3 Great Strategies for working with English language learners from Herrell and Jordan's 50 Strategies for Teaching English Language Learning

1. Academic Language Scaffolding (Chapter 8) - Students learn a great deal from their peers! All of the language they learn from their peers needs to be backed up with an academic base to further understand the world they live in.  Students learning English sometimes go from the playground where they understand their peers fine to the classroom where everything said makes little sense.  This is where academic scaffolding comes into play. Help build a world that allows every student to be a part of the content based conversation.  In my classroom I have lots of ways that I incorporate this into our day.  Here are a few of them:

• Every day I write the key vocabulary words on the white board.  The students are then responsible for finding the definitions as a table group before class starts.  We then go over the definition as a group and partner check to make sure everyone has the definition written in their journal.  
• Word wall: As we read through the text or talk about academic language students jot down words they don't yet know on a piece of paper at the center of their table group.  Every few paragraphs we stop to go over our mini word walls.  
• Repeat important vocabulary constantly! If the word is important to contextual understanding use it in context for the whole class to hear regularly.  

2. Partner Work (Chapter 15) - Partner work is so important because not only do students get to see how other students think and work, it is a necessary life skill! 

• Walk and Talk - Get with a partner and talk about the subject until the bell rings.  Then get back to your seat.  
• Think-pair-share - I use pair-share all the time when the class is struggling to come up with an answer as a whole (or no one is stepping up to answer for the group).  After pair-share I call on a random student using a popsicle stick.  If that student can't answer it I give one "phone a friend" before the whole class has to write the answer individually and turn it in (after discussion of course).  It seems to really help student-involvement because none of them want to turn something extra in if they don't need to. 
• Role-play - In science and social studies I often have students put themselves in the shoes of the people of our past and talk as if they were the expert or explorer. 

3. Learning Centers (Chapter 20) - Learning centers can help break down learning into more manageable sections for students.  Instead of focusing on the big picture students are able to piece it together from a whole lot of smaller ones.

• Station rotation - This is the type of learning center allows for students to move through a bunch of concepts that break down the larger concept in small groups.  I find station rotations to be a lot of up front work for myself but once they are in action the students seem to enjoy them and come up with great significant questions about the curriculum. 
• Big group/little group - I give the whole group a task to complete then meet with smaller groups about a secondary topic/learning need/assignment throughout the class period.  Everyone will be in the little group at some point be the little group might change topics depending on the needs of the students in the group. When I finish with on little group they move on to work on what we talked about together as a group for as long as they need.  I like doing this because I get to give small group direct instruction and can group the students in any way I find works best.