Strategies to Support STEM and Language Learning for Your ELL Students

This blog, produced by Continental Press, provides practical guidelines and resources for supporting students in science and math classes. The writer notes the under-representation of MLs in STEM fields, and the fact that about two-thirds of math and science teachers have at least one ML in their classes.

As a solution for the classroom, the author points out that language and content can be learned at the same time. “By providing your ELL students with vocabulary instruction in conjunction with meaningful STEM activities, they will be able to develop content learning and expand their language proficiency.”

The first step for teachers is to plan specific objectives for both language and content. This may include making charts, summarizing, comparing, or describing. The vocabulary should focus on the most important terms and on words such as table or carry that have different definitions in everyday use and in STEM. Some grammar instruction may also be needed so students can understand sentence structures that are commonly used in math and science.

The blog then lists 4 Supportive Language Strategies for STEM Lessons.

1. Focus on Academic Vocabulary through the use of a language journal, a personal word wall, a student-created picture dictionary, or games.
2. Scaffold Your Instruction by teaching content in “manageable chunks.” Additional suggestions are modeling, hands-on activities, graphic organizers, and sentence frames.
3. Activate Their Prior Knowledge with realia, a KWL chart, a formative assessment, or a short video.
4. Incorporate Journaling Into Your Lessons – Students can write or draw terminology, observations, or steps to solving a math problem.

Note: While some of the suggestions link to Continental products, many connect to other sites such as weareteachers.com and Pinterest that have numerous resources and ideas.

You can find all of that information here.