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English Language Proficiency Standards - these are important to include in the language objectives when lesson planning and for determining which language domains are begin addressed with the lesson.

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Proficiency Level Descriptors - these are important to refer to when monitoring the progress of the English learners. They also serve as reminders of what students can do at each level of proficiency within each domain of language.

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This Powerpoint is useful for my toolkit because it contains a comprehensive overview of his history and policies pertaining to EB/EL education.

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Kanopy "Our Spirits Don't Speak Spanish"

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Kanopy "Our Spirits Don't Speak Spanish"

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This documentary is important because it highlights the cruel history of foreign language-speaking students in American history through a combination of footage, research, and interviews.

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Our Spirits Don’t Speak English | Kanopy

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Suggestopedia is a pedagogical contemporary ESL teaching method that provides language instruction in a
low-stakes environment and
integrates the arts.

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This website does a great job explaining the various uses of Total Physical Response (TPR) teaching and providing useful implementations for the classroom.

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Strategy Overview

How This Strategy Supports Language Development

When using TPR, teachers model an action for each new vocabulary or phrase or ask students to create an appropriate gesture for key terms and phrases. Then, students respond to commands using that word or phrase by doing the action or gesture.

TPR is a language teaching method developed by James Asher in the 1960s that is based on the way babies learn their first languages. Because students are not required to speak to demonstrate comprehension, the method lowers their stress. And since students' receptive skills (listening and reading) generally precede their productive skills (speaking and writing), TPR gives them a way to demonstrate comprehension and participate fully with grade-level content. When students use a hand or body gesture to symbolize a key term, they often learn the terms more quickly and retain them for longer.

TPR can be used in any content area at any grade or age level to increase comprehension and retention of key vocabulary and phrases.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Select essential vocabulary words and phrases for the unit of study.

2. Determine an appropriate gesture for each word or phrase. Review each concept for the possibility of adding a gesture or ASL sign to the word when teaching and practicing this concept in class. Use handspeak.com to find ASL gestures for many words and phrases.

3. Introduce the new word or concept in context with the gesture (and/or a prop, image, or manipulative). Write the word or phrase on the board.

4. Ask students to repeat the gesture in the context of a command such as, "Hold up the picture of the __;" "Show me __;" "Point to the ___."

5. Introduce the next word or phrase in context of the unit with a gesture (and/or a prop, image, or manipulative).

6. Practice both new words and phrases with commands. Mix and match the 2 words and phrases using commands such as, "Put the picture of the ___ on top of the ___." "Show me ___ and ___."

7. Continue introducing up to 7 new vocabulary and phrases with gestures. Practice all of these new words and phrases in the context of total physical response commands.

8. Ask students to practice the concepts with gestures with a partner. One partner says the key term and the other partner does the appropriate gesture and explains in complete sentences what the term means. In this way, students will link the term to the gesture and the meaning.

9. Use gestures as a quick formative assessment tool. Simply ask the class to, "Show me the gesture for ____." Look around the room at the responses to gauge comprehension.

Lessons Learned

Not all words or concepts need a gesture or ASL sign attached. Some are better learned through a video, picture, or realia. See the examples above.

Be careful to establish comprehensible input for any gesture that is representative of a concept. While many verbs and some adjectives can be easily acted out or gestured, some gestures can be misconstrued, if the word is not clearly explained first. For example, standing up from a chair as a gesture for "stand up" is unlikely to be confused with another concept. However, touching your head for the "heading" of a text could be misinterpreted as "head" rather than "heading."

Students may quickly learn gestures associated with words, but not actually understand the meaning of the word. Continually check on comprehension of gestures that are symbolic for abstract concepts.

Start practice sessions by having the entire class gesture or demonstrate the response to the command. Divide students into small groups for demonstration purposes later in the lesson.

Stop modeling after a few repetitions, so you can gauge students' comprehension, not their ability to follow you.

Partners and small groups can practice commands with each other after they have practiced in the whole group. One student will need the list of commands to give their small group: "Show me an acute angle." "Show me precipitation." "Point to the picture of the telescope."

When possible, use ASL gestures for vocabulary so you teach both ASL and a meaningful gesture for the words.

Include manipulatives, pictures, or props for some words.

Teach collocations and phrasal verbs as one phrase rather than as individual words ("pick up," "drop off," "open your book").

Include commands for any physical demonstration of comprehension including: "show me," "point to," "draw," "look at," "walk to," "hold up," "take out," etc.).

Invite students to help create gestures for keywords once they understand the process.

When students are watching each other to do the gestures, they are still learning. However, if you want to quickly assess which students know the gesture for a word, you can ask students to close their eyes for a minute while you say the terms.

TPR works in any content area. Students can gesture everything from content-specific terms like "parabola" to general academic terms like "identify" and "compare."

Do not require students to make any gesture. Gestures support learning and help with retention, but students do not personally have to do each gesture in order to benefit from watching others do the action.

Differentiation

Entering/Emerging

This method was developed for entering and emerging level students. If teachers use TPR for abstract terms (e.g. "metaphor," "justify," "therefore"), they should probably translate those terms for entering/emerging students as the gesture may not be comprehensible without it.

Students at entering levels of language development can simply show the gesture for key concept words instead of explaining what they mean. They can explain their understanding of the concept and gesture in their heritage language.

Developing

Students at this level can identify new words and phrases in texts and create their own gestures for them to help them remember the terms.

Expanding

Give students the opportunity to give the commands to the whole class using the key vocabulary. Other students in the class can respond to the command by doing the gesture.

Examples

Co-Teaching Considerations

Content or Grade-Level Teacher

1. Choose the essential content vocabulary or concepts.

2. Determine a logical sequence for introducing the terms so they are connected and in context.

English Language Development Teacher

1. Translate abstract terms for entering/emerging level students.

2. Give TPR commands to a small group of entering/emerging level students to ensure comprehension of the terms.

3. Ask comprehension questions in heritage language as an additional comprehension check.

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Strategy OverviewHow This Strategy Supports Language DevelopmentWhen using TPR, teachers model an action for each new vocabulary or phrase or ask students to create an appropriate gesture for key terms and phrases.

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These descriptors and proficiency levels are vital for teachers to understand what their students are able to hear and retain.

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These descriptors and proficiency levels allow for teachers to create appropriately scaffolded lessons and supplements for their EB/EL students.

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The interdependence model explains that a language learners fluency in both reading and writing positively impacts their L2 acquisition.

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Using cognates is a helpful way of exposing students to words in their second language with similar spelling, meaning, and pronunciation as their home language.

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Cognates are words in two languages that share a similar meaning, spelling, and pronunciation. While English may share very few cognates with a language like Chinese, 30-40% of all words in English have a related word in Spanish. For Spanish-speaking ELLs, cognates are an obvious bridge to the English language.

Not surprisingly, researchers who study first and second language acquisition have found that students benefit from cognate awareness. Cognate awareness is the ability to use cognates in a primary language as a tool for understanding a second language. Children can be taught to use cognates as early as preschool. As students move up the grade levels, they can be introduced to more sophisticated cognates, and to cognates that have multiple meanings in both languages, although some of those meanings may not overlap. One example of a cognate with multiple meanings is asistir, which means to assist (same meaning) but also to attend (different meaning).

Classroom strategies for teaching cognates

Read aloud

When you read aloud to your students, ask the Spanish speakers to raise their hand when they think they hear a cognate. Stop reading and discuss that cognate. Point out the subtle differences you hear between the Spanish and English words. If you have a French, Italian, or Portuguese speaker in your class, invite them to contribute cognates in that language.

Student reading

As ELLs read their texts, ask them to find three or four cognates and write them on sticky pads. Collect those notes and put them on an OUR COGNATES laminated chart. Before the class ends, read or have students read them to the class. Discuss spellings or sounds that are the same and different between the cognates.

Follow-up activities:

Word Sort

Pair students and give each pair a set of cognate cards: one card has the English cognate and the other has the Spanish cognate. For example:

Have students sort the words. Then ask them what the word pairs have in common and write responses on the board.

Circle Differences

Ask students to indicate which letters are different between the cognates by circling the letters. Alternate between having them call out differences with the teacher circling and occasionally having students come up and circle the differences themselves.

False Cognates

Write examples of false cognates on the board. For example: embarrassed/ embarazada and pie/ pie. Warn students that they might run into some words that are false cognates. These are words that look alike but do not have the same meaning in English and Spanish. Ask the students:

Does anyone know what pie means in Spanish ( foot)? What does the word pie mean in English ( dessert)?

Another example of a false cognate is the word embarrassed in English and embarazada in Spanish. What does embarrassed mean in English (to feel ashamed about something)? Does anyone know what embarazada means in Spanish ( pregnant)?

Give students some cognates and false cognates and ask them to identify each. Examples of false cognates:

Ask students to work with a partner to find as many cognates and false cognates as they can from a given list of words. After they finish, ask partners to share one example of each with the class.

Exaggerate intonation and stress

Cognate words can cause problems for Spanish speakers learning English and vice versa because of different stress patterns in the two languages. Point out how the emphasis changes in the following words:

condition / condición

animal / animal

ability / habilidad

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Using Cognates to Develop Comprehension in English

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Cognates are words in two languages that share a similar meaning, spelling, and pronunciation. While English may share very few cognates with a language like Chinese, 30-40% of all words in English have a related word in Spanish. For Spanish-speaking ELLs, cognates are an obvious bridge to the English language.

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Dialect myths are important to combat to avoid stereotyping students and learn how to address dialect differences/cultural differences.

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Social scientists estimate the number of U.S. dialects range from a basic three - New England, Southern and Western/General America - to 24 or more . Some researchers go so far as to suggest it's actually impossible to count the number of dialects in the United States because under a loose definition of the term, thousands of cities, towns and groups have their own varieties or dialects.

The authors of American English explain it this way:

When people ask us what we do for a living, and we reply that we study American English dialects, one of the next questions inevitably is, "how many dialects are there?" This question is surprisingly difficult to answer, despite the fact that researchers have been investigating language variation in America for at least a century. Discrete boundaries between dialects are often difficult to determine, since dialects share many features with one another. In addition, even the smallest dialect areas are characterized by incredible heterogeneity. Speakers use different language forms - or identical forms at different percentage rates or in different ways - based not only on where they live but also on such factors as their social class, their ethnicity, their gender, and even whether or not they view their home region as a good place to live. Further, different dialect boundaries may emerge depending on which level of language we chose to focus on.
-Walt Wolfram & Natalie Schillings-Estes

Listen to people in your town or in your neighborhood or social group. Do you use unique words or have a distinctive manner of speaking? Consider the following:

Dialect Myths and Reality

MYTH: A dialect is something that SOMEONE ELSE speaks.

REALITY: Everyone who speaks a language speaks some dialect of the language; it is not possible to speak a language without speaking a dialect of the language.

MYTH: Dialects always have highly noticeable features that set them apart.

REALITY: Some dialects get much more attention than others; the status of a dialect, however, is unrelated to public commentary about its special characteristics.

MYTH: Only varieties of a language spoken by socially disfavored groups are dialects.

REALITY: The notion of dialect exists apart from the social status of the language variety; there are socially favored as well as socially disfavored dialects.

MYTH: Dialects result from unsuccessful attempts to speak the "correct" form of a language.

REALITY: Dialect speakers acquire their language by adopting the speech features of those around them, not by failing in their attempts to adopt standard language features.

MYTH: Dialects have no linguistic patterning in their own right; they are derivations from standard speech.

REALITY: Dialects, like all language systems, are systematic and regular; furthermore, socially disfavored dialects can be described with the same kind of precision as standard language varieties.

MYTH: Dialects inherently carry negative connotations.

REALITY: Dialects are not necessarily positively or negatively valued; their social values are derived strictly from the social position of their community of speakers.

Additional Resources

Source: Wolfram, W., & Schilling-Estes, N. American English: Dialects and Variation, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1998.

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Do You Speak American . Sea to Shining Sea . American Varieties | PBS

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Social scientists estimate the number of U.S. dialects range from a basic three - New England, Southern and Western/General America - to 24 or more . Some researchers go so far as to suggest it's actually impossible to count the number of dialects in the United States because under a loose definition of the term, thousands of cities, towns and groups have their own varieties or dialects.

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This chart is a useful visual for understanding how many varieties of language dialects there are.

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Some academics refer to student agency as the pedagogy used to have students understand and excel at their work.

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Student Agency: What it is and why we should strive for it

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Bridging Social Conversations into Academic Discourse with English Language Learners

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Bridging Social Conversations into Academic Discourse with English Language Learners

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Teachers play a critical role in supporting language development
and need to know how to bridge social conversations and academic conversations.

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Bridging Social Conversations into Academic Discourse with English Language Learners

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This simple overview of Noam Chomsky's theory on Language Acquisition is an easy to understand summary of

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This video highlights how intricate the brain works to process and acquire a first language.

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Babies | First Words | FULL EPISODE | Netflix

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This diagram is important for teachers to remember how multifaceted language is, and that L2 acquisition is deeply complicated.

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Capitalizing on Similarities and Differences between Spanish and English

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Capitalizing on Similarities and Differences between Spanish and English

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This article is excellent at discussing how to capitalize on the differences and similarities between English and Spanish to enhance language acquisition.

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Fortunately for Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELLs), there are many similarities between English and Spanish.

First of all, both languages use the Roman alphabet. That knowledge helps build a phonemic and phonological foundation.

Secondly, 30% to 40% of all words in English have a related word in Spanish. With similar sound, appearance, and meaning, these cognates help students transfer that word knowledge into their second language.

Thirdly, except for a couple of word order exceptions (adjective before noun in English and noun before adjective in Spanish), sentences in both languages have the same basic structures (as compared to English and Chinese or other non-Latin derived languages).

And fourth, learning to read and write uses the same basic processes (phonemic awareness, decoding, fluency, comprehension, writing mechanics).

When teachers and students know these basic similarities between the two languages, it saves time and guess work as students transfer their knowledge of Spanish literacy into English literacy.

Phonemic and phonological differences between Spanish and English

There are also some differences between the two languages that may interfere with English pronunciation (phonemic differences) and with decoding or spelling (phonological differences).

Perhaps the greatest difference between English and Spanish is that Spanish has only five vowel sounds while English has more than 14, depending on regional dialects. This is the reason Spanish speakers have difficulty differentiating between vowel phonemes in words like seat and sit. Both phonemes are pronounced differently from the Spanish sí ( yes), which is pronounced somewhere between those two English phonemes. These differences also affect students' spelling. Here are some other examples of possible interference from Spanish:

Here are a few differences between Spanish and English:

Combinations in Spanish that are pronounced differently: que, qui, güe, güi. For example: the u is not pronounced unless it is written as ü; therefore, students may not be sure how to pronounce words like queen, quiet, or quick

Quotation marks vs. dashes: "Come here," he said. -Ven aquí-le dijo.

Spanish does not have the following sounds (listed by category):

Strategies for Spanish-speaking ELLs

Point out differences when you introduce phonemic awareness activities (distinguishing sounds) by showing students how to make those sounds.

Say to students, for example:

To make the sound for /sh/ in ship, pronounce it like the Spanish /sh/ by letting air out between your teeth. Notice how you can stretch the /sh/ sound until you run out of air. But, to make the sound /ch/ in chip, you touch the top of your mouth with your tongue and let the air out with a little explosion. Notice how you cannot stretch that sound.

Spanish speakers have difficulty distinguishing the ways to pronounce the final -s in plurals and third person.

Give students examples for each as follows:

Spanish speakers have difficulty distinguishing the ways to pronounce the -ed in past-tense verbs.

Give students examples for each as follows:

"We pronounce it /d/ when the word ends with..."

"We pronounce it /t/ when the word ends with..."

"When the word ends with t, it sounds like /tid/ as in patted."

"When the word ends with d, it sounds like /did/ as in added."

Spanish speakers may leave out word endings when saying or spelling a word.

For example: restauran instead of restaurant; end instead of ended. They may also have problems spelling words that contain the consonant blends, initial sounds, and final sounds listed in the box above.

Additionally, students might substitute:

ll for y (because ll is the nearest sound in Spanish. For example: llelow instead of yellow.)

j for h (because h is silent in Spanish, they might use j. For example: jope instead of hope.)

There are also some differences in question and sentence structures between both languages.

Question markers

Do you want to go to the movies tonight?
¿Quieres ir al cine esta noche?
(Spanish speakers will likely leave out do)

Adjective-Nouns

white horse
caballo blanco (horse white)
(Spanish speakers will often use the adjective after the noun)

With these similarities and differences in mind, pay close attention to your Spanish-speaking ELLs' written and spoken "errors." When you recognize a student saying horse white, for example, point out that in English the noun and adjective are reversed: white horse, brown cow, etc. Once ELLs understand these patterns, they will begin to apply them on their own to new situations.

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Capitalizing on Similarities and Differences between Spanish and English

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Fortunately for Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELLs), there are many similarities between English and Spanish. First of all, both languages use the Roman alphabet. That knowledge helps build a phonemic and phonological foundation. Secondly, 30% to 40% of all words in English have a related word in Spanish.

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This toolkit contains an extensive walkthrough of steps to engage EB/ELs families into the school and community to further contribute to the child's education and sense of belonging.

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This article is important for teachers to be aware of how the school's outreach and support of another culture can support the child's entire English acquisition.

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New research indicates that where English-language learners attend school can determine how quickly they are reclassified as English-proficient.

A Michigan State University research team found that schools in Texas-second only to California in total number of K-12 English-learners-vary widely in how they determine if students should be reclassified as English proficient, affecting their chances of success in school and beyond.

Using state data, the researchers estimated reclassification rates for English-learners throughout Texas over seven years. They found that an English-learner in the El Paso metropolitan area, for example is almost twice as likely to be reclassified by the end of 7th grade, compared to a student performing at the same level in the Rio Grande Valley.

"It seems curious to me that we would have students in different parts of the state being reclassified at different rates if they have similar scores on English proficiency and academic achievement assessments," lead researcher Madeline Mavrogordato told Education Week.

Mavrogordato-an assistant professor of K-12 administration at Michigan State-argues that an ELL student's reclassification often determines their educational trajectory. When it occurs too early, English-learners could find themselves struggling without the support services they need. If too late, students may be restricted from taking higher-level courses that would prepare them for college.

The research is timely because the the Every Student Succeeds Act now requires all states to standardize how they identify and reclassify English-learners. That could prove to be a daunting task for many states that don't have the capacity or manpower that Texas does. Even in a place such as Texas, which has had policies in place since the 1990s that seek to standardize ELL reclassification, inconsistencies persist.

As part of their research, Mavrogordato and Rachel White, a doctoral candidate at Michigan State, also observed eight Texas elementary schools while educators conducted annual meetings required to determine the status of English-learners. They observed differences in what happens during the meetings, including how technology, data, and teacher assessments guide decision-making.

The researchers concluded that the likelihood of reclassification appears to be linked to how well educators understand state policies and what role they play in implementation.

"In schools where the teacher's recommendations trumped all other data, we saw lower rates of reclassification," Mavrogordato said. "The people who are involved in this process ... need to be well-versed in the consequences of these decisions."

Mavrogordato spent time as a bilingual teacher of 3rd- and 4th-graders in the Rio Grande Valley as a Teach For America corps member in the mid-2000s and also taught in northern California, where she worked with ELLs.

With the passage of Proposition 58 in California last fall, public schools across the state now have more running room to operate bilingual and dual-language programs. But during Mavrogordato's time as a teacher there, Proposition 227-a measure that led many districts to drop their bilingual programs entirely -was still on the books.

Her varied experience in California and Texas sparked her research interest.

"One of the things that became really apparent was just how differently English-learners were being served in these two different contexts," Mavrogordato said. "That just started making me ask a lot of different questions about the policies and the way that we serve these kids."

Here's a link to the study: //journals.sagepub.com/stoken/default+domain/yIBQ3w8efPhNwg8EPy7e/full

The final, definitive version is available through the Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis at //eepa.aera.net
For Further Reading Photo Credit: Andrew Echeverria, left, gets help from Joel Miller, a veteran educator who teaches a course for long-term English-learners at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles. The course was created to help students who have struggled to become proficient in English. --Emile Wamsteker for Education Week

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English-Language Learners: How Schools Can Drive or Derail Their Success

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Recent changes in federal law require all states to standardize how they identify and reclassify ELLs; a researcher says it may prove difficult.

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A good resource for developing academic language - this toolkit covers how to teach academic language through various techniques across various content areas.

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This toolkit encompasses guiding principles for educators to integrating technology in the classroom to supplement language learning in an engaging and low stakes way.

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This article/journal explores and explains the distinct differences between language barriers and learning barriers and how to accommodate them.

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This article provides teachers in depth research and guides for formulating classroom instruction to address the unique needs of L2 learners who also face the added challenge of a learning disability.

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This website links and displays several helpful tools for teaching EBs and ELs through the use of technology.

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This article provides inclusive framework for finding gifted and talented students can ensure that English language learners don’t slip through the cracks.

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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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This link is to a chat forum where several teachers discuss their experiences and opinions on supporting gifted & talented GT students.

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I have an ESL student who has been identified as G/T. They have only been in the states for about 2--3 years, and she struggles most in reading comprehension. Does anyone have some teaching/learning strategies or activities they would be willing to share with a first-year teacher so I can…

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This practice guide provides four recommendations that address what works for English learners during reading and content area instruction.

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This practice guide was prepared for the WWC by Instructional Research Group under contract ED-IES-12-C-0016.

The following research staff contributed to the guide: Joseph Dimino, Kelly Haymond, Russell Gersten, Madhavi Jayanthi, and Rebecca Newman-Gonchar.

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WWC | Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to English Learners in Elementary and Middle School

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This practice guide provides four recommendations that address what works for English learners during reading and content area instruction. Each recommendation includes extensive examples of activities that can be used to support students as they build the language and literacy skills needed to be successful in school.

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Explores a few lesson plans that develop ELLs science and academic language skills.

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Using Science to Develop ELLs' Language Skills

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"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka! I found it!' but 'That's funny...'" - Isaac Asimov "Oh, you mean the life cycle." This was my pre-school daughter's response to my long explanation of the metamorphosis of the butterfly.

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Science talk is an instructional discourse practice that capitalizes on an enthusiasm centered around exploration and inquiry and experiements.

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This article describes some strategies for planning Social Studies and History lessons with English language learners in mind through a focus on background knowledge, academic language and vocabulary, peer learning, and identifying key concepts, concepts, and skills.

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There are many ways to engage English language learners (ELLs) in Social Studies and History instruction, as well as in related subjects, such as Geography, Civics, and Economics. Many of these strategies can also support students' access of grade-level content while drawing on their own unique background knowledge and perspectives. Here are some ways to get started!

Background Knowledge and Key Concepts

1. Assess students' background knowledge

One of the most important areas to prioritize in Social Studies and History instruction for ELLs is the role of background knowledge. ELLs bring their own valuable experiences to the classroom, and their background knowledge may differ than their peers. Students may also still be learning to show and share that knowledge in English.

You may find the following:

Students have relevant experiences and/or knowledge related to the content you are studying - even if the context is different from their peers. For example, students may have experienced elections in their home countries, and that experience may be different from U.S. elections. These differences provide an important opportunity for class discussion and learning as long as they are handled in a sensitive and respectful ways.

Students have limited background knowledge on the content you are studying, including on topics that might seem well-known to their peers.

Note: For students with interrupted schooling, knowledge on certain academic topcis may be limited; however, these students are likely to have important " funds of knowledge" and strengths, such as resourcefulness and resilience.

First and foremost, it's important to determine what your students know about a topic. How? There are several ways, including:

These steps will give you an idea of the connections your students may be already making, as well as areas that you need to fill in.

How To Build Social Studies Background Knowledge

Teacher Amber Prentice Jimenez explains how she builds her ELLs' background knowledge in a lesson about the 50 states.

2. Identify key concepts necessary for understanding the lesson

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

What are the key objectives for this lesson?

What are the key concepts and points they need to learn?

How might you connect this topic to students' experiences?

What references or concepts to history, pop culture, or other topics may need to be explicitly explained?

Are there any tough topics or controversies that might come up in your discussions? If so, prepare for these topics with our in-depth guide, Navigating Tough Topics in the Classroom: Tips for ELL Educators.

Content and language objectives

Another way to focus your instruction is through objectives. 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)

Translate them if possible into students' languages

Here is an example of content and language objectives together:

4th History-Social Sciences, California

Content Area Standard

Content Objective

Language Objective

Distinguish between the North and South Poles; the equator and the prime meridian; the tropics; and the hemispheres, using coordinates to plot locations.

Students will be able to identify key points on a map or globe.

Students will be able to verbally use key vocabulary to identify specific points on a map or globe.

3. Identify key skills needed to complete the lesson

Think about what students will be asked to do in order to meet their learning objectives. Will they need to read a timeline or a map? Will they need to compare two pieces of text? Will they need to examine a primary source? These skills may need to be taught explicitly in order for students to be successful.

See more ideas in the following:

Language and Literacy

4. Identify key vocabulary and academic vocabulary

Another important element of Social Studies and History instruction is 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!

Start by identifying 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. (This is also an area where content-area teaches and ELL specialists can work together!)

On the 4th-grade standard above, that might include examples such as the following:

Terms: pole, Equator, meridian, hemisphere, latitude, longitude

Words: map, globe, North, South, East, West

Idioms: on the Equator

Phrases: Degrees North, Degrees South, Degrees East, Degrees West

In addition, look for words that have multiple meanings or homonyms:

Word with multiple meanings: prime, pole, plot, key, degree

Homonyms: pole/poll

Other tips include the following:

Include signal and directional words: Remember that students may also need explicit instruction in signal or directional words ("because" and "explain"), especially since 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 realia when possible: Having a reference for new words is particularly helpful for ELLs, whether through visuals or (real objects).

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.

5. Draw upon students' home languages

Students' home languages are a valuable resource that you can tap into, even if you don't speak those languages. Using students' home language can give them an opportunity to identify content they already know or master new concepts before transferring those ideas and learning how to express them in English. Ideas include the following:

Use bilingual glossaries, such as these content-focused glossaries from New York University.

Draw on cognates, words that are related in two languages. They have a similar pronunciation, spelling, and meaning. Many academic English and Spanish words are cognates, such as geography/geographía.

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

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

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

6. Prepare to preview the text

It can be helpful to preview the text with students before diving in. Here are some strategies:

Chapter Walk: In a "chapter walk", 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, but 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.

Navigating Textbooks: In addition, at the beginning of the school year, teach your students how to navigate a textbook effectively so that students can pick out and use textbook tools throughout the year.

You may also consider pre-teaching vocabulary or content in mini lessons or small group work before introducing the lesson to the whole class.

Student Engagement

7. 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 visuals, such as 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.

8. 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 organizersto 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.

Samantha describes her approach for checking understanding and offering some differentiated assignments in a third-grade Social Studies lesson about different types of economic resources: natural, capital, and human.

9. 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.

In peer work, 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).

10. Use inquiry- and project-based learning

Look for ways to make learning hands-on through project-based learning (PBL) and inquiry-driven assignments. These avenues can give ELLs different kinds of opportunities to explore a topic that interests them in different modalities and formats.

Assignments and Assessments

11. 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 will need to learn to write an essay, 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.

12. 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. And Haynes also 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.

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) 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.

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Preparing an Engaging Social Studies Lesson for ELLs: 12 Tips for Educators

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There are many ways to engage English language learners (ELLs) in Social Studies and History instruction, as well as in related subjects, such as Geography, Civics, and Economics. Many of these strategies can also support students' access of grade-level content while drawing on their own unique background knowledge and perspectives.

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Effecting understanding of social studies requires higher order thinking skills. Teachers must keep in mind how to reach all ELLs in their classroom.

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Math is such a thorough concept that it's almost like a language itself!

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This post is an excellent resource for teaching math to English Language Learners!