student-to-student interaction that is a little more involved, but always fun and informative. In this activity every student speaks with a variety of partners, which allows for greater exposure to other thoughts and students. I have often used this as a pre-writing exercise to really get my students' imaginations going. Here is a step-by-step guide to the activity. It may be a bit confusing the first time you try it, but once the students get the hang of it, you'll be able to start it easily. For younger students the teacher may want to ask simple questions and make the discussion time much shorter.

1. Clear a space in the room large enough for all the students to stand together in two concentric circles.

2. Take the total number of students in the room and divide it by half. This is the number of students you will call forward. Let's say in this example it is 10 students.

3. The 10 students stand in a circle.

4. Call the next 10 students to come forward and form a circle around the first circle of students.

5. Tell the students in the inside circle to turn around and face their new partner in the outside circle. Everyone should have a partner. (If there is an odd number of students the teacher may form one group with three students).

6. The students will have two minutes to talk to their partners about the question they are asked. The teacher will want to use a bell or another sign to get the students' attention when the two minutes are up.

7. At the two minute signal, the teacher asks student in the outside circle (make sure students understand that only the "outside" circle moves) to take one step to the left. Now each student has a new partner to talk to.

8. Continue this process - asking a new question each time new pairs are formed - until the students have worked their way around the circle.

This activity is quite noisy and usually generates energy and laughter. For some pairs - quieter students, emerging English speakers, or those without much to share on the question - the conversation may be short and teachers may observe them standing quietly waiting for the bell to signal a change to a new partner. This is okay, because new partners and new questions bring new opportunities to interact. Teachers may also enjoy circulating among pairs as they talk in order to hear what great ideas students are sharing.

Conclusion

Creating an interactive classroom environment is very important to the success of ELL students. Just as it would be difficult to become a good piano player by listening to someone play, with no opportunity of your own to practice, ELL students need more opportunities to practice language skills in an academic environment in order to become more successful students. When teachers create a variety of opportunities for students to interact and use English, language and content learning is accelerated.
Icebreakers for Students
On About.com's Secondary Education website, you can find many icebreaker ideas for starting the school year and new classes. Many activities can be used for the elementary level, as well.
National Geographic Photography
This site offers many intriguing photos, including a photo of the day, news photos, photo gallery, and short video clips. These can be useful for supporting content instruction, fostering dialogue with emerging English speakers, and creating writing prompts.
Interactive Classroom Activities
Provides ideas for a variety of interactive student activities, such as information gap, ordering and sorting, problem-solving, and conversation grids.

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Increase Student Interaction with "Think-Pair-Shares" and "Circle Chats"

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"Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen." John Steinbeck, US novelist (1902 - 1968) When I mentored student teachers I told them, "If I could offer one piece of advice for every teacher - it would be to do think-pair-shares in the class every day."

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2. Graphic organizers are used as a visual scaffolding tool that guides students and supports their critical thinking skills. This site offers different ways to structure graphic organizers to meet the various needs of EB/EL students. It provides vocabulary-focused graphic organizers to enhance the student's comprehension of academic terms and language.

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5 Ways to Use Graphic Organizers for ELLs/EL/MLL Students

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As ESL educators, our goal is to support English Learners (ELs)/ELLs/MLLs as they develop their language skills while keeping pace with content area learning. One highly effective tool to aid ELs in this journey is

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1. This site helps educators prepare a supportive and effective lesson plan for social studies content. It utilizes many scaffolding strategies that support the student's background knowledge, language proficiency, and perspectives.

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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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14. family and community engagement for EB/ELs

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14. family and community engagement for EB/ELs

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1. This site offers many ways for parents to be involved in their child's education and academically support their EB/EL student at home. It also expresses ways to communicate with families and create an inviting environment for these families.

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Decades of research have confirmed that parental involvement has a positive correlation to learning outcomes.

The number of English language learners (ELLs or ELs) in our schools continues to grow-and along with it, the importance of engaging their families in their education.

Some teachers may wonder, how can parents support learning at home for ELLs if they don't understand English?

While it's true that parents of ELs have many unique challenges, it's important to remember that regardless of their language or educational background, all parents play a crucial role in their child's academic success.

Families of ELLs can contribute to their child's learning in many valuable ways. In this blog, we'll discuss the challenges that ELL parents face as well as strategies to foster parent engagement. We'll also cover practical ways to support ELL students learning at home for both teachers and parents.

What are the Challenges for ELL Families?

When it comes to supporting ELL students at home, it's helpful to look at the barriers that their families may be experiencing.

A policy brief by M. Beatriz Arias, Ph.D., and Milagros Morillo-Campbell, Ph.D. analyzed the factors related to effective parental involvement for ELLs. According to their research, the most common barriers to involvement include:

Logistical issues, such as transportation, work schedules, and childcare

School-based barriers, such as an unwelcoming school environment

Limited education in their native language

Limited English skills

Different cultural expectations and/or understanding of their role in their child's education

Arias and Morillo-Campbell write, " ELL parents are frequently perceived as lacking resources to provide and support home educational experiences for their children. This deficit perspective suggests that fault and responsibility lie with the ELL population rather than the school and that the role of the school is to change the ways families interact with schools. Many educators assume that lack of parental participation is evidence of lack of parental interest. "

Despite these challenges, ELL families have a deep interest and commitment to their children's education.

The authors also identified the strategies that schools and teachers can use to address these barriers and empower ELL parents to take an active role in their child's education-both in school and at home:

Provide a home-school coordinator

Initiate home visits by teachers

Send out bilingual newsletters

Schedule monthly meetings at a local community center

Acknowledge parents' cultural values

Incorporate community into the curriculum

Invite extended family members to school activities

Modify meetings to accommodate parents' work schedules

Provide child care to facilitate parental attendance at school functions

Arrange transportation to facilitate student involvement in school activities

How Can Teachers Build Partnerships with ELL Families?

Creating a welcoming environment is the first and most important step in engaging ELL parents as collaborators. For parents to support learning at home for their children, they need to know they are welcome and valued as important partners in education.

The following tips can help you create a strong, collaborative relationship to reinforce learning at home.

Communicate expectations clearly

As we previously mentioned, parents of newcomer ELs may have a different understanding of what home-school partnerships look like due to cultural differences. By explicitly communicating parental responsibilities, teachers can minimize misunderstandings and promote a collaborative relationship with ELL parents.

Provide language support for parents

Under state and federal law, schools must provide information to families in a language that they can understand. Though translation apps are helpful tools, you may need to take further steps to provide parents with adequate language support.

In addition to translating documents into their preferred language, these strategies can make information more accessible to families of ESL learners:

Be aware of any educational jargon, acronyms, or other terms that may be unfamiliar to non-native speakers and edit accordingly

Include visuals or icons for potentially unfamiliar vocabulary (i.e. immunizations, etc.)

Use graphic organizers to make information more comprehensible and less text-heavy

Encourage two-way communication

When parents have limited English skills, they may feel like they cannot express questions and concerns to the teacher.

While it's important for parents to listen and receive information, it's equally important for them to have opportunities to speak and be heard.

Reciprocal communication is key to effective parent partnerships, but it can be a challenge with language barriers.

Thanks to technology, there are many free apps available that offer ELL support by providing two-way translation in hundreds of languages. Some apps offer text conversion, camera translation, and automatic language detection, which can allow parents to assist their children with their homework in a different language.

Not only do these tools facilitate two-way communication between teachers and families, but they can also empower ELL parents to take an active role in their children's academics regardless of the language that they speak.

Some of our favorites include:

Talking Points
Talking Points takes the messages that a teacher creates in English and translates them into the home language of the parents. It features more than 100 languages. In reverse, it will translate the parents' replies back into English for the teacher. Sent and received messages are managed just like they are in your email inbox.

Voice Translator
Voice Translator provides translation for over 100 languages. The app offers real-time, voice, and camera translation, language detection for text-to-text mode, text conversion for languages with a non-Latin alphabet, and more.

Microsoft Translator for Education
Microsoft Translator for Education boasts real-time translation with live captioning. This tool is helpful for one-on-one parent meetings as well as orientations and parent assemblies.

How Can Parents Support Learning at Home for ELLs?

Parents of English learners play a pivotal role in supporting their children's learning at home.

While the task may seem daunting at first, there are several effective strategies that teachers can offer families of ELs that are not dependent on parents' English skills.

Keep reading to explore strategies to share with families of your ELLs.

1. Use native language

Research has shown that students who have strong first-language skills can develop their second-language skills more easily, due to language transfer.

One of the best ways that parents of ELLs can support their learning at home is to use their native language. Encourage families of ELLs to use their native language to:

Read stories with their child

Sing songs

Cook together

Tell stories

Engage in conversations (talk about the school day, the world around them, etc.)

2. Foster a language-rich environment

One of the most effective ways to support language development for newcomer ELLs is to immerse them in a language-rich environment.

This involves exposing them to a variety of texts, conversations, and activities that promote language acquisition. Many local libraries have a variety of multilingual resources, as well as free programs for all ages.

Provide your ELL families with information on your local library, including how to get a library card for themselves or their children. By incorporating books, videos, and games in the child's native language, parents can provide a bridge to English and help maintain a strong connection to their cultural identity.

For tips on how to support ESL students in reading, Colorin Colorado has created free handouts with 8 literacy tips for parents that are available in 16 languages.

3. Encourage good homework habits

Parents don't need to be fluent in English to show their children that they value their academic success. One of the ways that parents of ESL learners can do this is by creating good homework habits.

You can share simple tips for parents, such as

Make homework part of a daily routine

Create a designated space for schoolwork to be done

Put away screens until homework is finished

Foster a growth mindset by emphasizing progress over perfection

Supporting ELL students' learning at home requires a multifaceted approach that considers their unique challenges and strengths. By actively engaging in their child's schoolwork and fostering a positive attitude towards learning, families of ELs can significantly contribute to their children's academic success.

Looking for more teaching tips and resources for your ELLs? Check out our ESL Resource Center!

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Beyond the Classroom: How Can Parents Support Learning at Home for ELLs? | Continental Educational Publisher

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How can parents support learning at home for ELLs if they don't understand English? Discover practical ways to support ELLs at home.

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1. This link provides different ways to provide effective instruction when teaching academic language. By using word charts, graphic organizers, and even act-it-out skits to allow EB/EL students to comprehend the vocabulary and academic terms.

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BICS (also called communicative competence): listening and speaking skills that students tend to acquire quickly in a new language (within the first couple of years) in order to communicate in social situations, such as asking someone for directions.

CALP: academic language and cognitively demanding skills required for classroom success. CALP usually takes between five and seven years to develop -- longer for students with less native language proficiency. Lectures, class discussions, research projects and skills (summarizing, analyzing, extracting and interpreting meaning; evaluating evidence; composing; and editing) require CALP.

More recent research has extended CALP to include the following three dimensions of academic English:

1. Linguistic: knowledge of word forms, functions, grammatical elements and discourse patterns used in academic settings

2. Cognitive: higher-order thinking involved in academic settings

3. Sociocultural-psychological: knowledge of social practices involved in academic settings

Now That We Know What Academic Language Is,
How Do We Help Students Learn It?

We have two main sources for identifying what words constitute academic language that we must explicitly teach. The first source includes words and usage that are required by units we teach. After identifying critical vocabulary in, say, a persuasive essay unit -- convince, reason, counter-argument, etc. -- we will pre-teach approximately 20 words, first by reviewing pronunciation, and then by having students . . .

Act out the words in a skit.

Identify a physical gesture for the word ("opinion" might mean pointing to one's head).

Write definitions of terms using their own words -- in English or in their home language.

Create a "word chart" that we will also replicate on the wall. During the unit, students will periodically note when those words are used, and add new ones that they believe are important enough to recognize and remember.

The other primary source is an academic vocabulary list divided by grade level, like the list created by the Berkeley, California Public Schools or the guide developed by the Tennessee Department of Education (with Robert Marzano's assistance) that categorizes academic words by content area. Of course, other lists are also available on the Web.

An activity that uses words from these lists is one of the most popular lessons we facilitate. For 20 minutes three times each week, we divide students into groups determined by levels of English proficiency. (We support mixed groups and are opposed to tracking by ability. In our multilevel class, we clarify that divisions are based on whether students studied English in their home country, not intelligence.)

Then with peer tutors, student teachers, bilingual aides or instructors alternating as they facilitate an activity with one group -- while other students are doing something else -- we discuss three or four new words aligned with the appropriate "grade level." (The actual grade for the list -- kindergarten, first grade, etc. -- does not appear on the copies we give students. Our learners don't need to be reminded how far away they are from English proficiency.)

After defining words with the same reinforcing activities that we use with word charts for units, we write down "question and answer frames" for each of the words:

"Do you believe that ______________________?"
"Yes, I believe ___________" or "No, I do not believe ___________."

We ask each student questions, and then they question each other, adapting the "frames" to their own interests. Then students review previously learned words with each other.

Reinforcement Through Context

There are a number of reasons why students enjoy doing this activity. One, they teach each other -- both in their practice and by using prior knowledge to complete the question and answer frames. Two, we bring a spirit of fun to the lessons. For example, we might begin by modeling, "Do you believe that Mr. Ferlazzo is the best teacher in the world?" to provoke laughter (and disagreement!). Students will subsequently develop their own questions that apply academic vocabulary to a similarly humorous topic. And third, students can easily quantify how much new knowledge they are learning each day, because knowing they are making meaningful progress is essential for self-confidence (also known as The Progress Principle).

Research suggests that we need to come in contact with a new word many times in various contexts in order to truly learn it. So in addition to the methods already discussed, we reinforce new vocabulary knowledge in other ways, such as regular classroom games, use of Vine and Instagram to create definitions of the words (we show an example below, and you can see more here), and having students use online academic vocabulary exercises (our favorites are Vocabulary Exercises For The Academic Word List, The Academic Word List at UoP and English Online).

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English-Language Learners and Academic Language

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BICS (also called communicative competence): listening and speaking skills that students tend to acquire quickly in a new language (within the first couple of years) in order to communicate in social situations, such as asking someone for directions. CALP: academic language and cognitively demanding skills required for classroom success.

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1. This site includes ways to apply technology to EB/EL student's learning experience and how it can be used as a supportive tool. Technology provides access to a variety of multimedia resources, including videos, audio recordings, interactive games, and simulations. These multimodal tools cater to different learning styles and can help EB/EL students understand and engage with content more effectively.

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English-language learners (ELLs) come into our classrooms with a wide variety of specific and unique needs for language acquisition. It's hard to talk about them all as one group -- ELLs represent a diverse range of students in every sense. It's needless to say: Working with ELLs is often challenging and also highly rewarding.

Because there are so many apps and edtech tools available today, you might expect to find lots of them made specifically for English language development (ELD), bilingual, or dual-immersion classrooms. Unfortunately, this isn't the case: Tools designed specifically for English-language learners are few and far between (though there are definitely some out there).

There are, nevertheless, a lot of great edtech tools and strategies you can use with your ELLs, even if the tools themselves aren't ELL-specific. Some might even be tools you've already heard of or used -- with an ELL-specific use case that's been hiding in plain sight.

So, what's the best way to find and use great digital tools with your ELLs? A lot will depend on your students' specific needs, but here are a few things to think about when finding the best tools for your classroom.

1. Look for ELL-friendly supports in the tools you're already using.

Lots of online tools have built-in features to support differentiated instruction for a variety of learners. Newsela offers texts at five variable Lexile levels, many in both English and Spanish. ThinkCERCA offers leveled texts with scaffolding for students reading at different levels, including audio versions of texts. Though ELA-focused tools are most likely to have the best English-learning supports, plenty of other tools support ELLs' learning in other subject areas. Khan Academy is one popular example; the site offers a translated version of its curriculum in 12 languages. As you search, keep in mind that these tools are usually aimed at a more general student audience, so they may be better suited to intermediate or advanced ELLs, and beginning-level ELLs may need more robust support.

2. Build basic online resources and productivity tools into daily routines.

From basic translation to productivity tools for consumers, a lot of everyday apps and websites can be great for supporting ELL-centered learning activities. A note-taking tool with recording features like Microsoft OneNote offers opportunities for speaking and listening practice. Simple English Wikipedia is just like it sounds: an adapted version of the standard Wikipedia site but for ELLs, younger students, or anyone else who might struggle with reading. A translation tool is an obvious choice, and Google Translate is generally thought to be the most accessible free option around.

3. Get creative and repurpose a digital-storytelling tool.

Storytelling is an excellent, interactive learning activity for ELLs and bilingual learners of all ages and language abilities. Even though these apps tend to be aimed at younger kids (and not specifically at ELLs), they still offer opportunities for kids to express themselves while they build new language skills. Don't be afraid to age these tools up; they're great even for older ELLs. And for beginning-level English-language learners, creative projects tend to offer opportunities for low-stakes (yet still high-concept) communication-based activities. Also, keep in mind that lots of other digital-creation mediums can offer fun language-building practice, from video production to podcasting and digital design. Find something that suits your students' ages, language abilities, and interests.

4. Find tools that specifically address your ELLs' needs.

As mentioned earlier, tools designed only for ELLs are somewhat scarce, but there are definitely some options. These ELL-centric tools run the gamut. BrainPOP ELL offers a comprehensive online curriculum aimed at improving kids' language skills from beginning to advanced levels. Read&Write is a helpful text-to-speech app for students with a variety of literacy needs, including English-language learners. On the flip side, a platform like Ellevation is designed for teachers and uses robust data to track and monitor students' progress and language growth. As time goes on, we're bound to see more edtech solutions specifically for ELLs. It will be interesting to see what the future holds in this space.

5. Supplement instruction with an online language-learning tool.

Language-learning tools for travelers and consumers are everywhere and easy to find. Although these tools should never replace quality classroom instruction, for some students they could be a helpful option for extra practice or out-of-class enrichment. Because they're often aimed at a general -- mostly adult -- audience, these won't all be the best choice for kids' learning. Nevertheless, in certain situations, some language-learning apps could be appropriate depending on your students' needs. If you do go this route, look for free options that offer adaptive features that challenge students as their language skills grow. If recommending out-of-class use, keep your students' devices and level of network access in mind.

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How to Use Technology to Support ELLs in Your Classroom | Common Sense Education

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Quality edtech for ELLs isn't easy to find, but great options do exist.

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1. This provides ways educators can make the ELAR lessons more accessible for EB/EL students. Language arts can be a difficult subject for many EB/EL students due to its complexity so it is important we provide scaffolding strategies.

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How To Make English Language Arts Accessible For Multilingual Learners

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Read more to learn how carefully curated texts and inclusion of fine art make Wit & Wisdom accessible for all learners.