ESL Essentials for Mainstream Teachers

TASIS England Middle School March 2011

Modifying Instruction for ESL Students

Simplify the language of instruction, not the concept being taught. Impart information through oral, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic modalities. Adapt content to ESL student needs through use of graphic organizers, outlines, labeling of pictures, study guides, adapted text, and highlighted text. Use supplementary materials to promote comprehension. These include charts, graphs, pictures, illustrations, realia, math manipulatives, multimedia, and demonstrations by teachers and other students.

More suggestions
Build background knowledge before teaching a lesson. Help students build connections and associations in order to assess background knowledge or previously taught information. Directly teach learning strategies. Demonstrate how to organize information, how to select the main idea and supporting details, and how to sequence and summarize. Use techniques such as marking essential concepts and vocabulary with a highlighter, labeling, using word banks, and organizing information on various types of graphic organizers, maps, graphs, and time lines. Make the explanation of the task clear and in a step-bystep manner with visuals.

And finally..
Make sure that key vocabulary is emphasized by underlining, bolding, or putting in italics. New vocabulary must be presented in context. Limit the number of new vocabulary words in any given lesson. Pair with peer partners. Cooperative learning groups provide the ESL student with varying language and learning style experiences within the content classroom. Allow the student to use his or her mother tongue to take notes, copy notes, make page notations, or to clarify instructions with other speakers of the language. Mother tongue maintenance is very important to increasing literacy and helps in transfer to English, especially if the mother tongue is based on Latin roots. Encourage reading in mother tongue to reinforce content if possible.

Assessing English Language Learners

Reduce response materials for content area testing. Example: two choices instead of four. Provide a version of the test with simplified language. Choose key and/or main ideas for assessment. Simplify directions. Read test questions aloud. Supply word banks for tests. Provide matching activities. Extend time to complete the tests. Use a portfolio to authentically assess student progress.