Kate McIlraith
Social studies can be one of the toughest subjects for English Language Learners. This list is a collection of strategies and resources that social studies teachers can use to help the ELL students succeed and thrive in social studies classes.
One of the greatest challenges in helping English language learners (ELLs) master Social Studies content is the role of background knowledge. The resources below provide ideas and guidance for planning effective Social Studies lessons for ELLs as well as for choosing appropriate academic language and vocabulary.
I own this book and it is filled with great strategies for content-area teachers to use with ELL students. One strategy that is covered in this text is "Language Framework Planning," an approach that sets ELL students (and others) up for success by planning to address the language needs at the beginning of a lesson.
The Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) Model is a research-based and validated instructional model that has proven effective in addressing the academic needs of English learners throughout the United States.
This book is about using the SIOP model specifically in history and social studies classes. I don't own this one yet, but it is definitely on my short list of texts and resources to purchase. I have the general book on the SIOP model by the same authors and it is highly useful.
This article will describe some strategies for planning social studies lessons with ELLs in mind, with a particular emphasis on building background knowledge.
As the number of English language learners continues to rise, four key principles will help teachers ensure a valuable social studies education.
This page from the Vanderbilt IRIS modules explains the "Get the GIST" strategy, which is very useful in supporting ELs in comprehension of challenging texts.
Our collection of SIOP lesson plans and activities includes exemplary SIOP lesson plans developed by teachers who were involved in the foundational SIOP research study, as well as new updates from our current research and professional development projects. We invite you to read these lesson plans and activities individually or with your colleagues in order to learn more about the SIOP Model. You may want to discuss why these lessons are effective for English learners or how to incorporate the SIOP strategies these teachers used in your own lessons.
In the first two posts in our series about using Socratic Circles (or Socratic Seminars) with English language learners (ELLs), we provided an overview of the activity and its objectives and offered some ideas for how to do a close read of the text that will be the focal part of the activity - in this case, Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Now that you’ve prepared your ELLs, it’s time to implement the Socratic circle.
These handouts are helpful for writing clear language objectives for social studies lessons.
