My MLL Mentor
  • About Me
  • Blog
  • Monthly Lesson Plans
  • Free ESL Resources
  • Contact/Work with Me
  • Courses
  • Professional Development
  • About Me
  • Blog
  • Monthly Lesson Plans
  • Free ESL Resources
  • Contact/Work with Me
  • Courses
  • Professional Development
Search

Instructional Routines for ESL Newcomer Students

3/19/2023

0 Comments

 
Picture
Having regular instructional routines are beneficial in many ways for our Newcomer ESL Students. According to Using a Daily Routine for Language Practice, routines help lower the affective filter (feelings of anxiety or self-consciousness) by providing structured, familiar activities in which they can easily participate. 

This includes having routines for teaching foundational English skills. This month in our Secondary ESL Teacher membership program, we had Beth Vaucher of Equipping ELLs with us to talk about foundational skills and routines for our Multilingual Learners, or English Learners. She gave us an explicit routine for teaching these skills and some great tips, as well as an example ESL lesson plan to show exactly how she does it! Her tips can be used if you already have a curriculum or if you are making your own lessons from scratch.

Here are some of the highlights from our conversation. If you are interested in joining our membership and hearing more, check out more information here! 
Picture
Monday
The first day should be focused on building background and connecting to the text.  They can also be provided with the text in their home language if possible or provided with a short summary of the text. One of my favorite warm-ups is to provide sentence strips with the summary and have students put them together. 

If you are looking for texts in Spanish, Beth recommended Unite for Literacy. There are plenty of books in English and Spanish by different categories, and some nonfiction texts are appropriate for secondary students. I also like to use Newsela's Spanish articles.

Tuesday
Provide your text for students with audio or read aloud for students. While students are reading along and listening to the text, they can also use provided scaffolds like images, graphs, or organizers to make meaning of the text.

Wednesday
On the third day, mini-lessons can be started on phonics and phonemic awareness. These can be quick 10 minute lessons with a short video and some practice. I include these in all of my Newcomer Series Lesson Plans inside our membership. You can check out a free sample ESL lesson plan here!

Thursday
On the fourth day, a mini-lesson including high frequency words from the text can be introduced and last no more than 10 minutes. It's important to include these words in writing and speaking with students as well. They can do some quick Turn and Talks with sentence frames and a word bank, and then write. They can also do a Flip (Flipgrid).

Friday
On the last day, mini-lessons with grammar or sentence structure can round out the week. Then, students can interact with writing by including some of those high frequency words previously taught as well as practice with the grammar or sentence structure focus. Even just a one sentence summary would suffice! 

Things to remember: these skills should be taught in conjunction with content from the text, never in isolation. This makes language learning more meaningful. 

Another important thing to remember is that we need to return back to these skills frequently. Just one week will not be as impactful as if we continue to return to them week after week, whether that's in bell work, warm-ups, or exit tickets.

As high school or middle school teachers, we usually don't get the right training for teaching foundational English skills. Sometimes, it's up to us to serve our Newcomers the best we can. If you need help with your Newcomer students, send me a message and I can point you in the right direction! 

If you are an elementary educator, what instructional routines do you use for your Newcomers? Comment below!

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Cheat Sheet: 4 Ways to Support Your High School Multilingual Learners

    Author

    I support middle and high school teachers through monthly lesson plans, coaching, and guest speaker offerings in our Secondary ESL Teacher Membership.

    Picture

    Archives

    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    June 2019
    May 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018

    Categories

    All
    Advocacy
    Assessment
    Assets Based Mindset
    Assets-based Mindset
    Classroom Management
    Collaborating With Others In Your Building
    Distance Learning
    End Of The Year
    Goal Setting
    Grammar
    Instructional Strategies
    Lesson Plans
    Listening
    Newcomers
    Objectives
    Peer Coaching
    Professional Development
    Scaffolds
    Self Care
    Self-Care
    Vocabulary
    WIDA Standards And Can Dos
    Writing

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • About Me
  • Blog
  • Monthly Lesson Plans
  • Free ESL Resources
  • Contact/Work with Me
  • Courses
  • Professional Development