GLUE: 4 strategies to support multilingual learners

G—Grow multilingual learners’ literacy skills through oracy  

Oracy (i.e., speaking and listening) builds the foundation for literacy (i.e., reading and writing), especially when students are learning a new language. Helpful strategies to develop MLs’ oracy include:

• Provide opportunities for learners to meaningfully build and extend oral language skills such as reciprocal teaching protocols, collaborative learning structures, and academic discussion using talk moves. In practice this might look like:
  • After reading a science text, students spend a few minutes in small groups discussing what they noticed or wondered, before having a whole-group discussion. As students share what they discussed in small groups, the teacher asks, “Who can build on those ideas?” or, “Who noticed something different?” Students use talk moves they practiced in small groups to respond: “To build on what STUDENT 1 noticed ___” or,  “I understand what STUDENT 2 said. However, ___.”
  • This structure positions students as the “idea-holders,” helps ensure they’re actively listening, and creates opportunities to hear different perspectives which can deepen learning.
• Provide language supports to help learners express understanding and ideas (e.g., sentence frames, home language connections, modelling question stems to start responses). For example:
  • In reference to a curriculum-based comprehension question such as, “Why does CHARACTER respond in that way?,” the teacher models how to use the question to start the answer: “CHARACTER responds ___ because ___.” The teacher could also use this opportunity to provide a mini grammar lesson on verb agreement in the question versus in the answer “respond” to “responds.”
  • Modeling how to use part of the question in the answer helps students learn how to form complete, clear sentences that show understanding, which supports language development.

• Model and promote positive interactions that respect varying perspectives to ensure a safe space for learners to practice new language. Set and reinforce classroom norms that: 

• • celebrate different ways of speaking and learning (e.g., “Everyone is different, and I can show respect and learn from others—even when they speak, think, or act differently than I do”).
  • represent a growth mindset (e.g., “I am growing my brain”; “I am a learner and making progress”). 

L—Leverage multilingual learners’ linguistic and cultural assets

MLs bring rich language and cultural resources that can be used to deepen learning in their new language. Honoring students’ background knowledge and skills by providing opportunities for them to share what they already know improves MLs’ learning.

• Help MLs compare and contrast languages (e.g., sounds and grammar) to build metalinguistic awareness. This might look like:
  • The teacher uses AI to learn which students’ home languages use adjective-before-noun constructions and which use noun-before-adjective constructions. For example:
    • Use adjective before noun: English, German, Russian, Pashto, Hindi, Urdu 
    • Use noun before adjective: Spanish Portuguese, Italian, French, Arabic, Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai
      
  • When reading a short story, the teacher explains how to add detail by placing an adjective before the noun in English.
  • The teacher shares, “We are learning how to write sentences together. Did you know that the way we write certain parts of sentences is the same in different parts of the world? Even when people speak different languages, they can sometimes make connections between them (e.g., ‘like in Pashto, they also put the adjective before the noun’). And sometimes, languages communicate the same information in different ways (‘like in Spanish, they put the noun before the adjective’). I just love how we can think about what we already know and use that to help us learn!” 

• Create translanguaging spaces that encourage MLs to access all of their languages to maximize how they communicate in social and instructional settings. Using students’ home languages for meaning-making, supports their output in English. For example, a teacher might invite students to discuss a comprehension question for a couple of minutes in their home languages before preparing a response in English (see Misconception #4: Multilingual learners should master English before engaging in complex math discussions for more on this sequential approach).
  
• Invite students to make personal connections to topics and skills to activate background knowledge (e.g., a quick cognate connection, prior learning, home or community practices). This might look like:
  • After reading about early U.S. history and the fight for independence, the teacher asks what immigrant students know about the history of their country of origin. Then, she uses AI to share cognates for key words in students’ home languages and asks students what that word means to them, when they have heard it before, etc.
  • Cognate examples: English “independence”: Spanish → independencia, Portuguese → independência. Italian → indipendenza, French → indépendance, German → Independenz (though Unabhängigkeit is more common in everyday use), Dutch → independentie (also onafhankelijkheid), Romanian → independență, Tagalog/Filipino → independensya (borrowed from Spanish)

U—Use varied, multimodal scaffolds and techniques 

All students have a unique combination of learning preferences, background knowledge, and ways of processing. By providing multiple entry points and ways to engage in learning, educators can enhance access to rigorous, grade-level skills and knowledge. 

• Represent content in multiple ways. For example, use:
  • non-verbal modes of communication such as real objects, images, or movement (e.g., students raise their hand every time they hear the connected weather word in a science read-aloud),
  • models and demonstrations, and
  • anchor charts and graphic organizers, such as:
    • a poster with talk moves for students to use when discussing comprehension questions 
    • a Venn diagram to identify similarities and differences in a character at the beginning and end of a text
• Provide opportunities for shared skill building (e.g., shared writing, partner reading). 
• Differentiate the language complexity and precision of supports to provide enhanced access to content in a new language and practice using increasingly complex sentences and precise vocabulary, for example:
  • “Juicy Sentences”
  • Sentence frames that start differently and use different sentence structures: 
    • I know/think CLAIM because the text says ___. 
    • The author wrote ___, which shows that CLAIM. 
    • CLAIM. The text evidence to support that is ___. 
    • On page X, CHARACTER says___. That makes me think CLAIM. 

E—Elevate language that is embedded in content  

Making the language of the curriculum and instruction visible helps students know what language they are expected to learn and use. Explicit instruction and language practice in meaningful contexts is key for advancing academic language proficiency. 

• Identify the academic language demands of the content knowledge, skill, and instruction—beyond just content vocabulary (e.g., variety of sentence structures, prepositional phrases to add detail, connectors to explain relationships), and create language expectation(s) for the lesson. Language expectations are goals or objectives for content-driven language learning such as using sequence language when retelling steps to solve a math problem, prediction language for making a hypothesis in science, past tense to talk about a historical event, figurative language when reading and writing short stories, and comparative language when discussing short and long vowel sounds. 

• Unpack how language is used in complex spoken and written text. For example
  • Close reading
  • Deconstructing text (i.e., breaking down a sentence, paragraph, or larger text to analyze meaning). Text deconstruction might look like:

• • • In math, looking at how information is connected to pronouns (e.g., literally drawing arrows from the pronouns to their referents). 
    • In social studies, highlighting words in a primary resource that illustrate the author’s bias toward a particular position/policy. 
    • In ELA, exploring how authors use figurative and descriptive language to develop mood.
    • In science, finding the sequence words that indicate the order in a cycle. 
• Focus feedback on explicit language expectations only; anticipate student responses and prepare targeted, affirming feedback. Try to avoid error correction unless it influences comprehensibility. It’s important for teachers to encourage risk-taking for students learning a new language; elevate ideas and the substance of what the student is trying to communicate over fastidious correctness. Correcting unrelated skills may be grounded in good intentions to move the student to more precise language use; however, it can unintentionally: 
  • reinforce the idea that their contributions are not good enough, 
  • distract from the focus skill or concept, and
  • discourage students from actively engaging and participating by causing them to over focus on “not making mistakes.” 
• Center text to build other language skills to streamline and deepen learning (e.g., use words from the text to practice phonics skills, support vocabulary building in context, use the text as a mentor for grammar skills and writing tasks).