It can seem overwhelming to have emergent speakers of English in your mainstream classroom, especially when you are balancing the needs of the rest of your class. As we have explored in the previous two parts of this blog series, it is critical to leverage the learning environment and student peers as part of your program. The third element involves critically examining and tweaking your direct instruction while always keeping language development in mind.

So what does the instruction you provide as a teacher look like when you have newcomer ELLs in your class who are just starting to learn the language of instruction? While there are many ways to approach this topic, I will focus on how to reframe content based instruction for all learners.

Critically Examine the Content you Plan to Teach

Re-examining the content you are going to teach, especially if you are a teacher of intermediate ELLs, is important. A few key questions to consider are:

  • What are the language demands of the content?
  • Will an early STEP ELL be able to understand the texts and media resources of the lesson?
  • What can be done to make the content more comprehensible?
  • What can I do in my teaching to make the content comprehensible?

When the learning is content based (Ex. Science or social studies), and reading is involved, encourage early STEP ELLs to use tools like multilingual dictionaries or translation tools. When students have literacy in their home language, it is an important and critical skill they can leverage to access the curriculum and continue building their literacy skills.

Offer simplified versions of the content when possible, or bring in media resources like videos and audio. Slow the pace of the video or audio, and use subtitles and text forms so that students can follow along as best they can develop phonological awareness in English.

Set Appropriate Learning Expectations to Assess

Setting learning expectations for ELLs that are aligned with STEP will help you be more intentional with your instruction and also provide you with a starting point for assessment. When you have a sense of which learning goals will support and challenge your ELLs, you can design tasks, report and assess with purpose.

To do this, consider where the student is on the STEP continua in the areas of reading, oral communication, and writing. Your school should have this information documented, or you can start by printing out the continua (you can find the different continua with a quick search or check out www.ergo-on.ca).

Then, consider the curriculum expectations you are teaching and plan to assess and develop an appropriate learning goal for the student. Here is an example:

Grade 7: Syntax and Sentence Structure

B3.1 use their knowledge of sentence types and forms to construct sentences that communicate ideas effectively, including using and creating complex sentences that combine phrases and clauses to express relationships among ideas.

Modified for a STEP 1 (Writing) student:

“Student will communicate their ideas using translanguaging tools and scaffolds like models and sentence frames to create simple sentences in English.”

a flowchart that shows how to adapt a learning expectation for an English learner.

Once you adapt learning expectations a few times, it becomes much easier to understand what you can do to scaffold instruction for ELLs.

Provide Ample Opportunities for ELLs to use Academic Language

ELLs will often acquire social or practical language first through play, conversations, and regular interactions with people in and outside of school. Academic language, or the use of words and vocabulary that are not often heard outside of a school context, can be a challenge for ELLs to acquire because these words are not heard as frequently.

Providing ample opportunities for ELLs (and all the students in your classroom) to speak and write less frequently used words is imperative for their academic success. You can do this by posting word walls or charts, providing sentence frames where they can utilize transition words, or structured group projects and presentations that will get students using academic language with purpose.

Here are some examples of activities that will enable students to use academic language in meaningful ways:

  • Create a podcast with an interviewer and “expert”
  • Script and perform a news report
  • Write a blog post or news article
  • Develop a game with science/social studies vocabulary for that unit

Here are a couple of resources that you can use to get ideas for sentence frames and questioning.

Blooms Taxonomy for ELLs:

Sentence Frames (created by S. Kim)

Monitor Progress in Language Acquisition

With the learning environment, peers, and direct instruction set up to support English language acquisition, you can monitor for growth and change using the STEP continua.

Keep in mind that language acquisition will vary depending on the student – each student is on their own unique and individual journey.

How will you know if an ELL is progressing? Remember that conversations, observations, and products – also known as triangulated evidence – will give you a sense of where they are. Notice when they respond differently in conversations, take risks in writing and speaking in class, and start socializing more with others.

Summing it Up

We are of course just scratching the surface when it comes to providing instructional support for ELLs in this short blog post. You will find no shortage of ideas on the topic from a number of prolific educators in the field, such as Tan Huynh, Diane Staehr-Fenner, and Oscar Corrigan, and Andrea Honigsfeld just to name a few.

What will you focus on to adapt instruction for the ELLs you are teaching?

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