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APLC - Alberta Professional Learning Consortium

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Developing Equitable Classroom Assessment Practices for English as an Additional Language

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English Language Learners

Teachers can make small changes to amplify language opportunities that create pathways toward success for English learners.

Designing instruction that is accessible to English learners (ELs), or multilingual learners, is of the utmost importance. It's simply not enough to make content available to learners. That's like being given a car but no keys to use it. Equitable instruction is instruction that provides every learner with what they need for academic success.

In recent years, there has been a positive shift in the way educators view and teach multilingual learners-recognizing the linguistic, academic, and cultural assets they bring. The reality is that multilingual learners enter our classrooms with unique lived experiences and traditions that add value to instruction. Teachers face the challenge of ensuring that multilingual learners are gaining content and developing language without falling behind in either. Multilingual learners who experience grade-level instruction with additional linguistic support tend to do better in school and have a greater chance of mastery.

But how does that happen when we have mountains of content to cover and grades to gather? How do we create lessons that are accessible and meaningful for multilingual learners? What does that look like in the lesson plans and in instructional practice?

Methods That Make Instruction Accessible to ELs

Multilingual learners weren't talking even when I asked them to. Lack of linguistic support, uncertainty about expectations, fear or anxiety about speaking in a new language, and other factors seemed to contribute to their silence.

Sometimes the talk was uncontrollably loud.

Conversations often seemed to stray from the topic.

1. Infuse instruction with peer-to-peer discussion and exploration. This student-centered practice allows multilingual learners to build their listening and speaking vocabularies as they negotiate meaning. There may be much content to cover, but hiding it behind a lecture that multilingual learners may not comprehend does little good. It's important for multilingual learners to uncover their understanding through interacting with peers.

Using open-ended questions and posting them for students to see.

Providing sentence stems for responses.

Intentionally pairing students for discussion and modeling the routine.

When I began carving out more space for student talk, despite the fact that quiet classrooms were encouraged by colleagues and some administrators, it was challenging for a few reasons:

Provide a similar text in the student'sfirst language.

Do a side-by-side of the original text and an audio version.

Give them a side-by-side of the original text and a text a few reading levels lower.

You may be experiencing similar struggles. I found that structuring the peer discussion alleviated these problems and created an environment that controlled the chaos and provided routines and expectations that my students needed. My multilingual learners' voices were being amplified, and it began to surface in their confidence, comfort, and writing, so I knew we were on the right track. Most of the challenges that seemed to keep multilingual learners from participating in speaking with peers were eliminated by my intentional and planned routines for speaking, such as these:

2. Offer adapted or engineered texts when reading materials are dense. As multilingual learners get older, a common challenge is that content and reading selections become more complex. You can adapt or engineer texts, chunking them into pieces with annotations and synonyms, and even use a multilingual learner's first language. Sometimes, adapting a text looks like providing a side-by-side of the original text:

3. Provide daily opportunities for written expression in all content areas with the use of scaffolds and accommodations. Daily writing can be brief, such as quick pieces that are about 3 minutes or sketch notes using visuals and words. Multilingual learners benefit from seeing teachers model writing expectations and examples at various levels of proficiency.

Other scaffolds and accommodations for writing include offering sentence starters or paragraph frames and encouraging drawing, labeling, and use of the first language. Multilingual learners at beginning levels of English proficiency pull from all of their language repertoires to access their knowledge and demonstrate what they understand and can do.

Students will perform at different levels. It took me a while to realize that my students' products didn't have to be the same. I remember expecting all my students to write lengthy essays. One of my newly arrived multilingual learners could do that, but not in English yet. He wrote his first essay primarily in his language. Stepping outside of my comfort zone was at first a challenge. How was I going to assess writing that I was unable to read? Through collaboration with colleagues who could read the language, I was able to assess my student's writing. Some teachers in similar situations have used apps to translate students' writing.

When modeling academic language and effective communication, use words from the word wall.

When reading aloud, use and point to a strategy from a reading anchor chart.

When modeling writing, show how to use a translation dictionary, thesaurus or other dictionary.

4. Utilize classroom resources. Resources such as word walls, anchor charts, and translation dictionaries can enhance multilingual learners' understanding of concepts, especially when they include pictorial or visual support. The most effective resources act as co-teachers when we're unable to assist multilingual learners as they work independently. But even this doesn't happen by magic.

Teachers can directly teach students how to use these resources by referring to word walls, anchor charts, and dictionaries:

When we model for learners how to use resources and remind them that they can use them too, they are more likely to do it independently.

Sometimes my husband (who is quite a bit taller than I am) drives my car, and when I get back into the driver's seat, I silently thank the car designers for their efforts in assuring that I'm able to adjust the mirrors, move the seat up and forward, and even move the steering wheel-I need to see the road ahead of me. Everyone does. This analogy is how I visualize us as lesson designers for multilingual learners who need to see and have access to their grade-level curriculum. We design the lessons, and we can provide the access.

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4 Practical Ways to Make Instruction Accessible for Multilingual Learners

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Teachers can make small changes to amplify language opportunities that create pathways toward success for English learners.

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Teacher Challenge -Assessment- How to assess and moderate EAL student work with the rest of the class?

Student Challenge- Applying the right vocab in sentence structure and acquiring Vocabulary.

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I Have a New Multilingual Learner. What Do I Do? A Step-By-Step Guide

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by Valentina Gonzalez The quality and quantity of preservice instruction in teaching multilingual learners vary, leaving many teachers feeling inadequately prepared. And even those who did re…

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Why Tiered Vocabulary matters?

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An example of how to pick the words to preteach

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What does the evidence base tell us about effective oral language…

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Maximising the impact of oral language approaches

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Pair students with different language backgrounds to foster collaboration and mutual learning.

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Children use real life connection to habitat and life in the animals that live in teh habitat. As they probe deeper into the topic they build on the objects and teh vocabulary that goes along with it.

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Immersive Learning and Explicit Use of vocabulary

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Immersive Learning and Explicit Use of vocabulary

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Y1 students explore Jungle Habiatt and the animals living in it through discussion, pictures and roleplay.

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Guidance and Strategies in EARLY YEARS Webinar

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Guidance and Strategies in EARLY YEARS Webinar

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One Stop Shop- UK curriculum is now opting for inclusive strategies .

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EAL in Early Years Settings: Guidance and Strategies (Webinar)

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Intervention Groups and Inclusive Strategies for Secondary

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Intervention Groups and Inclusive Strategies for Secondary

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Intervention Groups: Supporting Secondary EAL Learners Beyond the Classroom

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I used these running dictation instructions with my Year 3 EAL students last term. It was successful because the students will able to apply suitable conjunctions, and the students worked well together.

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I used the running dictation with my Year 3 EAL students, and it was successful. The children enjoyed the activity, learned conjunctions from each other, and were able to apply them in a fun way

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Engagement Through Interactive Activities:

Activities like Bingo, Quizlet, and Tic Tac Toe make learning vocabulary fun and encourage active participation.

Games such as Snap & Match help build vocabulary related to sports in an enjoyable way.

Differentiated Learning:

Tasks like fill-in-the-blanks and word scrambles allow students at different proficiency levels to succeed at their own pace.

Advanced students can attempt short essays while beginners work on simpler tasks like matching pictures with words.

Skill Integration:

Combines reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills through scaffolded tasks like presentation preparation, dialog cards, and interviews.

Confidence Building:

Confidence grows as students progress from basic vocabulary tasks to complex sentence construction and short essays.

Cultural Context Understanding:

Learning sports vocabulary helps students connect with peers by understanding terms commonly used during physical activities and sports events.

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 Differentiation – Adapting lessons for different levels of language skills.

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 Differentiation – Adapting lessons for different levels of language skills.

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Confidence – Fear of making mistakes or speaking in front of others.

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Confidence – Fear of making mistakes or speaking in front of others.

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Join our webinars and learn from experts on how to better support Multilingual Learners (MLs) and English Learners (ELs)

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Children make connections between their real life experiences of going to a cafe/restaurant and the story 'The Gruffalo'. Language from the story introduced through resources - scrambled snake, owl ice-cream etc.

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Build relationships from the start with new EAL children as they will pick up the language much faster if they are playing with friends. Also build up their confidence slowly, looks of talk partner work is more successful at the beginning than putting them on the spot and making them address the whole class.

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An engaging and immersive hook, such as a staff led performance of the story Whatever Next! can captivate children and enhance language comprehension. By bringing the story to life through expressive actions, props and in this case a moon projector, the performance provides contextual clues that help children connect spoken words to their meanings.

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papago can help you have a fluent and correct language conversation with your MLL?

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16 Variations on Think-Pair-Share to Keep Students Engaged

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Teachers and students use this classic learning strategy often. To keep it from getting stale, try these tweaks.

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Handa Surprise Display Board, Sensory Tray. 

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Handa Surprise Display Board, Sensory Tray. 

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or EAL students who are struggling to process spoken language, visual learning can be extremely helpful. Use labelled images and illustrate the story books, so that when you introduce new concepts, everyone understands what you’re referring to.

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Fruits Display Charts in Korean and Mandarin 

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MLs is important for visual support, language development, serve as a reference tool, create cultural relevance, and support different learning styles. These visual aids help students comprehend concepts more easily, as they can refer to images or diagrams to reinforce their understanding.

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Add Read Write extension to translate, add images, make flashcards etc . Its a time Saver Planning Tool.

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Read and Write Chrome Extension Guide for Beginners

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Create, print, share and translate symbol materials online Sign up now and join 1000s of teachers, parents and professionals around the world who use Widgit Online to support learning and communication. Cloud Based Flexibility Create and open your symbol materials from any PC, Mac or iPad with an internet connection.