L

1. Strategies and Activities to
Support English Learners
ALEXIS BUCHANAN
7/22/20
Peregoy, S.F & Boyle, O.F. (2017). Reading, Writing, and Learning in ESL: A Resource Book for Teaching k-12
English Learners (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

2. Supporting Vocabulary Development
1. Teach Word Structure (Prefixes/Suffixes/Roots)
2. Semantic mapping
3. Word Walls
4. Word sorts (categorize words into groups)
5. Four corners vocabulary chart (word - illustration, definition, sentence)
6. Self assessment of words:
◦ I have never seen
◦ I have seen it but I don’t know what it means
◦ I kind of know the meaning
◦ I know the word
7. Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy (Student Identifies words that are important to understanding the
content)

3. Understanding Content
Cognitive Learning Strategies
Previewing a story
Making connections with past learning
Highlighting, underlining, and sticky
notes
Using a graphic organizer
Identifying key vocabulary
Metacognitive Learning Strategies
Predicting and Inferring
Generating questions and using
questions to guide learning
Monitoring and clarifying
Evaluating and determining importance
Summarizing
Creating mental images

4. Understanding Content
Language Learning Strategies
 Reviewing word structure
 Making logical guesses based upon context
 Breaking words into parts
 Drawing pictures or gestures when words don’t come to mind
 Substituting hard to pronounce words with words of the same meaning
 Paraphrasing

5. Using Scaffolding
Verbal
 Paraphrasing
 Think alouds
 Providing correct pronunciation for student
responses
 Reinforcing contextual definitions
 Asking students to elaborate on their answers
Procedural
 Flexible grouping
 I do, We do You do together, You do alone
Instructional
 Graphic organizers
 Semantic Mapping
 Sentence starters
 Sentence Frames
 Assignment examples

6. Supporting Discussions
Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Objectives:
1. Knowledge
2. Comprehension
3. Application
4. Analysis
5. Synthesis
6. Evaluation
To support higher-order thinking: Create questions to target all levels of learning. The questions
should be created in advance and be based on the content knowledge of the lesson.

7. Strategies to Support Discussions
Directed Reading Thinking Activity – predicting activity as the students read
SQP2RS (Squeepers):
1. Survey
2. Question
3. Predict
4. Read
5. Respond
6. Summarize
GIST – Summarization technique
Reciprocal Teaching: (predicting, questioning, clarifying, summarizing)
Question Answer Relationships: (Right There, Think and Search, Author and Me, On My Own

8. Promote Interactions During Instruction
Instructional Conversations:
 Teacher facilitated
 Encouragement of different ideas
 Oral language practice opportunities
 Extensive discussion and student involvement
 Draw from prior background knowledge
 Student level of understanding transparent
 Fewer black and white responses
Teacher Role:
 Teach students how to engage in high quality
discussions (taking turns, respect of ideas, active
listening, staying on topic)
 Structure lesson to promote discussions
 Encourage extended student expression (probe, tell
me more, what do you mean)
 Offer restatements for understanding and clarifying
by students
 Increase wait time
 Speak less

9. Opportunities to Interact
 Jigsaw readings
 Think-pair-share
 Debates
 Literature Circle
 Reader’s Theater
 Rally Coach Activity

10. Grouping - Hands On Practice
 Vary group configurations (whole, small, partners)
 Allow students to work together to complete a meaningful activity (analyze a passage,
create a comic representation of a character to illustrate traits, solve a problem)
 Vary grouping structure (learning levels, heteregenous) and time spent on group work