Short And Sweet Tips For Supporting English Learners

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Oct 29, 2025, 10:23 PM

short and sweet tips for supporting english learners

The numbers of English-language learners in schools continue to rise. How can we best support them? Here are recommendations from educators on X and Facebook: Thanks to everyone who contributed their thoughts! This is the final post in a two-part series. You can see Part One here.

What would you say are the three most important, AND most likely to be used, strategies that general education teachers can use to make their content more accessible to ELLS (and everyone else)? Supporting English learners (ELs) requires more than just great resources—it takes intentional strategies that help students develop language skills in a structured, engaging, and supportive way. This post will explore effective strategies for listening, speaking, reading, and writing, providing detailed explanations and examples you can easily incorporate into your teaching. Listening is a crucial skill for language development, and it can be challenging for ELs to process new sounds, vocabulary, and sentence structures. Using intentional strategies can improve comprehension and retention. What it is: TPR connects language with movement, helping students internalize meaning without translation.Example: When teaching action verbs, say “jump” while jumping.

Have students mimic your actions. For content lessons, act out steps in a process (e.g., the water cycle). What it is: Pictures, diagrams, gestures, and realia (real-life objects) help ELs understand spoken language.Example: When discussing habitats, show images of forests, deserts, and oceans. Use gestures to reinforce key words like “big” (spread arms wide) or “cold” (shiver and hug yourself). What it is: Repeating key phrases in different ways increases exposure and comprehension.Example: If teaching “The sun rises in the east,” restate it as “Every morning, the sun comes up on the east side... 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. Posted by Larry Ferlazzo | Feb 12, 2025 | best of the year, ESL Web | 0 | I’ve shared lots of advice about teaching English Language Learners over the past eighteen years. I’ve tried to make it a little easier to access it all by posting THERE ARE TONS OF RESOURCES ON THIS BLOG TO HELP EDUCATORS TEACH ELLS – THIS POST IS A GOOD PLACE... Today’s “Best” list is another attempt to do the same. Several teachers, including me, have written short articles highlighting something like the “top ten tips” for teaching ELLs.

Teaching English learners can feel like climbing a mountain—exciting, a bit overwhelming, and definitely rewarding once you reach the top. Every student arrives with a unique story, language background, and set of dreams. But here’s the catch: a one-size-fits-all approach won’t cut it. To truly support these learners, teachers need a toolbox filled with creative, flexible, and culturally responsive strategies. This article explores 63 creative ways to support English learners. From using visuals and gestures to tapping into technology, small-group learning, and even drama or storytelling, you’ll discover strategies that are practical, engaging, and backed by research.

Whether you’re a classroom teacher, language tutor, or parent, these ideas will help you make English learning meaningful, fun, and confidence-boosting. So, ready to spark curiosity, build bridges across cultures, and give your students the tools they need to thrive? Let’s dive in. When words fall short, pictures, charts, and diagrams can do the heavy lifting. Imagine introducing new vocabulary with a vivid image or breaking down a science process with a step-by-step infographic. Visuals cut through the noise, giving learners a clear anchor to grasp meaning.

Even something as simple as labeling classroom objects or projecting a diagram on a document camera can transform confusion into clarity. According to Edutopia’s guide on supporting ELLs across all subjects, visuals don’t just aid comprehension—they also reduce anxiety and help students feel included. Words plus movement? Now that’s a winning combo. Gestures and body language can reinforce meaning faster than translations alone. Think about demonstrating “jump” by literally hopping or pointing skyward to show “up.” That’s Total Physical Response (TPR) in action, and it works wonders, especially with beginners.

Last week, I started Macbeth with my 10th-grade English class; usually, the start of this unit brings much excitement and anticipation to my teaching. Students usually love studying Macbeth and grow to appreciate the universality and timelessness of Shakespeare as we read, act, and discuss the text. This year, however, I was filled with worry. I have six English learners (EL) in my class. Typically, when I teach native Spanish speakers, I feel confident and ready for the challenge because I am bilingual myself. My ELs this year are all Asian, mostly Mandarin speakers and this has given me a glimpse of what it is like for many monolingual teachers who face classrooms filled with ELs and do...

I quickly realized that ensuring their success would require thoughtful planning, strategic scaffolding, and intentional support. It feels as though the number of English learners or Dual language learners (DL) in our classrooms increases every year. The variety of languages they speak has also seemed to increase. In another blog we published, we look at a historical overview of this phenomenon as well as the theoretical foundation for language learning and provide a number of strategies for fostering a learner-centered culture... Establishing a positive culture in your classroom is a crucial first step. And then what?

And how on earth was I going to get my Mandarin-speaking 10th graders reading Shakespeare? Supporting ELs starts with the planning process. They may need a head start on the content, additional resources, and longer times to process. They may struggle to find an inroad to connect to the content. Here are the top tips to consider in the planning process: Consider how you will not only develop vocabulary lists for them but also how they will engage with the vocab rather than just being given a list.

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. Many of us are lucky enough to have a diverse student population in our classrooms these days. Our schools are now filled with a huge variety of cultures, traditions, histories, and languages. While it’s amazing to live in a time when students from such a big variety of cultures are able to learn and grow together, it’s the language piece that we find ourselves puzzling about...

It’s extremely difficult when we can barely communicate with our English language learners (ELLs). Even kids from the same country that speak the same language might not be able to understand each other because their dialects are so different. And that means supporting our English language learners is an added challenge for teachers–a big one. This has been a topic near and dear to my heart for many years, as my schools have primarily had a huge population of English learners. And that population grows bigger and bigger every year. I’m going to share some tips I’ve learned along the way that are specific to literacy.

However, I think you’ll quickly find two things to be true: One, these tips transcend literacy; they are applicable to the entire day. And two, many of these tips are helpful to ALL students, not just our English language learners. Our English learners, and I would absolutely say that all of our learners, benefit from a balanced approach to literacy. These students of course need explicit phonics instruction, and they need exposure to lots of print. They need ample opportunity for writing, and they also need tremendous support with vocabulary and comprehension. They’re going to need a good mix of whole group, small group, and 1:1 instruction, and they’ll benefit tremendously from a gradual release of responsibility model, with feedback all along the way.

This is what balanced literacy is (which I say more about here). In their very helpful book Reading and Writing with English Learners, authors Valentina Gonzalez and Melinda Miller explain why a balanced literacy approach is so imperative for English learners. They say that balanced literacy “combines explicit strategy and skill instruction with meaningful daily reading and writing experiences in order to allow students time to practice orchestrating reading and writing skills.” Something all students... Are your ready for 6 Tips to Support English Learners in the Mainstream Classroom? As English language learners (ELLs) inhabit more and more mainstream classrooms, it is essential that teachers are aware of the 6 ways to support these students in their learning. It is essential for teachers to understand the best ways that they can support ELLs within the classroom.

Here are 6 ways to make sure your ESL learners feel supported and have the best possible chance at academic success: This means providing activities that use language that is simple enough for the student’s level, but also rich enough that they can benefit from it. Examples include reading stories aloud, engaging in roleplay activities, or having conversations about shared interests. Visual aids can be incredibly helpful for ESL students since images are often easier to process than words alone. Consider using visuals like charts, graphs, or videos to supplement texts when teaching complex topics—or simply put-up posters with new vocabulary words so students can easily refer to them later on. When assigning tasks or activities, consider carefully how well these tasks match each student’s individual level.

Short And Sweet Tips For Supporting English Learners

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