Students are given a word and asked to identify the beginning, ending, etc. sound. ELL students can first be asked to identify sounds that overlap in English and their native language, building their confidence and abilities. For example, shared sounds in Spanish and English could be used in this activity (Linguistics for Teachers of ELLs, n.d.). As ELLs move throughout their English language development, the activity can be differentiated to provide scaffolded challenge. Small group instruction or one-on-one instruction can focus on targeting phonemes that students aren't familiar with from their native language.

2) Building A Word

Students can match letters with their sounds using letter tiles to build words (Espinosa, 2022). Lessons can be differentiated and target specific skills that ELLs are currently working on to build their knowledge.

3) Word Sorts

Students sort words into groups through rhyming and spelling patterns (Espinosa, 2022). This activity strengthens a student's understanding of phonemes and their grapheme representations. In this activity, ELLs can be given words that target skills they are working on and progress through a continuum that follows curriculum.

4) Sound Swap

In the sound swap activity, students are asked to change a beginning, ending, or medial sound to another (Espinosa, 2022). Beginning ELLs could focus on phonemic awareness by identifying the new word with the changed sound while ELLs that are further along in their learning could match the sound with letter tiles and spell the new word.

(Rollins Center for Language and Literacy, 2017).

Oftentimes, sight words do not change spelling in different contexts so it is beneficial for ELLs to have many opportunities with using sight words through reading, writing, speaking, etc. to solidify meaning (Linguistics for Teachers of ELLs, n.d.). ELLs can be introduced to sight words or high frequency words through a progression with a school or district's grade level high frequency word lists.

2) Teaching Students' Morphemic Vocabulary

It is suggested that when teaching root or base families to ELLs, it is in best practice to base a "scope and sequence" on a students' own vocabulary (Shanahan, 2018). There may be overlapping or morphemes and families between a student's native language and English. This strategy specifically caters to each ELLs needs and prior knowledge.

3) Mapping Word Families

Using a specific base word, students can map different prefixes, suffixes, etc. and practice using them in different contexts (Shanahan, 2018). ELLs can solidify their understanding of base words through learning more about their roots, prefixes, suffixes, etc. Words can be geared towards base words that ELLs are learning.

4) Write for Sound

Students are given a spoken sentence that includes target words and have to write the words that they recognize and hear (Colorín Colorado, Robertson & Breiseth, n.d.). These sentences can be completely customizable to differentiate for ELLs.

Students can be given baggies of word strips and be asked to make a sentence using the words. You can include specific vocabulary they have been learning and practice sentence types, punctuation, capitalization, and many other branches of grammar.

2) Comprehension with wh- Questions.

To help solidify syntax understanding, teachers can preplan wh- questions, "Who did ________?", "What did ________?", "Where did ________?", etc. Because English is configuration, the position of the subject, action, etc. is essential to the meaning of the sentence (Reynolds et al., 2021). Asking these types of questions can solidify syntactical meaning for ELLs.

3) Read Alouds.

Read alouds provide a very natural for ELLs to interact with and better understand syntax. Through listening and viewing illustrations, they are able to create context and become familiar with the patterns of syntax in the English language (Linguistics for Teachers of ELLs, n.d.).

4) Preposition Illustration Books.

To aid in teaching about prepositions. ELLs can be supported in making an illustrated book or guide that represents the preposition with a visual image. You could ask students to draw a squirrel by a tree, a squirrel in a tree, a squirrel under a tree, and more (Linguistics for Teachers of ELLs, n.d.).

Idioms are a big part of English culture and can be challenging for ELLs to grasp (Linguistics for Teachers of ELLs, n.d.). Teachers could use idioms as code phrases to get students' attention. An idiom phrase can be selected from a text that will be read that week or from a question a student asks about one. The idiom can be introduced, explained, and then revisited throughout the week.

2) Language Detectives.

Students can be given a word in English and a word in an ELLs native language and be asked to look for connections and similarities between the words to solidify meaning and context (Linguistics for Teachers of ELLs, n.d.).

3) Kinesthetic Movements.

Anytime movement can be incorporated with a word or phrase, it helps introduce and solidify meaning (Linguistics for Teachers of ELLs, n.d.). For example, if you are teaching ELLs about questions, statements, and exclamatory sentences, you can come up with a physical movement for each sentence type/punctuation.

4) Cognates Matching.

Cognates are words that are similarly spelled in two languages (Linguistics for Teachers of ELLs, n.d.). You can create a card game with cognates from English and an ELLs home language. Students can flip over a card and try to find the matching cognate by flipping other cards over and try remembering where they are at.

Students can participate in a game of charades where they are given a word, phrase, or sentence and then act it out using it in different contexts. Through this activity, ELLs will have the opportunity to see them used in different ways.

2) Sentence Frames.

Sentence frames can support pragmatics instruction by helping ELLs practice greeting others and communicate their needs and feelings (Linguistics for Teachers of ELLs, n.d.). This provides scaffolding to help support the students with the right context while they provide the content.

3) Looks Like/Sounds Like.

This can be helpful in helping ELLs learn classroom rules and routines (Linguistics for Teachers of ELLs, n.d.). By helping them understand what they should look like and sound like, you are helping them understand the context of the rule or routine and how they should respond accordingly.

4) Think-Pair-Share.

This activity can be easily incorporated into most lessons and topics. Students are given a chance to think about a question, pair up with a partner or partners, and then share with each other. This can help support pragmatics by receiving different contexts, ideas, and responses from their peers to broaden their understanding and thinking (Linguistics for Teachers of ELLs, n.d.).