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Stage I: Pre-production
Stage II: Early Production
Stage III: Speech Emergent
Stage IV: Beginning Fluency
Stage V: Intermediate Fluency
Stage VI: Advanced Fluency

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Description: Students are taking in the new language but are not yet speaking it other than possibly parroting it back from what someone else is saying. They may have a vocabulary of 500 or so words

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Students are developing receptive and active vocabulary. Word knowledge is around 1,000 words. Students are speaking short, one to two-word phrases.

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Students are developing a larger vocabulary at around 3,000 known words. They are learning to communicate in simple phrases and sentences but need context clues and familiar topics.

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Students are using more fluent speech with fewer errors. Challenges include new/unfamiliar contexts and academic language.

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12 Ways to Support English Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom

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12 Ways to Support English Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
A note on terminology: The acronym ESL is used less often now in schools than it used to be, because we recognize that many students who are learning English already speak several other languages, so English would not be a "second" language. I use it several times in the post because schools sometimes refer to the teachers as ESL teachers, and the term is still widely used as a search term for this topic. My intent in using the acronym is to make this post easier to find online.

You have a new student, and he speaks no English. His family has just moved to your town from Japan, and though he receives English as a Second Language (ESL) support, he will also be sitting in your room every day to give him more exposure to his new language. How can you be a good teacher to someone who barely understands you?

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, an average of 9 percent of students in U.S. public schools are English Language Learners (ELLs); that number is closer to 14 percent in cities. Although many of these students start off in high-intensity, whole-day English programs, most are integrated into mainstream classrooms within a year, well before their English language skills would be considered proficient.

How prepared are you to teach these students? If you're like most classroom teachers, you have little to no training in the most effective methods for working with English language learners (Walker, Shafer, & Iiams, 2004). So that means we have a problem here: Lots of ELL kids in regular classrooms, and no teacher training to ensure the success of that placement.

Below, three ESL teachers tell us what they know about the things regular classroom teachers can do to improve instruction for ELL students. These 12 strategies are simple, they are not very time consuming, and best of all, they will help everyone in your class learn better:

1. Make it Visual

"Avoid giving instructions in the air," says Melissa Eddington, an Ohio-based ESL teacher. "ELL kids have a harder time processing spoken language." So instructions - even basic directions for classroom procedures - should be written on the board whenever possible. Challenging concepts should be diagrammed or supported with pictures. And modeling the steps of a process or showing students what a finished product should look like can go a long way toward helping students understand. "Sometimes showing our students what to do is all they need in order to do it," Eddington says. Not only will this kind of nonlinguistic representation improve comprehension for ELL students, it will help all of your students grasp concepts better.

2. Build in more group work.

"Kids aren't just empty glasses that we pour stuff into and then at the end of the day they dump it back onto a test," says Kim, an ESL teacher who was the subject of my very first podcast interview. "If you really want the kids to learn, they've got to be engaged." That means less teacher-led, whole-class instruction, and more small groups, where students can practice language with their peers in a more personal, lower-risk setting. And if ELL students attend your class with a resource teacher, make use of that person: In most cases the resource teacher doesn't have to work exclusively with the ESL students; they can work with smaller groups that happen to contain these students, helping to improve the teacher-student ratio and give kids more time to practice.

3. Communicate with the ESL teacher.

Mary Yurkosky, a former ESL teacher in Massachusetts, credits much of her students' success to the strong relationship she had with the regular classroom teachers. "The classroom teachers were always talking to me about what they were doing in their classes," she says. "They made it so easy for me to support them: If a teacher was going to be doing a unit on plants, I could make sure we used some of that same vocabulary in the ESL class."

Ideally, this could be systematized, where ESL teachers could regularly get copies of lesson plans or collaborate with regular classroom teachers to build solid back-and-forth support, but "it doesn't have to be that much work," Yurkosky insists. "Just talk to each other. Talk about what's going on in your classrooms, invite each other to special presentations, share what your students are learning, and the words will naturally find their way into the ESL class."

4. Honor the "silent period."

Many new language learners go through a silent period, during which they will speak very little, if at all. "Don't force them to talk if they don't want to," says Eddington, "A lot of students who come from cultures outside of America want to be perfect when they speak, so they will not share until they feel they are at a point where they're perfect." Just knowing that this is a normal stage in second language acquisition should help relieve any pressure you feel to move them toward talking too quickly.

5. Allow some scaffolding with the native language.

Although it has been a hotly debated topic in the language-learning community, allowing students some use of their first language (L1) in second-language (L2) classrooms is gaining acceptance. When a student is still very new to a language, it's okay to pair him with other students who speak his native language. "Some students are afraid to open their mouths at all for fear of sounding stupid or just not knowing the words to use," Yurkosky says. "Letting them explain things or ask questions in their first language gets them to relax and feel like a part of the class."

And this doesn't only apply to spoken language. If you give students a written assignment, but the ELL student doesn't yet have the proficiency to handle writing his response in English, "Don't make them just sit there and do nothing," Eddington says. "Allow them to write in their first language if they're able. This allows them to still participate in journal writing or a math extended response, even if you can't read what they write." There has even been some evidence that allowing second-language learners to pre-write and brainstorm in L1 results in higher-quality writing in L2 in later stages of the writing process (Yigzaw, 2012).

6. Look out for culturally unique vocabulary.

"For most of these kids, their background knowledge is lacking, especially with things that are unique to American or westernized culture," says Eddington. It's important to directly teach certain vocabulary words: "Show them videos of what it looks like to toss pizza dough, show pictures of a juke box or a clothing rack - things that are not common in their own language."

One way to differentiate for ELL students is to consider the whole list of terms you're going to teach for a unit, and if you think an ELL student may be overwhelmed by such a long list, omit those that are not essential to understanding the larger topic at hand.

7. Use sentence frames to give students practice with academic language.

All students, not just English language learners, need practice with academic conversations. Sentence frames - partially completed sentences like "I disagree with what _________ said because..." - show students how to structure language in a formal way. Keep these posted in a highly visible spot in your classroom and require students to refer to them during discussions and while they write.

For this kind of language to really sink in, though, Kim says it has to become a regular part of class. "They won't do it if it's not the norm in the class, because they'll be embarrassed to use it among their peers," she says. "But if they can put it off on the teacher and say, Oh, well, you know, Miss Kim makes me talk like this, then they don't look as hoity-toity as they would otherwise."

8. Pre-teach whenever possible.

If you're going to be reading a certain article next week, give ESL students a copy of it now. If you plan to show a YouTube video tomorrow, send a link to your ESL students today. Any chance you can give these students to preview material will increase the odds that they'll understand it on the day you present it to everyone else. "That kind of thing is wonderful," Yurkosky says. "The kids feel so empowered if they've had a chance to look at the material ahead of time."

9. Learn about the cultural background of your students...

Our second-language populations grow more diverse every year. Taking the time to learn the basics of where a child comes from - exactly, not 'somewhere in the Middle East/South America/Asia/Africa' - tells the student that you respect her enough to bother. Kim remembers one time when she had to set the record straight about the diverse South American population at her school: "I was listening to the teachers talking about the 'Mexican' kids in our building," she says, "and I was like, 'We don't have any Mexicans.'" Not taking the time to at least correctly identify a child's country of origin, much like not bothering to pronounce their name correctly, is a kind of microaggression, a small, subtle insult that communicates hostility toward people of color. Make a commitment to be someone who bothers to get it right.

Once you have the country straight, take things up a notch by learning about students' religious and cultural practices. If he is a practicing Muslim, he should be told if one of the pizzas you ordered for the class party has sausage on it. If she comes from a culture where eye contact with adults is viewed as disrespectful, you'll know not to force her to look you in the eye when she's talking.

10. ...but don't make a child speak for his entire culture.

In her podcast interview, Kim shared a story about watching a teacher ask a new Iraqi student how he felt about the war in his country, right in the middle of class. "That's not cultural inclusiveness," she explains. "I've seen teachers do this and then pat themselves on the back. The students' English is limited so they can't express themselves very well, and they don't want to 'represent'; they just want to be there." If you anticipate a theme coming up in your class that's going to be relevant to one of your students, have a conversation with them in advance, or check with your ESL teacher to see if they think it's appropriate for in-class discussion.

11. Show them how to take themselves less seriously...

By modeling the risk-taking that's required to learn a new language, you help students develop the courage to take their own risks, and to have a sense of humor about it. "I tried to say the word 'paint' ( pinta) in Portuguese and instead I said the word for 'penis' ( pinto). They all roared with laughter while I stood there with a What?? look on my face," Yurkosky says. "When they explained what I'd said, I laughed so hard! I told them that laughing was fine because sometimes mistakes are really funny, but ridicule is never okay."

12. ...but always take them seriously.

One of Kim's pet peeves about how teachers interact with English language learners is the way they often see students' efforts as 'cute,' missing the whole point of what the student is trying to say. "A student will be desperate to communicate, and the teacher will get distracted by the delivery and miss the message," she says. "That's painful for me to watch." It bothers her when teachers mistake a lack of language for a lack of intelligence or maturity. When a child can't express themselves as well as they would in their native language, it's far too easy to assume the concepts just aren't in their heads.

"It breaks my heart when I hear teachers say (ELL kids) don't know anything," says Eddington. "These are brilliant kids and they know a lot. They just can't tell us in English yet." Make a conscious effort to see past the accent and the mispronunciations and treat every interaction - every student - with the respect they deserve.

"They're doing twice the job of everybody else in the class," Kim adds, "even though the result looks like half as much." ♦

Further Reading

The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide is one of the highest-rated books on teaching English-language learners available. In addition to offering an overview of the research on second-language learners and best practices in teaching ESL, it also includes a whole section on teaching ESL in the content areas and another specifically geared toward teaching ELL students in mainstream classrooms.
References:
Walker, A., Shafer, J., & Iiams, M. (2004). "Not in my classroom": Teacher attitudes towards English language learners in the mainstream classroom. NABE Journal of Research and Practice, 2(1), 130-160.

Yigzaw, A. (2012). Impact of L1 use in L2 English writing classes. Ethiopian Journal of Education and Sciences, 8(1), 11-27.

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12 Ways to Support English Learners in the Mainstream Classroom

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Advice from three ESL teachers on the things regular classroom teachers can do to help English language learners thrive in mainstream classrooms.

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Individuals can communicate fluently in all contexts and is comfortable conversing in the second language.

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Students have a vocabulary of approximately 6,000 words. Communication is fluent in social situations. Academic vocabulary will still have gaps. Writing will have more errors than speaking generally.

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6 Essential Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners

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6 Essential Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners

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Over 10 percent of students in the United States-more than 4.8 million kids-are English language learners (ELLs), and the number is on the rise. Though these students do not learn differently than their native-English-speaking peers, they do have particular educational needs.

To learn about these needs-and best practices for addressing them-I interviewed a range of educators and observers, including Larry Ferlazzo, an educator and author of The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide; longtime teachers of English as a second language (ESL) Emily Francis and Tan Huynh; and the journalist Helen Thorpe, who spent a year observing a teacher who works with ELLs.

The group emphasized that the strategies listed here, which include both big-picture mindsets and nitty-gritty teaching tactics, can be incorporated into all classrooms, benefiting both native English speakers and ELLs.

1. Cultivate Relationships and Be Culturally Responsive

No surprise here. A successful classroom, our educators agreed, is one in which students feel known, appreciated, and comfortable taking emotional and intellectual risks. That requires intentional planning and consistent messaging by the teacher.

Emily Francis, an ESL teacher in Concord, North Carolina, makes clear that she wants her students to "embrace their culture and their language as a foundation of who they are" and to consider their acquisition of a new culture and language "not as subtractive, but as additive." To help support students who may never have attended school before or may be coping with migration-based trauma, Francis emphasizes that little things make a big difference. "The first thing that I need to think about is, how is my student feeling in my classroom?" she says. "Are they sitting next to a buddy they can ask a question in their home language? Do they feel comfortable tapping me on the shoulder if they have to go to the bathroom?"

But creating a supportive environment is also about cultivating an appreciation of diversity-it's critical that both the curriculum and the classroom environment honor and reflect the lives of the students. For instance, Francis makes certain that her classroom library is reflective of her students' diverse backgrounds and identities.

ESL teacher Katie Toppel, who teaches near Portland, Oregon, champions the value of home visits to get to know students' families and takes care to incorporate the particulars of students' lives, such as pets' names and favorite sports, into lessons. Students are most engaged when they feel a personal connection to a lesson or unit, a connection that's created in part by a teacher's investment in culturally competent relationships.

2. Teach Language Skills Across the Curriculum

English language learners should not be learning the fundamentals of English in isolation; they should be applying their developing language skills to rich academic content in all subjects.

"It is key that in mainstream classrooms, teachers understand their role as language teachers," says Valentina Gonzalez, a district leader in Katy, Texas, suggesting that all teachers should be aware of the specialized idiom they work within. "If we teach math, then we teach the language of mathematics. If we teach science, then we teach the language of science." Math teachers, in other words, should take the time to teach the unfamiliar vocabulary of mathematics- add, subtract, calculator, solve -concurrently with the teaching of math skills.

3. Emphasize Productive Language

The educators I interviewed agreed that productive language skills-hard-to-master dimensions of language fluency like speaking and writing-should be front and center from day one, even if students feel hesitant about them.

Beginning ELLs often develop receptive language skills like listening and reading first. Educators who are unaware of the typical path to fluency may believe that students who can follow verbal or written directions will be able to produce oral or written language, but that's usually not the case.

To support reluctant speakers, Tan Huynh, an educator who blogs at Empowering ELLs, suggests using sentence frames. "For example, when a science teacher wants ELLs to produce a hypothesis, they might offer the sentence, 'If _____ was added, then _____ because _____.' This sentence frame provides clues that empower ELLs to sound and think like scientists," Huynh says.

Andrea Honigsfeld, a professor of education at Molloy College in Rockville, New York, suggests that all lessons touch on every letter of the acronym SWIRL, which stands for Speak, Write, Interact, Read, Listen. The approach intentionally privileges productive language skills "from the beginning," she says.

4. Speak Slowly-and Increase Your Wait Time

Easier said than done. Still, many of the teachers I spoke to said this simple change is vital. You can record yourself speaking in class to measure your cadence, and adjust.

"Adding in an extra three to five seconds after we pose a question offers all students time to think," explains Gonzalez. "However, for English learners, it also gives time to translate, process their thinking, translate back into English, and develop the courage to answer. If we call on students too quickly, many of our students will stop thinking about the answers-or trying to answer at all."

That means undoing some of our own habits, according to Larry Ferlazzo, a high school ESL teacher in Sacramento, California. "Researchers have found that typically most teachers give one to two seconds between asking a question and expecting a student response," he says. "The same researchers have shown that if you wait three to five seconds, the quality of responses is astronomically greater."

5. Differentiate-and Use Multiple Modalities

All kids learn better when they engage with material in multiple ways: Lessons that involve writing, speaking, drawing, and listening, for example, give students four opportunities to deepen their understanding of the work. For ELLs, those additional engagements also provide a little breathing room so they can work through the language barrier.

Helen Thorpe, a journalist who spent a year observing Eddie Williams's classroom in Denver in order to write a book about immigrants called The Newcomers, marveled at Williams's method of differentiation. "Eddie would enunciate very clearly in English multiple times, he would write it on the board, and he would go to the projector to give a visual. And, finally, he'd be asking the kids to verbalize aspects of the lesson themselves," she says, tracing Williams's efforts to move his students from receptive to productive language fluency.

Toppel uses a strategy called QSSSA to scaffold classroom discussions with ELLs. The letters stand for Question (the teacher poses a question, then gives ample think time); Signal (a designated motion like a thumbs-up, a finger on the nose-something that lets students indicate that they're ready to answer); Stem (the teacher provides a sentence starter for the question-for example, for "What is your favorite place to read a book?" the stem might be, "My favorite place to read a book is _____"); Share; and Assess.

6. Incorporate Students' Native Languages-and Don't Be Afraid of Technology

Bilingualism is the goal, of course, not replacement.

Ferlazzo uses a strategy called "preview, view, review," which leverages a student's native language skills as a foundation for learning the new language. He introduces a topic and encourages students to preview it in materials in their home language (often using multilingual videos and other online resources); he then teaches the topic in English, and then has students review the information in their home language.

Ferlazzo also encourages teachers to embrace technologies that students find helpful, like Google Translate. He stresses that the app can be a useful way for students to translate words quickly-but warns that it can quickly "become a dependency" if it's used as more than a handy dictionary.

Thorpe agrees that Translate can take pressure off teachers, who sometimes find that they "just stand at the front of the room and say things over and over. And if the kids didn't know what those words are, they're out of luck." Translation technology means you can say it once (or twice) and let the students use the technology to translate key words and phrases.

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6 Essential Strategies for Teaching English Language Learners

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We interviewed educators with decades of experience in teaching ELLs and tapped a network of experts and observers to find the strategies that work.

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ESOL Teacher Sheila Majdi: Using Sentence Frames with ELLs

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13 Instructional strategies for supporting newcomers

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13 Instructional strategies for supporting newcomers

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The new question-of-the-week is:
What are effective teaching strategies for newcomers?
Newcomers to the United States often have low-proficiency in English but, depending upon their age, might have had considerable education in their home language.

What are the most effective teaching strategies educators can use with this population, which is certain to grow under President Biden's immigration policies?

Several experienced educators are contributing responses to this question: Michelle Shory, Irina McGrath, Luisa Palacio, Sean McWherter Ed.D., and Ciera Walker. Michelle, Irina, and Luisa were also guests on my 10-minute BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

Before we get to today's guest contributors, I'd like to share a few of my favorite strategies:
1. Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM)
In the PWIM, students and teachers first label an image with words, then categorize them, followed by using the words to write sentences about the picture. They next categorize the sentences, turn them into paragraphs, and finally, write a title.

You can learn more about the PWIM here and here.
2. Games
You can't go wrong with games. In the classroom, zillions of different ones can be played with mini-whiteboards, and they can be modified for online use by using a tool like Whiteboard.fi. Quizizz is also great for online use, and it has countless games already premade for just about any topic you want to teach!
3. Dialogues 4.Freire's Learning Sequence 5. Language Experience Approach (LEA)
Promoting Interaction
Michelle Shory and Irina McGrath are Google Certified trainers and co-creators of ELL 2.0, a website that offers tools and resources for teachers of English-learners. Irina V. McGrath, Ph.D., works for the Kentucky education department as an education recovery specialist. She is also a co-director of the Louisville Writing Project (LWP) and the University of Louisville and Indiana University Southeast adjunct who teaches ESL/ENL instruction as well as assessment, literature, and cultural- and linguistic-diversity courses. Michelle Shory, Ed.S., is a district ESL instructional coach in the Jefferson County public schools, Louisville, Ky. She is passionate about literacy and helped establish Dolly Parton's Imagination Library in Louisville.
Teaching students who are newcomers (students in their first year of enrollment in a U.S school) is a privilege-it changes an educator's outlook, practice, and heart forever; however, working with newcomers requires a lot of cognitive, physical, and emotional energy. But we challenge you to find a more rewarding experience in all of education. Where else do you get to see such incredible growth and change? And you will probably keep relationships with these students long after they leave your classroom.
Research
In order to support newcomers in the most effective way, teachers should do their homework on students-research their cultures, history, language, and education systems. You can find resources here and here.

Learning about newcomers will help you connect with your students and their families, give you ideas on how to make your curriculum culturally relevant, and help you address your own assumptions and misconceptions.
Relationships, Self-Advocacy, and Routines
Before starting with the first "real" lesson, begin with relationships, self-advocacy, and routines.

When focusing on relationships, start with names. Teachers should know how to pronounce student names-and students should know how to pronounce each other's names. Also, students need to be fully seen. Educators must take time to learn about their students' interests, families, and topics they love to study. Teachers should also share about themselves-share hobbies, family pictures, etc. Classrooms (especially newcomer classrooms) need to feel safe because we are encouraging students to be vulnerable each day when they are using a new language.

Dr. Stephen Krashen instructs educators to "lower the affective filter" as a way to increase comprehension. Lowering the affective filter includes helping kids feel comfortable by speaking more slowly, using gestures, and including high-interest materials. All of this is most effective when classrooms are warm and comfortable.

Educators will want to begin by teaching independence on day one. Show students how to use technology like Microsoft's Immersive Reader, Google Translate, or Socratic from Google. Demonstrate planning and organization skills (like using a digital calendar or Google Keep). It is also a good idea to make sure that students know how to ask for help from a teacher when they don't know the answer to a question.
Instructional Supports and Considerations
One last addition is to set up strategies to support interaction. WIDA researchers found that ELs spend on average less than 10 minutes per day speaking in class. This is unacceptable from a social-emotional and academic lens-ELs need to engage frequently in classroom conversations. When thinking about structures, consider Kagan structures or QSSSA from Seidlitz.

When facilitating lessons, always remember to include visuals, gestures, and repetition. ESL consultant and teacher Carol Salva's students report these strategies as the most helpful.

It is also important to consider teaching themes. Krashen's research demonstrates the power of "deep reading" on a topic and how it supports ELs in acquiring language. Themes boost engagement and confidence because students are continually building their expertise about a topic. Additional research (highlighted in Natalie Wexler's work) has proven that reading comprehension is largely based on background knowledge. So, whenever teachers build students' knowledge of the world, they are also supporting comprehension.

Finally, when teaching newcomers, educators should not discount the expertise in the room. Be sure to tap into students' "funds of knowledge," a term coined by Dr. Luis Moll that represents cultural resources and knowledge that students bring to the classroom. Always include at least one entry point for newcomers to bring in their cultural and linguistic expertise. One example might be a unit on religions, holidays, or education systems around the globe.

In conclusion, teachers play an important role in ensuring social, emotional, and academic success of newcomer students. The more effort teachers put into getting to know their students, teaching them self-advocacy skills, and building on their funds of knowledge, the greater chance their students will have of reaching their highest potential and succeeding personally and professionally.

ELLs 'Need to Feel Safe'
Luisa Palacio is an ESL and Spanish teacher from Colombia with 19 years of teaching experience. Luisa holds a bachelor's degree in modern languages: English and French, and an M.A. in TESOL from Greensboro College. Currently, she teaches K-12 at Northampton County schools in North Carolina and Spanish with South Carolina Virtual Education:
We always consider content relevancy, the use of visuals, vocalization, facial expression, among others. However, what ELs need at first is to feel safe, comfortable, and confident in their new environment.

The school system works in a completely different way in every country. I believe one of the first things we need to do with newcomers is to show them how school works, classroom routines, how to sign in and out of school, how to move around campus, how to get their meals, how to login on their technological devices, explain schedules, share possible extracurricular activities in which newcomers could participate, etc. Newcomers need modeling, not only for the language but also for the culture. Newcomers need to be shown what to do and how to do it, what to say and how to say it. As teachers, we need to be aware of the cultural shock newcomers go through so that we can help the process to run a bit smoother.

Every newcomer should have a mentor to shadow him/her during the first days of school, someone who can introduce them to their teachers, who makes teachers aware that this EL is in their class and will need some extra attention. In my opinion, cultural awareness should be the first teaching strategy. Newcomers are facing a new culture, and they also need to feel their own culture is valued. Thus, it is important to generate activities that allow students to share their culture, so they make comparisons and connections by sharing about a subject they master and a subject that is relevant.

'Language-Learning Goals'

Sean McWherter, Ed.D., is the director of restart programs for the Guilford County schools in North Carolina. He is the author of A Road Map to PLC Success published by Routledge Eye on Education, 2017, and Unpacking your Learning Targets: Aligning Student Learning to Standards, published by Routledge Eye on Education, 2020:

With the rapidly increasing population of English-language-learners in many schools across the U.S., it is becoming ever more important for regular education teachers and administrators to know how to support these students and their families.

I feel that oftentimes educators mistakenly believe that ELLs have trouble learning or that they learn differently from native English speakers and that their education is best left to the English as a second language or ELL teacher. This could not be further from the truth; the educational barriers ELL students face are accentuated by language and cultural barriers, not an inability to learn.
Utilize Language-Learning Goals
Many educators are aware that the use of learning targets in the classroom is an instructional best practice and that students learn better when teachers utilize clear daily learning goals (Marzano, 2009; Reeves, 2010; Kareva & Echevarria, 2013). For ELL students, it is especially important to include both lesson and language-learning goals.

The lesson objectives should be focused on the grade-level content while the language objective should align to one of the four domains of English-language development (ELD), which are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. A teacher's experience with creating and using language objectives in their instruction is important to ensure that ELLs have equal access to the curriculum (Hudson, Miller, & Butler, 2006; Short, Echevarría, & Richards-Tutor, 2011; Marcos and Himmel 2016). When planning a lesson, everything should intentionally lead students to mastery of the learning targets while providing students with a variety of meaningful activities and high-quality instruction.
Increase Student Engagement and Interactions
To support student engagement, as well as the lesson and language objectives, liberally employ the use of visuals to reinforce both spoken and written words. Capitalize on the use of gestures, often exaggerated, for added emphasis, speak slower and be sure to enunciate your words, repeat important words or phrases, and be sure to use fewer idioms. Many ELL students have not attended schools in their new county and may be unfamiliar with cultural references. Take the time to thoroughly review texts to identify potentially confusing language and concepts so that you can build the background knowledge of your ELL students prior to exposing them to potentially confusing material (Kareva & Echevarria, 2013).

Incorporate high-frequency vocabulary words throughout all content areas and be sure to provide instructions and other important information in multiple formats. Don't just tell the students what you want them to do, write it, provide an example/exemplar, and act it out or model the activity if possible.

Provide multiple opportunities for ELL students to interact with their peers in small groups where they can practice speaking and listening in low-risk settings that will produce language-learning outcomes (Saunders & Goldenberg, 2010).
Build Positive Relationships and Cultural Connections
Building relationships with your students is the foundational component of successful teaching and learning, and there is a multitude of research that supports this idea. According to a review of 46 research studies, students that feel valued and appreciated are more likely to demonstrate both short- and long-term improvements in academic engagement, attendance, grades, and behavior, while also having a reduced dropout rate (Sparks, 2019).

Begin forming relationships with your ELL students by learning about their individual culture, traditions, religion, hobbies, family dynamic, and background. Stay respectful of their personal boundaries and understand that they may need time to settle into their new environment before opening up. (National Clearing House for English Language Acquisition, n.d.). Having a positive relationship with a student's family can also help support their education.

Remember some of the families may only have very little or even no formal schooling experience in this country, so taking the time to show them what school is like and how they can get involved are critical first steps to forming a parent partnership. (Short & Boyson, 2012)

Stations
Ciera Walker is a sixth-year systemwide ELL teacher in east Tennessee:
Newcomers that might have the same level of English do not necessarily grow and learn at the same rate. This is due to many factors, such as previous schooling experience and the background of the student and their family. I use stations as a strategy to meet the needs of all of my newcomers.

What? Stations provide students with an opportunity to work with a partner on specific skills to boost their language learning and language acquisition.

When? We do stations most Thursdays and every Friday.

How? Students eventually work their way up to a goal of 12-15 minutes per station. The teacher starts a timer, and students rotate through the stations with their partner.

Who? I generally group my students by ability in English (homogeneous groups), but occasionally, if they have a great ,I will let them choose their partners (in more heterogeneous groups).

Why? The purpose of stations is to provide students with practice in skills they are learning in the ESL classroom and the general education classroom. Students have opportunities to practice skills during stations while the teacher provides individualized mini-lessons to help with the language-learning process. Stations are practical and provide teachers with opportunities to use best practices in teaching students a new language. It is extremely important to be purposeful, organized, and use a system to make stations go smoothly! It takes a lot of planning to teach students the stations so they can work independently. I take a lot of time to "front-load" the expectations and provide students time to practice. Students generally start stations independently after fall break.

Each year, I change up my stations depending on my students' needs or new ideas I find. Below are some of my favorites that are easy to maintain and enjoyed by the students. I recommend teachers keep stations simple and choose one activity per station, especially in the beginning. As students become more familiar, you can add on to the complexity of each station.

Teacher: Students meet with the teacher and work on individualized needs (letter work, word work, reading stories, fluency, comprehension, etc.). I like to use Reading A-Z or ReadWorks to help structure this station.

Listening: Students work on EPIC books, Unite for Literacy, or listen to books on tape/cd. You can get a headphone splitter from Amazon for pretty cheap if you have limited devices so students can listen together.

Library: Students read a book and complete a simple graphic organizer about what they read.

Computer Station: Choose a safe website for students to play on. I like starfall.com for my primary students and I am hoping to implement typing websites for my older students next year.

Speaking: I use Vocaroo or Flipgrid. For Vocaroo, I usually have picture cards with vocabulary words students might need; students retell the story. For Flipgrid, I usually have a video for students to watch or I ask them a question and they must respond.

Writing: This station is the one that evolves the most throughout the year. Using picture prompts, sentence stems/frames, and word banks is crucial for the writing station.

Word Work Games: This station has many games that work on foundational reading skills. Eventually, students have different boxes/baggies they pull from (depending on their level).

1. Bang: Have different sets of 10-12 words (letters, sight words, vocabulary words, etc.). Label 1-2 cards "Bang." Students pour cards out of baggies into a box. They reach in the box and grab a word, say the meaning or read the word. If they pull "bang," then all their cards must go back in the box.

2. Roll, read, write: Create a 7x6 table. Type in the target words that correspond with a number on a die. Put the sheet in a pocket protector and have students write the word with an Expo marker when they roll the die.

3. Oodlu.org: Create vocabulary sets. Students answer questions and get to play premade video games. Easy to use and create-a class favorite!

Stations are a versatile and practical way to provide students with practice on new skills they are learning and to differentiate instruction for newcomers with varying levels of language acquisition.

Thanks to Michelle, Irina, Luisa, Sean, and Ciera for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.
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Thirteen Instructional Strategies for Supporting ELL Newcomers (Opinion)

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Five educators share effective instructional strategies to use with English-language-learner newcomers, including using images and games.

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Helpful links for teachers with English Language Learners

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Helpful links for teachers with English Language Learners

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Links for Educators of Elementary ESL Students

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