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From Edutopia: Four Ways to Support ELL Comprehension

Karissa Knox Sorrell of Edutopia has written an informative article that details “4 Simple Ways to Support English Learners’ Comprehension,” with useful strategies to bolster ELL understanding “in any class.”

  1. Visual Cues

Imaging will “clarify meaning and encourage understanding,” especially in terms of vocabulary. Knox Sorrell suggests coupling important vocabulary with pictures, a strategy she employed herself when teaching “Romeo and Juliet.”

“For example, when I taught Romeo and Juliet, I gave my ELs a handout of five to six vocabulary words they would encounter in each scene we were studying. The handout had the word in English, a picture, and a place for students to write the translation of the word in their own language. I also projected the words and pictures on the board and explained each one. After we read the scene, I posted printouts of each word with its picture and added them to a word wall.”

Imaging may also help with assessment and directions for activities.

  1. Comprehension Checks

Quick formative assessments will ensure that the teacher recognizes whether a student fully comprehends material. Knox Sorrell indicates that “ELs will not tell you when they don’t understand something because they don’t want their classmates to know.” To counter this, she suggests utilizing Turn and Talk, as it “reduces the anxiety that ELs often feel when asked to speak in front of the entire class.” Furthermore, this strategy “may be modified for ELs by providing a sentence starter or asking them to write down their answer before sharing it with a friend.”

Another form of assessment could be an exit ticket which should include “a sentence starter or picture support on an exit ticket is an easy way to scaffold learning for ELs.”

  1. Sentence & Paragraph Frames

When ELs “struggle to form grammatically correct responses to questions,” sentence frames can be used during class discussions and written assignments. For Knox Sorrell, she used this strategy in her own classroom:

“I recently used a paragraph frame of cause-and-effect with fifth-grade ELs. Students had to use the signal words to infer whether to write a cause or an effect. We underlined signal words as a scaffold, but students needed to correctly identify causes and effects of a destroyed house. For students who can’t write a cause-and-effect paragraph independently, this paragraph frame gave them the support they needed to communicate causes and effects.”

  1. Chunk Text

For this strategy, Knox Sorrell encourages educators to “chunk passages into short, manageable sections,” and furthermore, “choose two to three key vocabulary words and provide pictures of those items.” ELs can also translate words into their native language if necessary or, after reading through a “chunk,” ELs can write a one sentence summary of that section using vocabulary words. Knox Sorrell used this strategy in her own class:

“When I taught Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech to high school ELs, they found it challenging. I broke up the speech into five sections, and we spent one class period on each section, focusing on vocabulary and message. Each day, we worked together to find the most important quote from that section, rewrote the quote in simpler language, and illustrated it.

After five days, I gave the students a card sort with our five quotes, five paraphrased quotes, and five images and asked them to match the items. Then they had to write a summary of the entire speech. Breaking down the larger text made it easier for the ELs to build content knowledge.”

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TWIN-CS

TWIN-CS advances the Catholic tradition of academic excellence by empowering Catholic schools to systematically transform from a monolingual to multilingual educational model in the service of vibrant culturally diverse populations.

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