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List of Resources

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Supporting ELLs in the Mainstream Classroom: Making Students Comfortable

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Supporting ELLs in the Mainstream Classroom: Making Students Comfortable

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Learning a new language is an overwhelming experience for anyone - especially if you are supposed to be learning in that new language at the same time! Here are some ideas for helping students feel more comfortable in the mainstream classroom.

Create a welcoming environment.

You can do this by learning to pronounce students' names correctly, encouraging students to share their language and culture with the class, and adding books in students' languages (or about their native countries) to the classroom environment. Colorín Colorado offers a number of additional ideas in How to Create a Welcoming Classroom Environment.

Recruit "buddies" to help newcomers find their away around the school.

Students who speak the newcomers' first language will be especially helpful during the first few weeks, but English-speaking buddies are invaluable as well. Help your English-speaking students understand that newcomers may not be able to speak very much English at first, but that they will learn more as time goes on. Buddies may be able to help by:

taking newcomers on a tour the first day

showing students how to use lockers

sitting together at lunch

spending time together at recess

walking newcomers to their classes for the first few days

walking students to the bus.

Encourage your students to continue to use their first language.

Whether it's through speaking with family members at home, reading a book or an online newspaper in their native language, or listening to some of their favorite music, encourage students to keep their native language skills strong. Discuss the benefits of being bilingual, as well as some opportunities that students who are multilingual may have in the future.

There are academic benefits to maintaining native language skills as well. While students, parents, and teachers may feel pressure for students to learn English as quickly as possible, research strongly supports the positive effect of native language literacy on English literacy. Reading, academic, and content-area skills can often be transferred from one language to another, and it is generally easier to transfer those skills than to learn them while simultaneously learning English. Helping your students maintain their native language will in fact support their English language development.

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Supporting ELLs in the Mainstream Classroom: Making Students Comfortable

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Learning a new language is an overwhelming experience for anyone - especially if you are supposed to be learning in that new language at the same time! Here are some ideas for helping students feel more comfortable in the mainstream classroom.

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A Teacher’s Preliminary Guide to Serving New Arrivals and Non-English Speakers 

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A Teacher’s Preliminary Guide to Serving New Arrivals and Non-English Speakers 

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Manassas Level 1&2 full_curriculum_manual (1)

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Getting Newcomers into the Academic Flow

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Getting Newcomers into the Academic Flow

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As I consult in schools, I often hear questions like, "I have a new student in 3rd period who doesn't speak a word of English. How do I help her?" A colleague may add, "I don't want her to sit quietly all semester. What should we do?"

Many schools in the United States-and in other countries-now see adolescents who are recent immigrants arrive sometime throughout the school year. Many term these students "newcomers," although the label belies their many differences. Some newcomers were highly educated in their native country and may know more algebra, geography, and science, say, than their U.S. peers; however, their levels of English proficiency will vary. Others have missed out on one or often more years of education in their native country due to reasons beyond their control. Most have experienced stress and even trauma on their journey to this country.

Regardless of their educational background and life experiences, all newcomers arriving in secondary schools need to develop academic vocabulary, reading comprehension, writing skills, and concepts for core content. They also need to learn basic English phrases for maneuvering through the day and terminology for how to approach learning processes (such as math strategies that are common in U.S. classrooms, how to complete a science lab, or what it means to "find evidence," or "use norms for discussions"). Newcomers with limited schooling, often called Students with Interrupted Formal Education, will also need assistance from a reading specialist to grasp basic reading skills that they may have missed in their native language development.

Equally important for these students is the ability to grasp the language of the social-emotional skills that are favored in U.S. education. Newcomers need to know how to work collaboratively and do project-based learning.

Typically, newcomers in secondary schools spend anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes a day with an ESL teacher in a self-contained classroom and the rest of their day with core content teachers. Fulfilling newcomers' needs is a tall order for teachers with little training in English language acquisition. And immigrant students' great variance of language, literacy, and knowledge competencies makes it even more difficult for core content teachers to discern how to reach each one. No wonder core content and electives teachers are on the lookout for strategies that are expeditious, motivating, and effective for English learners-especially those with scant English-but that also work for the rest of their students.

Creating a Comprehensive Framework

To help core content teachers incorporate effective instruction for newcomers, the Carnegie Corporation of New York asked several of my research assistants at Johns Hopkins University and me to develop and test a set of instructional strategies that could be used across all subjects. With help from teachers and administrators in secondary schools in New York City and Kauai, Hawaii, we began building a framework of strategies for integrating support with basic and academic vocabulary, reading comprehension, and text-based writing into math, science, social studies, and language arts. Eventually, we created an instructional and professional development framework called Expediting Comprehension for English Language Learners (ExC-ELL), now used in many schools throughout the country and abroad.

The framework consists of a sequence of 12 components (see Figure 1). These are flexible enough to integrate into any secondary school's curriculum and teachers' lesson plans. Evaluation has found that when all 12 are implemented schoolwide, student academic growth is significantly larger for adolescent newcomer students (and also striving readers who aren't necessarily ELLs) than when only two are three are adopted. 1
Figure 1. ExC-ELL Instructional Sequence for Integrating Language, Literacy, and Content
Many benefits surface when all teachers in a school use the same terminology and routines to work these components into instruction. For one, this consistency makes it easier for newcomers to feel comfortable with the new context and new language. I saw this in action this past year as I shadowed various newcomers in secondary schools that are adopting ExC-ELL. I observed these learners' progress as they moved between ESL classrooms and subject-matter classrooms during the school day, and I paid close attention to how their teachers used these 12 components to make instruction accessible to students new to English.

"Ricardo" is a composite of several newcomers I shadowed; his story is representative of most immigrant teens. He arrived in Loudoun County, Virginia, from Guatemala early in the school year, speaking no English. He'd had little schooling in Guatemala. The fact that all teachers in his school were using the same instructional strategies made it easier for Ricardo to keep up with any lesson's flow-to know when to work in pairs or teams, and sense what to do when no one was around to guide him. Let me describe specific ways I've seen teachers in Loudon and elsewhere collaborate to teach students like Ricardo.

Groundwork for Speaking

Finding the Right Words

Ms. James, Ricardo's biology teacher, and Ms. Macias, his ESL teacher, meet weekly to discuss the week's lessons for Ricardo and other recent newcomer students. They analyze texts that students will be reading and select key words and phrases to pre-teach that will facilitate reading those texts. To choose words or phrases they'll pre-teach in the week to come, they ask, Is this word ...

Critical to understanding a key concept?

Likely to appear on a test?

Critically important to the discipline?

One the teacher will want students to use in peer summaries tied to this lesson, or that students will likely use in an "exit pass" or writing assignment?

The two teachers zoomed in on key words identified. They pondered whether it would be best, for each text, to teach words that are common or specialized, and whether various terms were vocabulary from Tier 1, 2, or 3. Tier 3 words are subject-specific; they label concepts and topics connected to a discipline. Tier 2 encompasses "information-processing" words or phrases, polysemous words, transition words, or connectors (such as simultaneously or as noted previously). Tier 2 words often embed Tier 3 words in long sentences, and they allow for rich discussions and specificity. Tier 1 words are basic words ELLs need to communicate, read, and write (such as people, read, and family).

Ms. James and Ms. Macias looked for Tier 3 words that were subject-specific and critical for learning key concepts. They found many of these in the text they were examining (a section from the 2017 report Overview of Climate Change Science by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency). However, they realized that most Tier 3 words connected to this text (such as greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, and heat-trapping gases) were nested in long sentences containing Tier 2 vocabulary like primarily due to or release, as in this sentence: "Human activities which have been noted as contributing to climate change, are primarily due to the release of billions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO<SUBSCRPT>2</SUBSCRPT>) and other heat-trapping gases, known as greenhouse gases, into the atmosphere every year." So both teachers gave preference to pre-teaching Tier 2 words since understanding them would be the key to figuring out meanings for more complex, subject-connected words here.

Ms. Macias also met with Ricardo's history teacher, who shared that his class would be reading about the U.S. civil rights movement after watching two videos on the topic. Ms. Macias agreed to introduce relevant Tier 1 and 2 words from the text they would be reading and do some background-information building with Ricardo and others. From a book on the civil rights movement with simple vocabulary, she chose key multiple-meaning words (like right and change) that she would pre-teach newcomer ELLs.

Pre-teaching

Once a teacher has selected key vocabulary to pre-teach for a text or lesson, that teacher should choose three to five words to focus on at the beginning of each class period, using these seven steps:

1. Say and show the word/phrase. Have students repeat it three times.

2. Read and show the word/phrase in the sentence from the target text.

3. Provide the definition(s).

4. Explain the meaning using student-friendly definitions or examples.

5. Highlight an aspect of the word that might create difficulty, such as multiple meanings, homophones, or odd spellings.

6. Engage students to verbally use the word in five or six example sentences with one partner. The teacher needs to provide sentence frames to help language learners participate. All students are in pairs, not triads, which gives them the confidence to speak.

7. Remind the students that they will need to use this word/phrase later during class in their verbal summaries, in an exit ticket, or other activities.

Suppose Ms. James, the biology teacher, decides to focus pre-teaching in one class period on have been noted, due to, and release to prepare students to read about climate change. She involves all students but, starting with step 6, modifies the process for students with sparse English. The first two weeks or so, as students get into pairs, she might place Ricardo with two other students who are proficient in English-and have been prepared to help elicit examples of these words in sentences. Each triad that includes a language learner like Ricardo receives a sentence frame ("I had a good day, due to ___") and a few words or pictures to help him generate sentences. It helps if someone in the triad also speaks Spanish; he or she might be able to give Ricardo the English words to use in creating an example.

The history teacher would follow the same protocol to pre-teach vocabulary for his unit. Ms. Macias would do something similar in her ESL class to familiarize students with the agreed-on vocabulary. When these seven steps become a daily routine throughout a school, all students gain word knowledge-but especially newcomers.

Reading from Day One

Now let's explore how secondary-level teachers get students new to English reading -aloud even. I've watched teachers use partner or triad reading with students like Ricardo. For instance, Ms. James might assign two Spanish- and English-speaking students (whom I'll call Carla and Martin) to read with Ricardo, with him sitting between the two. As Carla and Martin read aloud alternating sentences from a class text, Ricardo would listen and track. After each paragraph, Carla and Martin would look back at the text and summarize verbally what they read. The idea is that Ricardo "whisper reads" words he recognizes as they summarize, and after a week or so, he whisper reads as many words as he can while each partner reads aloud.

Soon, the reading pattern would become Carla, Ricardo, Martin, Ricardo, Carla, Ricardo, Martin, and so on, meaning Ricardo would get double turns reading, accelerating his growth. Teachers have told me that when a student like Ricardo gets his own turn to read aloud with only one partner, the student is often surprised and excited to realize how much he can read.

After a class has tried partner reading and summarization, a teacher can regroup students to do more cooperative learning related to a particular text or text set. Ideally, he would have a triad containing a newcomer ELL join with another pair of native English speakers to form a team of five who will work together for at least a week. It's best to group teams with a mix of native or near-proficient English speakers and language learners, genders, and reading levels.

In a twist on the traditional "answer the questions at the end of the chapter," each team works together to develop their own key questions, drawing from a designated part of the text. They write each question on a card with their answers on the back. (Ideally, the teacher will have had the class practice creating questions at higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy, using question starters for each level.) The teacher then "tests" the whole class using these questions. Within each team, students count off (say, 1-6) and as the teacher asks each question aloud, the students put their heads together and delve deep into the text to find the answer. Each team makes sure everyone knows the answer-especially the newcomer. After a few minutes, the teacher randomly calls a number and selects a team to be on the hot seat. The student with that number in that team must state the answer. The newcomer is prepared and confident in case his or her number comes up.

At the end of the week, the teams compete to write and define from memory all the key words and phrases they've learned that week ("Round Table Review"). The teammates of a very new English speaker like Ricardo are prepped to warn him about this competition and start drilling him early in the week.

Safety Nets for Writing

To help language learners write in content areas, the ExC-ELL framework uses methods that view writing as a process. In drafting and revising, students again work mostly in pairs or teams, so there is always a safety net for newcomers. Supports-like table tents containing sample transition words, connectors, and checklists of essential elements for writing powerful conclusions-should be given to content teachers at trainings for such teaching. Because generous time is left to edit, elaborate, or add more English to a piece of writing, students have leeway to write in their native language, for later translation, gradually moving into all English. (In dual language schools, students alternate weekly between writing in English and Spanish throughout the school year.)

Writing a brief exit ticket is a good gateway writing activity. For instance, Ricardo was shown how to write about what he was learning on a notecard at the end of each class period. The first week, he just copied some words from the relevant text; later he jotted a few words from memory (albeit misspelled). Toward the end of the week, with support, he participated in a "Write Around," in which each team member writes a sentence or more (to a prompt) on a sheet of paper, then passes it to the right for another team member to add to. At first, he was assigned a "twin" and told to copy what his twin wrote. Once he started taking his own turn, Ricardo often wrote part of a sentence in Spanish; he knew the content, but not all the words in English, and he knew he could add English in the editing session following the Write Around.

Whole-School Learning

Early evaluations of using this whole-school approach to support newcomers' participation in academics have shown strong results in schools that have tried it. For example, Middle School #319 in Washington Heights, Manhattan, went from the lowest-performing school in its district to exemplary status in two years. 2 What makes this set of strategies work is that teachers receive early, continuing professional development in using the cooperative learning strategies described here and delineated in the ExC-ELL framework. For instance, Loudon County Public Schools, which is phasing in this approach over 3 years, provides all teachers and administrators three days of training on these strategies before students arrive. The district's instructional coaches have ongoing training on how to observe and coach teachers as they try these strategies with their classes.

By integrating language, literacy, and content, subject-area teachers like Ms. James are helping newcomers feel comfortable enough to speak, read, and write in English soon after they begin attending academic classes. Most important, newcomer students, like their peers, have ample opportunities to interact verbally throughout all learning processes. All of this is extremely helpful for teen immigrant students with little English-and for other multilingual learners who arrive at most of our schools throughout the year.

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Getting Newcomers into the Academic Flow - ASCD

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As I consult in schools, I often hear questions like, "I have a new student in 3rd period who doesn't speak a word of English. How do I help her?" A colleague may add, "I don't want her to sit quietly all semester. What should we do?"

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12 Ways to Support English Learners in the Mainstream Classroom

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12 Ways to Support English 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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Peer Mentor Program Guides
Peer mentoring activities within this guide will work well for any newcomer.
Refugee Guides for:
Lesson Plans and Activities
Includes lessons for teachers of newcomer students. Lessons include acclimation for grades K-12 and ELA content for grades 6-12.

K-12 Lessons

Acclimation Lessons - Welcome to Our Schools

Curriculum Resources for teaching ELLs in ELA, Math and Science
These materials help to facilitate the scaffolding of challenging texts.

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Instructional Supports | Teaching and Learning

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Newcomer First Days Support Guide for School Staff (PDF)Guide for school staff when welcoming an ELL newcomer student Classroom Vocabulary and phrase cards in English (PDF)Visual supports to "label the classroom" and familiarize newcomers with everyday language. Peer Mentor Program GuidesPeer mentoring activities within this...

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Newcomer Parent Resources (16 languages)

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Newcomer Parent Resources (16 languages)

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CMAS - Supporting the Care and Settlement of Young Immigrant Children

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Refugee parents come to Canada with unique settlement needs, and language barriers that make it challenging to get information to support their parenting, children's development, and the health and safety of their family here in Canada.

We've developed a series of 14 parent resources to help - and they're available in the 16 languages most commonly spoken by refugee families here in Canada!

After research and consultations with frontline service providers, we identified the following list of key topics, tailored to meet the unique needs of immigrant and refugee parents of young children:
10 Tips For Stopping Aggression Children Learn Through Play Creating Routines For Your Child Getting Ready For Kindergarten Guiding Your Child's Behaviour Helping Your Child Cope With Stress Helping Your Child Get Ready To Learn Keeping Children's Teeth Healthy Keeping Your Home Language Listening To And Talking With Your Child Sharing Stories With Your Child What Can I Do If My Child Is Aggressive? When Your Child Has Nightmares Why Is My Child Aggressive?

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Newcomer Parent Resource Series: Available in 16 Languages - CMAS

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Refugee parents come to Canada with unique settlement needs, and language barriers that make it challenging to get information to support their parenting, children's development, and the health and safety of their family here in Canada. We've developed a series of 14 parent resources to help - and they're available in the 16 languages most commonly spoken by refugee families here in Canada!

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Aims to help students and children to memorize English (US) vocabulary in an easy and efficient way by using images, pronunciation and games. Free and Fun!

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We are a consortium of researchers, teacher educators, and teachers who believe in the value of multilingual education and strive for equity. Therefore, during this time of crisis and difficulty, we are eager to put our expertise and passions to use to try to be of assistance. We initially designed 21 immediate-response packets for K-5, as soon as the pandemic forced schools to shut down. We then applied for and received a grant that has allowed us to create more than 100 full activity packets, ranging from Levels 1-3 of English proficiency, and grades K-12.
The breakdown of packets is as follows: English Level 1 - Entry into English
English Level 1-2 - Entry into English/Building Background (These packets were the first wave of packets we created and they are appropriate for students between Levels 1 and 2 of English proficiency)
English Level 2 - Building Background English Level 3 - Interdisciplinary Inquiry
Have you used or are planning to use our packets? We would love your feedback. Please take a few short minutes to let us know how we are doing here.

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Scroll down to find the Learning Packets available for FREE download today! Learning Packets:

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Duolingo is the world's most popular way to learn a language. It's 100% free, fun and science-based. Practice online on duolingo.com or on the apps!

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Independent Classroom Activities for Newcomers

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Independent Classroom Activities for Newcomers

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Teacher friendly two page resource that features goals and possible steps for the first days of schools for newcomer students. Also features a note section to write observations of students' strengths, needs, and next steps.

Student & Parent Friendly School Fact Sheets that includes customized school address, phone number, school staff and leadership information, and Teacher name and Room #. Please click to edit.

One page printable communication table of basic phrases that students may need in the classroom setting. Includes picture support.

Six page list of basic survival English Words and Phrases on the classroom/school context with picture support.

Two page document of simple phrases in English/Spanish teachers can use to welcome and introduce classroom routines to new students (classroom setting).

One page table features basic phrases in English, Spanish, Korean, and Tagalog that can be helpful to communicate in the school office setting.

Can be left as resource in the front office and/or handed out to parents.

10. How to Create a Welcoming Environment

One page coloring sheet which you can write a teacher's name, Room #, and Buddy's name. Features English and Spanish.

One page coloring sheet that has blanks to write teacher name, Room #, and Buddy's name.

Printable classroom activities to welcome newcomer students. Gives specific directions for Elementary, Middle School, and High School students.

Includes printable activities titled:

Welcoming Stories

Literature Circles

"Where is our Nation From..."

Where does your Name Come From

Friendship, Music, and Games

Dreaming Together

This comprehensive document is a guide to introduce and implement Community Circles in the classroom. Circles can help to create an open and inclusive environment where students feel validated and heard. Divided into chapters including:

Chapter 1 Introduction to Classroom Circles

Part One: Skills of Circle Keeping

Part Two: Varieties of Circle Formats and Circles for Community Building

Part Three: Teaching Skills and Setting Things Right (includes Lesson plans)

16. Fostering Empathetic Children

This two page article from Talkingislearning.org that shows 6 ways adults can foster empathy in students.

This chapter discusses why and how school contribute to the development of newcomers social emotional well being. Topics include

Relationships between social emotional well being and student success

Culturally appropriate supports for newcomers

Ways to develop their social emotional skills

The role of informal social interactions

Sage learning environments

Adult and student-led supports

Integration of social and academic programs

This is Chapter 4 of Newcomer Toolkit created by the U.S. Department of Education. This chapter describes supports schools provide to create inclusive school communities. Also features what newcomer families need to know about schooling and school systems to support their children's learning.

Three page article that features how to notice signs of adjustment difficulties and/or show signs of trauma. Also features ideas and strategies on how to help students who are struggling at school.

Two page article on how to better create welcoming social and physical environments, engage students. Provides pointers to for school leadership on partnering with families.

This printable resource gives you tips on things teachers can consider for newcomer students, how to pair buddies, and examples of what students can do with buddies.

Printable student-friendly guide teachers can hand to buddies on how to introduce themselves, guide conversations, and ideas on activities they can do with a friend that is new to their school. Also features a Recording Sheet where they can write down concerns or questions buddies may ask.

Printable Ideas on how to create a Newcomer Folder. Includes tips for teachers how to set up the folder and buddies, as well as recording sheets that includes buddy activities on get to know each other, including conversation starters.

One page printable poster that students can write and create to introduce themselves to the classroom community.

In this ten page article, the authors describe some of the social and linguistic issues that face newly arrived ELLs, such as culture shock and the silent period. Suggestions are given for helping newcomers access content in the classroom, establishing connections to parents, and recognizing the assets that newcomers bring.

28. Basic English Phrases and Word Bank with Picture Support

PDF bank of Basic English phrases for students who are newcomers with picture support. Includes:

Document with links to different handwriting practice documents for print

Printable alphabet practice sheets by letter with dot trace on lines as well as identifying letter practice.

Print friendly Sight Words cards with mode sentences on each card

Printable comprehensive list of all Fry and Dolch sight words for practice. Explains the different between Dolch and Fry Sight Words.

33. Kindergarten Readiness Packet

Print friendly comprehensive packet of primary skills including alphabet skills/practice, and letter recognition, color, numbers and more!

34. Sentence Starters - Words and Phrases

1 page checklist/wordbank of sentence frames and vocabulary for different types of thinking and purpose (i.e. sequence, connectors, point of view..etc)

Goal setting is a research proven strategy that facilitates ownership of learning. ( Universal Design for Learning Practices)
One page reflection sheet for students to list strengths, needs, and set and monitor goals.

One page sheet where students/teacher can record essential learnings by class/subject.

This allows students to "check-in" with their teacher to monitor learning, reflect, and set goals. Research has shown that students benefit from timely goal setting and reflection.

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Teacher friendly two page resource that features goals and possible steps for the first days of schools for newcomer students. Also features a note section to write observations of students' strengths, needs, and next steps. Student & Parent Friendly School Fact Sheets that includes customized school address, phone number, school staff and leadership information, and Teacher name and Room #.

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Teaching Newcomers: Four Powerful Vocabulary Strategies

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Teaching Newcomers: Four Powerful Vocabulary Strategies

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Teaching Newcomer English Learners: Four Powerful Vocabulary Practices (REL Northwest)

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Tips for Teaching Newcomers in Elementary

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Tips for Teaching Newcomers in Elementary

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Tips for teaching newcomers in Elementary

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Research Guides: ESL/ELL Education: Interactive Websites for Learning

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Research Guides: ESL/ELL Education: Interactive Websites for Learning

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Sight Word and Word Family Booklets in English & Spanish

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Sight Word and Word Family Booklets in English & Spanish

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For our children to truly know God and make Him known, they must have opportunities to read and learn His Word. Are you desiring for your young children to hide God's Word in their hearts in fun and engaging ways? We hope to assist you with our free printable verse cards, songs, copywork, verse strips, and more!
Bible Memorization

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For our children to truly know God and make Him known, they must have opportunities to read and learn His Word. Are you desiring for your young children to hide God's Word in their hearts in fun and engaging ways? We hope to assist you with our free printable verse cards, songs, copywork, verse strips, and more!

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Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive.

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These videos are great for explaining some of the more "unusual" spelling patterns in words. The kids love them!

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nessy dyslexia "reading and spelling" "learn to read" "learn to spell" "spelling strategies" phonics abc

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Nessy - Learning happens when it's fun! You've found the Land of Ness. The place for learning to read, write, spell and do math the fun way. Our family owned company, led by educational experts creates products and award winning teaching videos based upon the Science of Reading.

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Newcomer students receive some support from an ELD (English Language Development) teacher in most elementary schools. The majority of their time is spent in their grade level classroom. Here are some strategies for supporting a newcomer student both in their grade level classroom and areas to focus on during targeted language development lessons.

Create a Welcoming Environment

Helping the student feel safe and comfortable is your main goal. Teach survival vocabulary at first so that the student can express their basic needs. Label items in the classroom. Include words in the student's native language. This might also help the rest of the class learn a few new words. Know that the student may go through a silent period. This should be expected.

Survival Vocabulary

During the first few weeks, a newcomer student is in school, and they may need help navigating the school building and expressing basic needs.

Get a FREE set of survival phrases and picture vocabulary HERE.

Differentiate Assignments

In the beginning, you will likely do more modifying of the assignment. The learning goal might be different for your newcomer student. You might instruct them to listen to a read-aloud and try to remember five new words from the story. During writing, give them simple sentence frames so that they can practice basic vocabulary. If the class is working on writing a personal narrative, the sentence frame might be: "I live in a _____."

Over time you will provide more accommodations such as vocabulary sheets and sentence starters so that the student can achieve the same results on an assignment as their classmates.

"Teachers can encourage better learning outcomes by providing opportunities for students to actively participate and interact with one another in relation to the subject matter (Haynes & Zacarian, 2010)." For a newcomer, this might mean having pictures available as part of a science unit that the student can point to and sort until they are comfortable speaking and writing.

Use Peer Tutors

A peer tutor can be an effective way to support a newcomer student. Even a responsible kindergartener can take on this role.

Shadow a Student

In kindergarten, a newcomer can complete most tasks that other students are working on but may need to see them in action or hear the directions repeated. They can have a partner they follow and work on the same activities in parallel. In the beginning, they may be primarily copying, but that is fine.

Playing a Review Game

This is a great activity for math. The partner can go over the rules of a math game. While the students are playing, the partner is reviewing math skills and the newcomer student is practicing math and practicing speaking English.

Consider giving the newcomer speaking prompts of helpful phrases while they are playing the game. This includes: "Your turn" "My turn" "Please say that again" "Can you show me how"

In upper grades, a peer tutor can read simple directions as a newcomer student is practicing basic vocabulary.

Use Visuals and Modeling

Modeling the steps to an assignment and behavior expectations is beneficial for all students. This is especially true for ELLs. Consider showing an example of a finished assignment. Writing out directions with a visual is helpful for all students and can help them stay on track when they are working independently. For a newcomer, they might only comprehend a small part of the directions when you are verbally giving them, but be able to understand more as they review the visual and writing directions. In addition, visual pictures can help students to learn new vocabulary.

Practicing Basic Vocabulary

It is important for a newcomer student to take part in most of the activities that the rest of the class is participating in through differentiation. It is also important for them to learn basic English vocabulary so that they can communicate. Have one or two responsible students work with the newcomer student as a peer tutor. The peer tutor can play a vocabulary game, read a book, or go over the directions for basic vocabulary practice.

File Folder Games are a fun way to practice basic vocabulary. I have ready-made sets available to help save you time.

Also, take a look at this basic vocabulary mini book and supporting worksheets. The worksheets are an easy way for a newcomer student to practice writing basic school vocabulary. Their peer tutor can read the vocabulary words to them and then the newcomer student can work independently writing them.

Provide Phonics Instruction

Phonics instruction will look different depending on the student's age and previous literacy experiences. For young students in K and 1st grade, phonics instruction is typically built into the language arts curriculum. For a newcomer, you might need to add additional pictures and review concepts from earlier in the year.

Some modifications to make for whole-class phonics lessons is if a newcomer isn't ready to spell words, have them practice reading them, matching the words with pictures, or only having to write one missing letter instead of the entire word.

Older students that are literate in their native language might not require much phonics instruction, especially if the language that students can read and write in uses the same alphabet as English. They may only need an overview of sounds/letters that are not part of their native language.

Other students are literate in their native language, but that language uses a different alphabet than English. These students will benefit from a quick overview of the English alphabet and letter sounds.

Finally, some students are older and are not literate in their native language. They will require the largest amount of instruction that is different than their native English peers. Use a systematic phonics program to introduce the letters and sounds of English. Include pictures and go over vocabulary. Use decodable texts that are respectful of the student's age and do not appear like they are obviously created for young children. You may only have a short amount of time available for phonics instruction. Having a scope and sequence will allow you to make the most of your time.

Get a Newcomer Phonics Set which is designed to quickly introduce the letters and common spelling patterns of English along with basic vocabulary. The set is designed for upper elementary students.

Build in Grammar Instruction

Similar to phonics instruction, newcomers in early primary grades may not require much grammar instruction separate from what students are already learning in the general classroom. Simply supplement with visuals and review previously taught concepts.

For older students, integrate grammar lessons with content material. One strategy is to use a sentence patterning chart to review parts of speech and sentence structure. Then create sentence frames and give students vocabulary to complete them. Another strategy is the picture inductive method, where you label a picture and then use the words from the picture to create sentences.

Use Materials that Highlight the Newcomer's Culture

In elementary school, newcomers will range from those who have never attended school before to students who can read and write in their native language.

Find Read Alouds that Have Words in the Student's Native Language

Sharing a book with familiar language is a great way to make your newcomer student feel more at ease. It is also a great way to show other students in the class how it feels to not understand everything that is being said and build empathy. Here are some resources for finding bilingual audiobooks.

Unite for Literacy - This is a large database of short books with photographs. Many of the books are available in multiple languages and have a read aloud feature.

The Fable Cottage- This site has audiobooks available in multiple languages. The available languages are English, Spanish, German, French, Italian. There are additional fairy tales available on a partner site thespanishexperiment.com.

Include Books about the Newcomer's Culture

Check your classroom library and see if it has books with characters and settings from the student's culture and home country. Look for both fiction and nonfiction books. Your school and public library are great places to find books to supplement your collection. For book ideas, I have lists of diverse books on a variety of subjects.

References & Resources
Newcomer Vocabulary Practice Bundle Print and Digital The ELL Teacher's Toolbook https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oela/newcomers-toolkit/chap3.pdf

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Supporting Elementary Newcomers - A World of Language Learners

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Do you have a newcomer student in your classroom? Here are some strategies for supporting newcomer ELLs in their elementary classroom...