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Jun 26, 2021 · Teachers share their "go-to" strategies for teaching English-language learners, including sentence starters and Total Physical Response.
- Opinion Contributor
If students need to develop their foundational skills, work with an ESL teacher and reading specialist together to identify some helpful strategies and resources to use. Provide students with opportunities to engage more deeply with grade-level text.
- Kristina Robertson
- Closed captioning isn’t just for the hearing impaired. If you’re showing video content, turning on closed captioning supports ELL students’ comprehension as well as everyone’s literacy skills.
- Voice typing in Google Docs (under the Tools menu) provides students with a voice-to-text option that can help learners who have some oral language but struggle with spelling and writing.
- Offer choices of what students can say if they’re called on and aren’t sure how to respond. This helpful anchor chart, for example, offers students options other than the ubiquitous “I don’t know.”
- Add gestures to reinforce communication. Remember that in order to communicate, we need to ensure that the sounds coming out of our mouth create a mental image or concept in our listener’s mind.
- Cultivate Relationships and Be Culturally Responsive. No surprise here. A successful classroom, our educators agreed, is one in which students feel known, appreciated, and comfortable taking emotional and intellectual risks.
- Teach Language Skills Across the Curriculum. English language learners should not be learning the fundamentals of English in isolation; they should be applying their developing language skills to rich academic content in all subjects.
- Emphasize Productive Language. The educators I interviewed agreed that productive language skills—hard-to-master dimensions of language fluency like speaking and writing—should be front and center from day one, even if students feel hesitant about them.
- Speak Slowly—and Increase Your Wait Time. Easier said than done. Still, many of the teachers I spoke to said this simple change is vital. You can record yourself speaking in class to measure your cadence, and adjust.
- Give Students Lots of Practice
- Encourage Use of Students' Home Languages
- Be Intentional with Your Grouping
- Look For Ways to Increase Oral Academic Language
- Remember The 'Silent Period'
- Don't Forget Culture
- Closing Thoughts
Whenever you introduce new strategies that involve pair or group work, assign ELLs' roles carefully. Use modeling, clear directions, and comprehension checks to ensure students understand: 1. how the activity works 2. their role in group work 3. the objective of the activity 4. any key vocabulary or phrases they should be using. Here are additional...
Using students' home languages in the classroom can: 1. help build comprehension 2. deepen understanding 3. build confidence 4. give students the chance to express themselves. Some activities that may be appropriate for using home language include: 1. brainstorming background knowledge about a topic 2. discussing a particularly rich topic first wit...
Be mindful of how you group students. Give ELLs opportunities to work both with peers who speak their language as well as native English speakers.Consider situations when using the home language might be beneficial, as noted above. On the other hand, there will be times when you want students to have more direct time to practice their Englis...Look for partners who will be patient and supportive of ELLs when pairing them with native English speakers.Ask students to show work and explain their processes to others in order to practice academic language.Use sentence framesthat students can practice with lighter topics related to their daily routines, likes and dislikes, etc. Continue using these on a regular basis, including them as part of academ...Try structuring student conversations with tips such as these from Tan Huynh's Empowering ELLs blog or Valentina Gonzalez's description of the QSSSA method(Question-Signal-Stem-Share-Assess).Keep in mind Kristina Robertson's helpful formula: When introducing new language, use old content. When introducing new content, use old language.It is very common for students who are learning a new language to be 'silent' for a period of time, when they are listening to the language around them without speaking yet. This is considered the first stage of language acquisition. Be patient, and give the student opportunities for small successes in speaking with you and individual peers before ...
Culture can play a big role in how students collaborate and interact with peers. For example, students who come from a more "collectivist" culture (one that is oriented more towards the group than the individual) maybe be particularly successful in group work. They may be used to working cooperatively on assigned tasks — so much so that they may ne...
Like anything new, peer learning takes trial and error. However, once you figure out what works for your students, the benefits to your ELLs (and their peers) will be well worth it. You may even find some ideas that your colleagues can use! So grab a graphic organizer or sentence frame — and pretty soon you will be on your way to making peer learni...
This guide is designed to help individual teachers, teaching teams, and district-teams evaluate and improve their EL instructional practices according to research principles that are the underpinnings of WIDA's English Language Development Standards.
May 30, 2024 · 01: Leverage Multilingual Resources and Instructional Diversity. An effective strategy for ELLs involves integrating culturally relevant, real-world content into the classroom to foster a multilingual, multicultural environment.
