TOP TIPS FOR TEACHERS

Four Key Principles for Teaching ELL Students

Increase Comprehensibility: Drawing from Krashen’s theory of comprehensible input, this principle involves the ways in which teachers can make content more understandable to their students. With early to intermediate language learners, these include providing many nonverbal clues such as pictures, objects, demonstrations, gestures, and intonation cues. As competency develops, other strategies include building from language that is already understood, using graphic organizers, hands-on learning opportunities, and cooperative or peer tutoring techniques. 

Increase Interaction: Drawing from Swain’s emphasis on comprehensible output, this principle recommends that students use their language skills in direct communication and for the purpose of “negotiating meaning” in real-life situations. In addition, provide opportunities to give elaborate responses (Kamps et al., 2007, p. 157; Vaughn et al., 2005, p. 61). These include cooperative learning, study buddies, project-based learning, and one-to-one teacher/student interactions. 

Increase Thinking/Study Skills: Drawing from Cummins’s theories of academic language and cognitively demanding communication, these strategies suggest ways to develop more advanced, higher order thinking skills as a student’s competency increases. These include asking students higher order thinking questions (e.g., what would happen if…?), modeling “thinking language” by thinking aloud, explicitly teaching and reinforcing study skills and test-taking skills, and holding high expectations for all students. 

Use a student’s native language to increase comprehensibility: Drawing from several different theories, including Krashen and Cummins, this principle also draws on a wealth of research that has shown the advantage of incorporating a student’s native language into their instruction (Berman, Minicucci, McLaughlin, Nelson, & Woodworth, 1995; Lucas and Katz, 1994; Pease-Alvarez, Garcia & Espinosa, 1991; Thomas & Collier 1997). Thomas and Collier, for example, in their study of school effectiveness for language minority students, note that first-language support “explains the most variance in student achievement and is the most powerful influence on [ELL] students’ long term academic success” (p. 64). 

Source: Strategies and Resources for Mainstream Teachers of English Language Learners, Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, 2003. Retrieved from: http://educationnorthwest.org/sites/default/files/ell.pdf

Image source: http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2015/03/17/every-teacher-is-a-language-teacher/

ELL Myths From The Trenches: 

https://reclaimingthelanguage.wordpress.com/2015/06/07/ell-myths-from-the-trenches/

Top 10 Things The Mainstream Teacher Can Do Today to Improve Instruction for ELL Students 

1. Enunciate clearly, but do not raise your voice. Avoid idioms, slang words, and colloquial expressions that ELL students would not understand. 

2. Whenever possible, support your words with visuals and gestures. Point directly to objects, dramatize concepts, and display pictures when appropriate. Visuals, gestures, and smiles help ELL students create meaning from a new environment. 

3. Write clearly, legibly, and in print — ELL students may have difficulty reading cursive. 

4. Develop and maintain regular routines. Use clear and consistent signals for classroom instructions. 

5. Repeat information and review frequently. If a student does not understand, a teacher should try rephrasing or paraphrasing in shorter sentences and simpler syntax. Check often for understanding, but do not ask, “Do you understand?” Instead, have students demonstrate their learning in order to show comprehension. 

6. Present new information in the context of known information. 

7. Announce the lesson’s objectives and activities, and list instructions step-by-step in small “chunks.” 

8. Present information using a variety of methods and delivery formats. 

9. Provide frequent summations of the salient points of a lesson, and always emphasize key vocabulary words. 

10. Recognize student success overtly and frequently. But, also be aware that in some cultures overt, individual praise is considered appropriate and can therefore be embarrassing or confusing to the student.

Source: Derrick-Mescua, M. General Principles for Teaching ELL Students quoted in Supporting ELL/Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students for Academic Achievement by International Center for Leadership in Education, 2011. 

ESL model of Supports and further ideas for supporting each level 

by C. Smith & S. Wing, 2017.