ELL Strategies
It is very common to have ELL learners in every classroom and teachers have a responsibility to make sure all students are receiving the best instruction to meet their learning needs. Providing explicit instruction in reading will help ELL students master science, mathematics, and social studies because it can be difficult to learn other subjects they cannot comprehend the textbooks. Beginning ELL students need guidance with phonemic awareness, decoding skills, vocabulary development, and comprehension skills. As students become more proficient the guidance from teacher decreases (Colorin Colorado, 2011).
In order to help ELL students gain comprehension, they need helpful strategies, such as supportive reading materials, read-aloud sessions, social support, fluency skills, and be able to respond with sketches.
In order to help ELL students gain comprehension, they need helpful strategies, such as supportive reading materials, read-aloud sessions, social support, fluency skills, and be able to respond with sketches.
Reading Materials
It is important that students are reading materials the challenge their comprehension skills, but are not too challenging because it will disengage the students. Teachers should provide students with books that have various levels of difficulty to allow students to find a book to read at their level. It is helpful to provide students with high-quality cultural books to engage their interest to read. A teacher could create an instructional unit that incorporates a book that reflects setting and events that ELL students can relate to (Moore, D., Moore, S., Cunningham, P., & Cunningham, J., 2011).
Read-Aloud Sessions
Students that are becoming proficient in their second language can build comprehension by having a teacher read aloud to them. Teachers should determine passages that are suitable for students to comprehend and interest the students. After a read aloud, teachers should discuss the book with students on what they understood and the connections they made (Moore, D. et al., 2011).
Social Support
Providing social support during classroom interactions helps ELL students develop comprehension. Teachers should adjust instruction accordingly for cultural differences, such as discussions and taking turns. It is also important the ELL students feel comfortable at all times during instruction. Students should have a risk-free, nonthreatening learning environment and plenty of time to answer questions or fix mistakes. Effective teachers should use mistakes as learning opportunities and rephrase questions if they are unclear to students (Moore, D. et al., 2011).
Fluency
Helping ELL learners gain fluency will help to build comprehension because they can concentrate more on the meaning of the text rather than trying to decode the text. It is beneficial for teachers to have students read silently and then orally to gain fluency. It also helps to have students repeatedly read passages, tape-record themselves reading, and allow students to take books home to practice. (Moore, D. et al., 2011)
Response Sketches
ELL students can benefit from responding to literature through sketches or orally because writing can still be difficult. After reading a passage, students could sketch an illustration to represent their understanding and respond to prompts from the teacher to assess comprehension. Teachers could incorporate sketches into a lesson by having an ELL student create a sketch for a passage and then have the rest of the class interpret their sketch. This would help all students to see alternative interpretations of a passage (Moore, D. et al., 2011).
Teachers can help ELL students with comprehension by introducing a strategy and discussing how, when, where, and why the strategy is used. Then, it is helpful for the teacher to model the strategy and give students opportunities to practice applying the strategy to a passage. Incorporating think-alouds can also be helpful to ELL learners to gain comprehension because it will help them to understand confusing parts of a passage that were not clear (Colorin Colorado, 2011).
Writing can be a difficult task for ELL learners and requires support from teachers. Since ELL students are still learning how to write, it can be very difficult to communicate their thoughts and understanding. Teachers could assess an ELL student’s comprehension by writing their thought for them or having another student in the class write for them. As the teacher or other student writes, the ELL student could follow along and learn writing skills by visually seeing their thoughts. Another option could be to provide writing guidance for the ELL student, so they do not become frustrated on trying to communicate their understanding (Colorin Colorado, 2011). Even though writing is a difficult task for ELL students, it is still possible for them to communicate their understanding in words.
Videos
https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/ell-support-through-pbl-inps
Jordan Wolf uses project-based learning to assess his students learning. Wolf introduces the topic of study and then has the students take the information they learned to create a project. Allowing ELL students to create a project, rather than trying to communicate their understanding through writing, allows for students to become engaged in their learning. Once students finish their projects, Wolf can assess students on whether they understood the material being studied (Teaching Channel, 2014).
https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/multi-language-classroom
Isabella Yurkovetsky teaches a multi-cultural classroom with many ELL learners in Los Angeles, CA. In Yurkovetsky’s classroom, she introduces new concepts through making a connection to her students’ lives to engage them to learning. She reads aloud to students and asks for verbal responses to assess their understanding. Students in Yurkovetsky’s classroom feel comfortable expressing their thoughts and sets high standards to make students feel their learning is important. It can be difficult to teach ELL students, but Yurkovetsky displays how to make accommodation to meet the learning needs of each student (Teaching Channel, 2013).
Jordan Wolf uses project-based learning to assess his students learning. Wolf introduces the topic of study and then has the students take the information they learned to create a project. Allowing ELL students to create a project, rather than trying to communicate their understanding through writing, allows for students to become engaged in their learning. Once students finish their projects, Wolf can assess students on whether they understood the material being studied (Teaching Channel, 2014).
https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/multi-language-classroom
Isabella Yurkovetsky teaches a multi-cultural classroom with many ELL learners in Los Angeles, CA. In Yurkovetsky’s classroom, she introduces new concepts through making a connection to her students’ lives to engage them to learning. She reads aloud to students and asks for verbal responses to assess their understanding. Students in Yurkovetsky’s classroom feel comfortable expressing their thoughts and sets high standards to make students feel their learning is important. It can be difficult to teach ELL students, but Yurkovetsky displays how to make accommodation to meet the learning needs of each student (Teaching Channel, 2013).