Strategies for ELLs that Can Work for All of Your Students

One of the most popular questions that I get asked by general education teachers is How can I help my ELL students during whole group instruction? Although differentiation and assignment modification is essential to the learning process of our ELLs, there are many things that teachers can do during instruction that will help ELLs, but also all other students in their classroom.

1. The first thing that teachers can do is have strong classroom management. This ensures that students know procedures and expectations that are consistent and predictable. Students will pick up on the language you use during these routines and will learn to apply them during other activities. Also, it will help students to know what to do in your class, when, and why.

2. Another thing general education teachers can do for all of their students that is particularly beneficial to ELLs is introduce your topic, teach your topic, and then review your topic. This repetition of what is important can help ELLs grasp the content and stay focused because they will hear the key points three times. It can do the same for all other students in the classroom.

3. Add visuals to your lessons. This can include photographs, pictures, charts, diagrams, realia, etc. These can be things that you present to the class or give to your students to look at at their seats. It helps students to visualize the words and concepts more easily.

4. Explicitly teach vocabulary. This is something that I have talked about in other posts. It is important to make sure that you don't assume that students know the key terms and that you spend some time working on them. A great way to reinforce vocabulary is to add pictures or show videos of the vocabulary words. This is also helpful because sometimes we don't realize that ELL students do not understand the words in the definitions that we give them. This will help all students visualize the terms and give them a picture to connect to the terms. It is also helpful to keep a word wall in your classroom and even allow students to play charades with the key terms.

5. Model for students. Most every assignment that you do with students should be modeled. We should be giving students examples of work which received high scores and work which received low scores in order to show them what is expected of them. This can also clear up any confusion they have from oral instructions to an assignment due to limited listening skills. Oftentimes, even native English speakers need this modeling to feel confident about how to complete an assignment or activity.

These are just some of the suggestions that I think can be most easily worked into daily lessons. For more ideas look at this article titled ELL Strategies that Work for the Whole Class.

Tips for Differentiating Instruction for ELLs

When working with ELLs, it is important that we differentiate instruction and not simply give students grades for participating. At first, this can seem tedious, but as you learn more about your students and their abilities, you will become more comfortable with planning instruction at different levels and to meet their different needs.

1. Know their WIDA levels and the corresponding Can Do Descriptors.

• Can Do Descriptors for grades 6-8
• DO NOT ASSUME A STUDENT'S WIDA LEVEL!
• Some students are excellent speakers and listeners of English, but are not excellent readers and writers and require much more intervention than the teacher believes. Likewise, some students are excellent readers, but struggle with speaking. 
• Use the students WIDA level even if you disagree with it. Scaffold as needed, but this is the student's English proficiency level as determined by a yearly proficiency exam. Again, sometimes student's needs are different than what they appear. 

2. Give students work based on their WIDA level.

• If you have a class with 5-6 ELLs, it is likely that they are all on different levels. Giving them all the same work would be a disservice to them.

3. Demonstrate everything.

• If you want students to fill out index cards with definitions, actually do an example with the students. 
• If students are supposed to make a poster, either make your own poster or show examples, 
• It is helpful to show both good and bad examples of posters so students have a reference point. 
• If students are supposed to make a list and then sort words/items into the list, draw a chart on the board and demonstrate your thinking process for one or two words/items. 

4. Modify assignments and assessments to meet students needs. 

• THIS DOES NOT MEAN MARKING OUT ANSWERS ON A MULTIPLE CHOICE TEST. 
• General modifications
• Sentence Starters
• Fewer answer choices provided on a different test than the rest of the class
• Word banks
• Graphic organizers
• Give a choice of assignments
• Dictionaries/tablet/computer for spelling
• Simplify the language
• Ex. Rather than saying "Daniel Boone was a pioneer," say "Daniel Boone was a person who went to new places" 
• Use pictures or gestures
• Use realia
• Give students different assignments than the other students. Giving them the same paper and then telling them to only complete one or two problems is very confusing for them. 

For more ideas that are content area specific, please see the links below!

Math

Science

Social Studies