EL Strategies & Resources
Check the dropdown sections below for strategies and resources to support your EL students (and your other students, too!)
Language objectives
Creating Language Objectives with English Learner Portal- Start here with this fifteen minute video with a great overview of language objectives. Provides two very helpful sentence frames to write language obectives.
Building Language Objectives- Choose a language function, domain, and form to build a language objective. Courtesy of Sam Nofziger of the English Learner Group.
Language Objectives: The Key to Effective Content Area Instruction for ELs- This article provides an overview of how to use language objectives in content area instruction for English learners and offers classroom-based examples from different grade and subject levels.
Language Objectives: A Step by Step Guide- Very useful guide to writing language objectives. Includes lists of verbs organized by language domain, graphic organizers, and examples of scaffolds and supports. Language Objectives pdf
Language Objectives Guiding Questions- A few prompts to consider when developing each of the three types of language objectives- vocabulary, structure, and function.
Academic Language
Academic Language Components- breaks down three categories of academic language, content-specific, general academic, and academic syntax. From Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (PREL).
Text Structure Signal Words- student friendly list of text structure and question signal words including cause and effect, compare and contrast, sequence, problem and solution, and description.
Signal Words for Writing- provides students with signal words to use for various writing purposes (compare and contrast, sequence, problem and solution, sequence).
High Incidence Academic Word List- Collection of 570 general use academinc words that students will encounter across content areas, such as analyze, process, culture, range, and resource. The words are grouped by frequency.
Checklist for Increasing Academic Language Awareness- checklist of considerations to use when identifying academic language at the word, sentence, discourse, and sociocultural levels.
Tier 2 Words: Words that Make a Difference- Tan K. Huynh shares a process for teaching ELs high-utility Tier 2 academic words.
Tier 3 Words: Teaching Content-Specific Vocabulary- Tan K. Huynh shares a process for teaching content-specific Tier 3 words.
Sentence Frames
Academic Conversation Placemat- Includes prompts and sentence frames for classroom discussions, organized by conversation skill (elaborate, paraphrase, etc).
Academic Language Toolkit- Includes prompts and frames for collaboration and discussion, organized by function (stating opinions, agreeing/disagreeing, etc).
Sentence Frames for ELs- Provides beginner, intermediate, and advanced prompts and sentence frames organized by CCSS on pages 1-2. Page 3 includes academic language scripts organized by function.
Talk Moves Sentence Stems- Sentence starters for academic discussions.
Language for Collaboration and Discussion- provides sentence stems and prompts to promote collaboration and discussion. Printable pdf that can be folded into a table tent.
Student and Teacher Discourse Moves- Prompts and sentence stems organized by function. Teacher moves helps students strengthen their reasoning. Student moves help students restate, summarize, compare, clarify, and support ideas in classroom discussions.
Email Sentence Frames- Developed to help students write professional emails to their teachers.
Sentence Frames, Leveled Prompts, and Responses- Language Access and Equity for Students of Hawaii and the Pacific booklet published by Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (PREL). Provides sentence frames, question stems, academic word lists, and strategies to scaffold language demands for EL students, organized by language proficiency level and cognitive rigor (Bloom’s taxonomy and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge).
Scaffolding for Language
How to Amplify a Text- Short video that provides specific ways to make a grade-level text more accessible for ELs.
Teacher Can Dos- Linguistic Accommodations for Scaffolding Instruction- Useful table that provides a range of accommodations teachers "can do" for each language domain and English proficiency level. Based on the WIDA Can Do name chart.
Scaffolds by Proficiency Level- Provides exaples of specific scaffolds for students at each WIDA proficiency level.
Three Types of Scaffolding- Tan K. Huynh's overview of sensory, interactive, and graphic scaffolds teachers can use to make content accessible for ELs.
Language Scaffolding: Lowering the Barriers to Comprehension- Tan K. Huynh gives an overview of steps teachers can take to scaffold language for ELs.
Scaffolded Lesson Planning Checklist- Provides 10 considerations when planning language scaffolds.
Tips for modifying assignments for ELs- Provides guidelines for ways to modify assignments for EL students, examples of simplifying language, and how to assess knowledge, not language.
Vocabulary Strategies
Frayer model- Graphic organizer (also called a word map) used to display a word's definition, examples, non-examples, use in a sentence, a picture, or other characteristics of the word.
Concept sort- Strategy to introduce vocabulary at the start of a lesson and review at the end. Students are given a list of words that they sort into groups and justify their groupings.
Concept circles- Use the concept circles handout to identify a text's key concept and supporting words and how they are connected. Concept circles pdf
Disciplinary facets- Graphic organizer to record how words have different meanings in various contexts or subjects. Disciplinary facets pdf
ESOL vocabulary strategies- A collection of ten vocabulary strategies from the New Zealand Ministry of Education.
Word walls- Give students constant access to key vocabulary by creating a word wall in your classroom.
Generative sentences- At the end of a lesson, students create sentences using key vocabulary, with a few rules attached. Ex) Use the word photosynthesis in the 6th word in a sentence. Use the word blatant in an 8-word sentence.
3x3 Vocabulary- Best used during or after a lesson. Students make or are given a 3x3 grid of key words from the lesson and are tasked with creating sentences using three words in a column, row, or diagaonal.
Comprehensible Input
Guidelines for Comprehensible Input- Checklist of actions and instructional strategies to ensure comprehensible input.
Language scaffolds: Lowering the Barriers to Comprehension- Short article on Tan K. Huynh's Empowering ELLs site outlining several actions teachers can take to make content language accessible for ELs.
Comprehensible Input: Making Content EL-Friendly- Tan K. Huynh shares some strategies to meet students where they are when it comes to language.
Emotional Scaffolds: Reducing Barriers to Comprehension- Tan K. Huynh again, this time discussing the importance of taking steps to lower ELs' affective filters by creating a welcoming classroom environment.
Adapting Texts
Rewordify- Paste a text excerpt and Rewordify will create a simplified version with in-text definitions. You can click on any word to see the definition or hear the pronunciation.
WordSift- Paste a text excerpt and WordSift will create a word cloud, identify the most-used vocabulary words, and rate the text's readability.
TESOL Strategies
Each link has a collection of strategies from the New Zealand Ministry of Education.
Listening and speaking strategies
Kagan Interactive Strategies
Some of Spencer Kagan's strategies to encourage cooperative learning, interaction, and discussion.
Kagan's Instructional Strategies
WIDA Proficiency Levels
WIDA Performance Definitions- Overview of the 6 language proficiency levels- Entering, Emerging, Developing, Expanding, Bridging, and Reaching
WIDA Performance Definitions: Reading and Listening
WIDA Performance Definitions: Writing and Speaking
Can Do Key Uses- Provides descriptions of what students "Can Do" at each proficiency level, organized by Key Use (recount, explain, argue, discuss) and language domain (listening, reading, writing, speaking).
Wida's Purposeful Lesson Planning for Language Learners
Purposeful Lesson Planning for Language Learners- Padlet full of resources from WIDA's Purposeful Planning workshop. Lots of good stuff here to help with lesson planning. Also features resources for parent engagement, tech tips, ways to engage newcomers, and videos of effective language instruction.
Student Can Do statements
WIDA Can Do chart- Blank version of the Can Do name chart. Provides descriptions of what students "can do" in each language domain and proficiency level, focusing on the language functions of recount, explain, and argue.
Best Practices and Strategies for ELs from HIDOE
Best Practices & Strategies for English Learners is a list strategies and best practices for English Learner instruction. The purpose of each strategy is outlined and reference links are provided. This resource was developed as part of the Asian American and Pacific Islander data collection grant, in collaboration with participating Subject Matter Experts from Kau-Keaau-Pahoa, Kaimuki-McKinley-Roosevelt, and Pearl City-Waipahu.
JP's EL Padlet
JP's EL Padlet- Collection of EL resources complied by Leeward District EL resource teacher Joanne Powell. A wealth of resources, including listening, reading, writing, speaking, and grouping strategies, social-emotional learning (SEL), and differentiation.
Translation
Multilanguage translation sheet- Google Sheet that allows you to translate into several languages and keep a record of your translations.
How to make a translation Google Sheet
New York University's bilingual glossaries by content area
Research Articles
Asking the Right Questions- Teachers' questions can build students' English language skills. Includes examples of questions differentiated by language proficiency for each level of Bloom's taxonomy.
Ten (Usually Wrong) Ideas About ELs- Dispels some common misconceptions about ELs
The GO TO Strategies- Scaffolding options for English Language Learners. Dozens of strategies to use with ELs. Strategies matrix on pages 19-20 gives a good overview.
The Structural Approach to Cooperative Learning- Introduction to of Spencer Kagan's approach to structuring classroom interactions.
WIDA Focus on Differentiation Part 1 & Part 2- Guidelines, suggestions, and a planning template to differentiate grade-level and language instruction, and assessment for ELs.
WIDA Focus on Language and Culture- Bulletin that "explores linguistic and cultural diversity in schools and how teachers can help multilingual student feel welcome, confident, and prepared to succeed academically".
WIDA Focus on Oral Language in the Classroom- Bulletin focusing on the importance of oral language for ELs, the ACCESS speaking rubric, and the ACCESS speaking test.
WIDA Focus on Scaffolding Learning for Multilingual Students in Math- Highlights what teachers can do to support ELs through scaffolding, with a focus on math.
WIDA Focus on Translanguaging- Provides background on translanguaging, "the deployment of a speaker’s full linguistic repertoire" and how teachers can support ELs' language development through translanguaging. Includes examples from the classroom.
WIDA Writing with a Purpose- Explorers ways teachers can foster students' engagement with writing and the expectations of the Common Core State Standards for ELA.
Practices for Implementing a Culturally Responsive Sustaining Approach to Teaching Multilingual Students- Four-page brochure published by REL Pacific that outlines some specific practices to support multiligual students.
Culturally Responsive Schools for Micronesian Immigrant Students- Research article by former President and Minister of Education of the Marshall Islands Hilda Heine that gives an overview of the strengths, needs, and background of students from the the Marshall Islands and Micronesia. Introduces effective teaching approaches for these students and addresses FAQs from teachers.