Welcome to ELL Best Practices

Best Practices for English Language Learners was developed by teachers and educational administrators as a resource for teachers, principals, and district leadership to:

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  • Provide a framework for sheltered instruction for all teachers. 
  • Increase use and improve the quality application of research-based
    strategies in content and English Language Development (ELD) classrooms.
  • Support districts in the implementation of proven research based
    practices to increase language proficiency and academic content
    knowledge for culturally and linguistically diverse students.
  • Demystify terminology and initiative confusion in the field by using
    a framework for understanding school improvement.

Introduction

What is sheltered instruction?

What is English Language Development (ELD)?

What is best practice?

What are language proficiency levels?

How does this connect to Effective Teaching Strategies (ETS)?

Assessment and Accountability

What is cultural competence?

What are key ODE documents?

Myths and Misconceptions

Effective Strategies

Cooperative Learning

Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers

Generating and Testing Hypotheses

Homework and Practice

Identifying Similarities and Differences

Nonlinguistic Representations

Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition

Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback

Summarizing and Note Taking

Key Best Practices

Activating Prior Knowledge and Building Background Knowledge

Assessment

Fiction and Nonfiction Writing

Making Input Comprehensible

Thematic Instruction

Total Physical Response (TPR)

Uninterrupted Cognitive Development