7 Strategies For Supporting English Language Learners In Any Classroom

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Oct 29, 2025, 12:06 PM

7 strategies for supporting english language learners in any classroom

Get a year of membership🎃PLUS A FREE BONUS MONTH🎃 Teaching English Language Learners (ELLs) can sometimes feel overwhelming, but with the right strategies, you can create a classroom where every student feels seen or supported. Whether you’re new to working with ELLs or looking to refresh your approach, these seven, simple, effective strategies will help you build a more inclusive and engaging learning environment. Visual aids, like anchor charts and labeled classroom items, help ELLs understand and retain information. Quick Win: Try adding simple labels to classroom objects using both words and pictures. For example, label the door, windows, and supplies with visuals alongside the words in English (and students’ home languages if possible).

This small change can make your classroom more language-friendly in minutes! Provide sentence starters that help guide ELLs to write more complete and detailed responses. Language is messy. Even as someone who knows English inside and out, you know better than anyone how intricate, and downright tricky it can be. Teaching it? That’s a whole other level of complexity.

Being fluent in English doesn’t automatically equip you to teach it, especially when your students are all over the map. In one classroom, you might have a student who’s piecing together basic sentences alongside another who’s debating abstract ideas in English but still stumbles over phrasal verbs or even sentence starters. And then there’s everyone in between. Ten students? Twenty levels. It’s enough to make even the most seasoned teacher want to take a deep breath (or maybe a long nap).

But here’s the beautiful part about teaching ELLs: it’s all about finding ways to meet students where they are, even if “where they are” feels like twenty different places at once. The good news? You don’t have to do it all at once or perfectly. What you need are practical ELL strategies that help you bridge those gaps without losing your mind. As a classroom teacher, it’s likely you’ll always have English Language Learners (ELLs) present in your class. Whether teaching ELA and SLA in a dual language English/Spanish classroom, or teaching math in a mainstream classroom, you’ll always have the opportunity to teach students for whom English is not their native language.

In a bilingual classroom, this is to be expected, but as targeted ESL pull-out programs are becoming less and less common, teachers are often required to meet the needs of ELLs within the mainstream... Here are some instructional and practice strategies that will help to provide ELLs at any level with the support they need to be successful (and benefit your native English speakers as well!). For English Language Learners, keep lectures to 5 to 7 minutes in length. ELLs are not only processing the content, they are also trying to make sense of the language at the same time. This requires a lot of cognitive effort, so they need frequent opportunities to pause, reflect, and apply what they have learned. Longer lectures can deny students those opportunities, making it harder for them to understand or retain the content and causing frustration and mental fatigue.

It's important to make sure that the language used in class doesn't hinder ELLs’ ability to access the content presented. Avoid idiomatic expressions and overly complex sentence structures. When planning lessons, think about different ways information can be presented to students. Just as there are many different learning styles in a larger class population, care must be taken to ensure that ELL students receive similar treatment. Providing specific auditory and visual support increases fluency, communicates meaning by demonstrating accurate intonation, and aids in vocabulary development for ELLs. This article provides classroom teachers with ideas for supporting their ELLs' language development.

This article is part of our Strategies for ELL Success guide. If you are a classroom or content-area educator trying to figure out how to teach English language learners (ELLs), you are not alone! You are off to a good start by looking for ways to support your students! There are many things you can do that will make a big difference to ELLs, and they often prove helpful for other students in the class as well. Here are some ideas to help you begin. Look for a few ideas you can try and one or two topics where you would like to learn more information.

Note: This article also includes some research-based recommendations offered by Dr. Diane August in her 2018 American Educator article, Educating English Language Learners: A Review of the Latest Research. English language learners (ELLs) face unique challenges in the classroom as they navigate their way through not only learning the content but also mastering a new language. As educators, it is crucial to provide the necessary support and tools to help ELLs succeed academically. In this article, we will discuss 7 effective strategies for supporting english language learners. 1.

**Building a Welcoming Environment:** One of the most important things you can do for ELLs is to create a safe and welcoming classroom environment. This includes celebrating diversity, showing respect for different cultures, and encouraging students to share their unique backgrounds. By fostering a sense of belonging, ELLs will feel more comfortable and confident in their learning. 2. **Utilizing Visual Aids:** Visual aids are an essential tool for ELLs as they can help students understand concepts more easily. Incorporating visual aids such as pictures, diagrams, charts, and graphs can provide additional context and support for ELLs who are still developing their English language skills.

Visual aids help make abstract concepts more concrete and help ELLs make connections between words and their meanings. 3. **Implementing Language Support:** Providing language support is crucial for ELLs to succeed in the classroom. This can include using simplified language, providing definitions for key terms, and offering translations in the students’ native language when necessary. Utilizing bilingual dictionaries, language guides, and translation tools can also help ELLs bridge the gap between their native language and English. 4.

**Encouraging Peer Interactions:** Peer interactions can be a valuable resource for ELLs as they provide opportunities for language practice and socialization. Encourage ELLs to work in groups, participate in class discussions, and engage in collaborative activities with their peers. Peer interactions can help ELLs build confidence in their language skills and develop their communication abilities. Having worked in Title 1 schools for almost a decade, I had the privilege of being surrounded by language learners in all my classrooms. It proved to be a humbling, eye-opening, and fascinating experience in many different ways. Because state laws required my classrooms to be conducted only in English, I prioritized creating spaces where students of color and from varied cultural backgrounds could share the best of their communities through experiential...

In challenging political and educational climates, educators hold the power to create classrooms which allow students to shine in ways that are true to themselves, their families, and their communities and to support them... Students are the greatest assets to diverse learning environments, and they bring many experiences, cultural backgrounds, and languages to their classrooms. While it is up to the educator to provide space for these students to bloom and grow, one of the greatest and most common challenges in facilitating these spaces is in supporting English language... Providing these students with the tools and resources they need can be daunting, especially when working to personalize learning and differentiate in other ways. While a bilingual classroom is preferable for language learners of all kinds, this blog offers support for teachers delivering instruction in English in classrooms with ELLs. Have you ever learned a new language in an immersive environment?

If not, it might sound like an impossible task that only the most daring person would try. If you have, you know the challenges in this kind of learning - the intimidation to engage with native speakers, fear of making a mistake in what you are saying or writing, and fear... These mentalities are typical for adults when learning languages, but kids generally have a more resilient and brave approach. In my classroom experience, I have come to appreciate that English language learners are masters of learning, taking risks, and maximizing coping strategies. Some ELLs are also shy and fearful of engaging for various reasons. Both those willing to engage and those who are more hesitant can grow their language skills exponentially with the right tools and in a supportive environment.

As an adult, I learned to speak Thai, and because foreigners don’t usually learn the language while they are in Thailand, I was an anomaly in most Thai social circles. I could formally introduce myself, tell jokes, and engage in casual conversation. I became an expert at politely ending a conversation when it reached beyond my comprehension. I would usually leave conversations having impressed Thai people by effectively covering up my language deficits. I used my Thai language toolbox regularly and became fluent with it, but this was only a small fraction of the language that a native speaker uses. Our students can do the same on a regular basis.

Sometimes this leads educators to assume students are fluent and comfortable speaking, reading, writing, and listening, when in reality, English language learners are using the tools they have repeatedly and are not supported in... Students who engage in content using their non-native language demonstrate their brains are capable of highly complex processes, and as their teachers, it is our job to support them in reducing that cognitive load... There are a number of structures that educators can use in their classrooms that not only build out their teaching tool belt and skills, but, more importantly, support students in building confidence and expertise... hbspt.cta._relativeUrls=true;hbspt.cta.load(428371, '7d6c411c-0458-4547-b158-e3360b7e4a03', {"useNewLoader":"true","region":"na1"}); With multilingualism on the rise in schools, you might be wondering: What are ELLs, and what do they need to thrive? These English Language Learners are tackling the challenge of picking up a new language while keeping up with grade-level academics.

It’s a lot, but with the right support, they can succeed. Read on to see what ELLs bring to your classroom and how you can meet them with strategies that work. Or explore the myViewBoard digital whiteboard, featuring built-in language support tools. If you’re teaching in a K–12 classroom, you’re likely working with students who speak one language at home, such as Spanish, Arabic, or Mandarin, while developing their English skills at school. These students are often called English Language Learners, or ELLs. The term is widely used because it’s clear and familiar.

It focuses on a core need—learning English—without defining students by what they lack or reducing them to a single identity. Still, it doesn’t tell the whole story. ELLs often bring rich language skills, cultural knowledge, and unique experiences that extend well beyond English development. Wondering how many students fall into this group? Let’s break it down. Teachers of any subject can use these tips to help English language learners be more engaged and at ease in class.

7 Strategies For Supporting English Language Learners In Any Classroom

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