Don't Know Where to Start? Here's a List of Strategies to Use with ELLs
- VISUALS! The more visuals you use, the better! Use visuals, pictures, gestures, and quick sketches.
- Sentence Frames! When ELL students have sentence frames, they feel more able to show what they know.
- Graphic Organizers!
- I Have, Who Has game - You can pair your ELL with a partner. This is great for learning vocabulary and definitions. Include a visual on the card and it's even better. You teach more language, use "Do you have__?" because "do" is especially difficult for English Learners.
- Have students create pictures or actions to illustrate new vocabulary, especially academic vocabulary.
- Use word walls or illustrated word walls so that students have access to new vocabulary.
- Create word maps so students can see how words relate to each other.
- If appropriate for their English Language Development level, encourage students to speak in complete sentences.
- Walk and Talk - pair students up and have them discuss while giving them the freedom to walk around.
- Backwards Book Walk - scan a book's pictures, charts, and graphs, especially nonfiction, prior to reading and make a prediction about what they will learn.
- Carousel Writing - To activate prior knowledge, place students in small groups to brainstorm about topics. Rotate the paper and have the last student summarize what all students have written.
- Choose the Words - allow students to choose the words they need from a word wall for conversation or writing.
- Discussion Starter Cards - Give students sentence frames on cards that they can use to join in on classroom discussions. "I think...", "In my opinion..."
- Four Corners (or Two Corners) - Ask a question and have students move based on their response (yes/no, strongly agree/agree/disagree/strongly disagree)
- Gallery Walk - Use with visuals and have students write or discuss what they see in the pictures.
- Peer Editing - train all students on how to peer edit and partner students up.
- Posted Phrases and Stems - Have sentences stems posted in various areas of the room for each content area.
- Quick Writes - Let students demonstrate what they know, whether through sentences, phrases, or even just pictures.
- Repeated Reading - reading a text multiple times gives students a chance to become familiar with a text and its vocabulary.
- Label visuals and objects with target vocabulary.
- Use physical gestures or pictures when giving oral directions.
- Use cognates (if possible).
- Use charts with illustrated academic vocabulary.
- Use chants, poems, songs.
- Preview content using pictures, video, charts, etc.
- Pre-teach key vocabulary terms.
- Use props and realia during instruction.
- Pair readers to read text with each other.
- Require other students to label visuals.
- Ask questions that have students create a list of words.
- Have students create pictures, symbols, and non-linguistic representations for vocabulary.
- Use adequate wait time (5-10 seconds, or give ELs the questions at the beginning of the lesson so they can formulate their response).
- Use sentence frames in partner discussions.
- Use word sorts.
- Provide a list of important concepts and/or terms on a graphic organizer.
- Use Cloze sentences with a word or picture bank.
- Teach note-taking on a graphic organizer.
- Provide practice of key grammatical structures in context of the lesson.
- Use student-created books.
- Provide graphics or objects to sequence steps in a process.
- Use anticipation guides to preview content.
- Model using academic language.
- Provide graphic organizers or notes to scaffold retelling.
- Encourage use of basic content area words.
- Explain text features (headings, charts, etc.)
- Model prediction for a text.
- Teach and use signal words.
- Provide practice for irregular grammatical structures in context of the lesson.
- Use graphic organizers to structure listening activities.
- Structure group discussions.
- Use Jigsaw Reading to scaffold independent reading.
- Provide rubrics and examples to scaffold writing assignments.
- Model and use the writing process.
- Provide multiple examples and non-examples of content vocabulary and topics.