Every learnerNew teachersFuture teachersVeteran teachers

Language learners need language, not easier thinking

Keep the thinking hard. Make the language reachable.

Written with AI — this one isn’t Tammy. The Field Guide covers ground her videos don’t, and keeps to what’s well established. It doesn’t know your students, and nothing here overrides your school’s policy or your state’s law. · 1 min read

What to do

A student learning English is not a less capable student. Keep the content and the thinking at grade level, and support the language around it.
Find out each student's English proficiency level — many states use WIDA levels — and what it means for their reading, writing, speaking and listening.
Pre-teach key vocabulary, use visuals and gestures, and give sentence frames for discussion (“I disagree because…”).
Let students use their home language to think, plan and discuss. It supports learning English rather than getting in its way.
Build in partner talk before anyone speaks to the whole class.

Why it works

Simplifying the content for language learners often means they fall behind in the subject while they catch up in English. Scaffolding the language instead lets them keep learning what their classmates learn — and the frames and visuals tend to help plenty of native speakers too.

Try this tomorrow

For tomorrow's discussion question, put two sentence frames on the board — one to agree, one to disagree — and ask everyone to use one.

Watch out

Don't rely on a student to interpret for their own family in a sensitive conversation about grades or behavior. Use your school's interpreter services.