Picture yourself in a situation where you cannot understand the language being spoken around you. You want to make friends and participate but your limited language proficiency makes you fearful. Helen Keller once commented that not being able to communicate is more difficult than not being able to see. That frustration is likely being felt by the English Language Learners in your classroom.

The following strategies help you support ELLs through this difficult stage of language proficiency. Implementing these techniques will benefit all the students in your classroom and can contribute to differentiated instruction. Much of what the ESOL teacher does is best practice teaching - and you may recognize and already use some of the strategies below. The more you integrate these strategies in your teaching, the more comfortable ELLs will be in your classroom and the more motivated they will be to learn English and the content you teach.