ELL (English Language Learners) and SL (Spanish Learners) strategies as very similar, just different languages
ELL & SL strategies are great for all students since they are visual, kinesthetic as well as oral and written...so think SpEd students, lower level students, and anyone who remembers things better when reinforced in different modalities.
Think Social Studies and Science for ELL development, even music for the lyrics! Use images or videos for writing prompts, read together and discuss interesting articles. Language development goes with any subject!
With that, here are some ELL/SL resources - scroll down for Nonfiction resources and resources for emerging students (especially if you don't speak their language)
More resources at Larry Ferlazzo's site!
Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to English Learners in Elementary and Middle School - Great guide, not only for ELs but for your struggling readers/writers, can be downloaded as a .pdf
The Emotional Side: Migration, Separation, and Trauma What educators should know about the often-painful experiences of newly arriving children — and how to help
10 Tools to Support Academic Language Use
So What's Comprehensible Input, Anyway?
From Valentina Gonzalez (and she has so many more strategies and info on her website)
Four Practices and Two Strategies That Invite ELLs to Talk in Math
Tips for Teaching English to Arabic-Speaking Students
6 Tips When Discussing Math with the ELL Student
Engaging Students in Academic Vocabulary Video presentation, SWIRL strategy
12 Ways to Support EL Learners in the Mainstream Classroom
Question, Signal, Stem, Share, Assess Strategy The video below explains the strategy, and can be used in any content area.
How to Teach Such That They Understand 15 Strategies from The Comprehensible Classroom to support comprehension.
Get Kids Practicing English with Film Scripts A database of different scripts.
Here's a couple other sites on QSSSA:
Teaching Reading Skills and Strategies for Struggling Readers (free to join website)
14 ESL Pair Work Speaking Activities That Get Students Psyched (good for SL too)
Literacy through Photography for ELL Students
Transitional Phrases for Informational Writing
2017 Virtual EL Conference (videos) Topics: CoTeaching, Academic Language, Accommodation vs. Differentiation, Effective Teaching of Elementary reading & writing for ELLs.
Speaking in Front of a Group Tips for speaking in front of the class, written for middle school but applicable tips for all ages.
Elementary English Language Learners A blog by Valentina Gonzalez. Great resource on all kinds of ELL topics from Academic Language to being a Culturally Responsive teacher....videos, graphics and more. One example: Making a Word Wall Really Work for you Classroom
The author's video demonstrating Comprehensible Input:
The Crazy Lady Teacher Blog Lots of great activity ideas at this website. She teaches 7th, but many of these activities would work down to 3rd grade. One ELL activity that stood out for me is the Roving Paragraph Frames Activity. Wonderful fun for writing.
Empowering ELLs Blog Again, articles on a wide variety of areas, e.g., Types of Scaffolding, Integrating Language and Content, Grammar instruction
Larry Ferlazzo's website Tons of ELL Resources
Larry's Downloadable list of graphic organizers used to help ELL students write a story (it's a Word file so you can adapt to your students' needs)
Larry's Downloadable full unit on teaching new ELL writers to write a story
Larry's list of Best ESL/EFL Blogs
The Best Popular Movies/TV Shows for ESL and how to use them
2016 Best Videos, 2017 Best Videos These are conversation starters, fun videos that encourage discussion.
The Best Resources, Articles & Blog Posts For Teachers Of ELLs In 2016
(ELA, ELL, or other subject areas):
WGOITP? Start with visuals. The NY Times Learning network posts a photo a week, and students respond to these three questions: What’s going on in this picture? What do you see that makes you say that? What more can we find? Think writing a claim, and using textual evidence, but with a photo. A great way to train students. -Look at their photos, you don't have to use theirs, pick your own, but look at how interesting their photos are. How teachers use this...Using it in an ELL context...Other teacher ideas
NewsELA (awesome! can also change Lexile level of article) free, or you can pay if you want more features
CNN Student News You can scaffold these stories, watch the video, discuss. Current events.
ProCon free, articles that offer argumentative writing, article pro and con different issues. Good for mentor text as well as seeing both sides of an issue
CommonLit Free, can create a class, has text from gr. 5-12, leveled, with resources. Also provides paired texts, teachers guide and parents guide. You create a class and assign the texts...students can read, have the text read to them, highlight, look up words in the dictionary, translate words from English to Spanish -a number of other languages as well (not the whole text). There are assessment questions and discussion questions. Worth a look if you have upper grade.
Achieve 3000 (free demo)
NuSkool high interest articles w/lesson plans ($70/yr) but you can read articles & take a quiz for free.
Enriching Academic Vocabulary: Strategies for Teaching Tier Two Words to E.L.L. Students From the NY Times Learning Network and Larry Ferlazzo
ELL Resources for Differentiating & Scaffolding
On the iPhone and iPad (and probably iTouch) there are voices in Arabic, Russian, Spanish and Turkish, you find it in Settings>General>Accessibility>Speech>Voices Once this is set, when you tell your iPhone to Speak, it speaks in that language.
To communicate with parents (and students if needed!): TalkingPoints Free to teachers
There are a bunch of apps (iPads/iTouch) to help Ss learn English, here are a few:
Free Apps to Support Vocabulary Acquisition by ELLs has some apps for EL students- from 2013
Best Mobile Apps for ELLs from Larry Ferlazzo
Beelingual app Features side by side reading (2 languages) and pronunciation help. New app, so reading library may be a bit limited. Some books are free and some you must pay for.
3. A downloadable resource "Making It Real: Teaching Pre-literate Adult Refugee Students" from the Tacoma Community House Training Project. I know, I know, it says "adults" but there are some wonderful strategies here for emerging students that work with children. (PDF file)
Some websites:
Newcomers at Grade Level and Beyond Good resources here including videos and Kahoot links to quizzes she uses
BrainPop ESL (subscription)
Phrasal Verbal Friends YouTube videos explaining phrasal verbs like "get out" "blow up," etc. Fun.