English Learners (ELs)

• Multilingual Resources for Schools
• Educator Toolkit: EdTech for ELs
• USED Fact Sheet: Addressing the Risk of COVID-19 in Schools While Protecting the Civil Rights of Students

Considerations for Supporting ELs using high-quality instructional materials using Delaware’s Guiding Principles for English Learners:

• Asset-based and Culturally Relevant: All educators design culturally and linguistically responsive learning environments that draw on student language and cultural assets.
  • Consider how all resources are culturally relevant and build upon the assets of our learners.
    • Provide resources that can be accessed and/or understood by families. Talking Points can allow for secure translated text messages to be sent to families.
    • Encourage the use of the native language in the home.
    • Be sure that all materials are culturally relevant.

• Rigorous Grade-Level Opportunities to Learn: All educators integrate language and literacy development within all disciplines.
  • Consider using your high-quality instructional resources in content areas as the vehicle for all instruction.
    • Use WIDA ELD Standards and Can-Do Descriptors to ensure all students are accessing grade-level opportunities to learn.

• Assessment for Learning: All educators use a variety of measures to continuously refine and adjust instruction to meet Delaware’s Content and Language Standards.
  • Consider how educators will know how students are progressing in their learning.
    • Provide opportunities for feedback from teachers, peers and/or family. Platforms such as Flipgrid can be used for virtual collaboration and feedback.

• Building Learners’ Autonomy: All educators provide scaffolded learning activities to build student autonomy
  • Consider how scaffolds will need to be built in to support student learning using digital resources.
    • Build background knowledge using visual supports and multimedia resources.
    • Provide access to multilingual resources and dictionaries. Microsoft Immersive Reader can allow students to hear the text read aloud, use a picture dictionary to look up words, and translate part of or the entire text into multiple languages in Word, OneNote, PowerPoint.
    • STEM Teaching tools - resources in English, Spanish and Arabic

For additional support on EL - Maria Paxson; Cary Knight