How can technology be used to support ELL instruction?

Technology in the classroom offers a multitude of innovative strategies for teaching English language learners. By integrating digital tools and resources, educators can create a more inclusive and engaging learning environment. Technology for ELL students can help provide personalized instruction and immediate feedback through real-time insights into student learning. Nearpod can enhance language acquisition for ELL students, making the learning process more interactive, flexible, and effective. You can establish engaging classroom routines for repetition, making it easier for students to follow structured activities and boost their comfort and confidence. It also simplifies the process of showing parents their child’s progress with user-friendly reports, even across language barriers. You can also use interactive lessons that include embedded assessments and dynamic media such as Virtual Reality (VR) Field Trip experiences.

Using Nearpod makes technology for ELL teaching a bit less daunting. For instance, Nearpod became integral to Compton Unified School District’s (CUSD) efforts to support English Language Learners (ELLs). Nearpod’s adaptability enabled effective scaffolding of instruction, providing multiple points of entry and immediate feedback crucial for language development. Jennifer Graziano, Senior Director of English Learner Services, emphasized the importance of innovative approaches to teaching language development, advocating for methods that resonate with students’ interests and promote relevance through Nearpod’s tools.

Keep reading to explore 5 impactful strategies for supporting English language learners.

New to Nearpod? Make sure you’re signed up to access these lessons and activities!
Teachers can sign up for free below to access and create interactive lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to explore the English Language Learners K-12 Program and unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

5 Impactful strategies for teaching English language learners (ELL)

1. Make newcomers feel at home with VR field trips

Virtual Reality Field Trips offer an innovative and immersive approach to enhance English language instruction and help newcomers feel at home. These virtual experiences can transport ELL students to various countries and culturally significant locations, providing them with a unique opportunity to explore different environments, practice language skills, and gain a deeper understanding of English in real-world contexts. VR field trips can engage students in interactive and visually stimulating language immersion, allowing them to observe and imagine what it would be like to listen and communicate within authentic scenarios. This not only builds their language proficiency but also fosters cultural awareness and broadens their knowledge base.

Nearpod helps me celebrate newcomers’ diverse life experiences. When a student first joins your classroom, go on a Virtual Reality Field Trip to their home country and virtually tour the world as a class. It helps build classroom community and valuable and diverse background knowledge.

2. Create engaging routines for repetition

Many newcomers spend much of their day just trying to keep their heads above water. What did the teacher say? Why is everyone in my class standing up all of a sudden? Where are we going?

Having routines helps students who struggle with verbal directions. They see familiar content and get started immediately, thanks to the structure and routine.

There are various ways you can implement this as one of your ELL strategies. For example, you can write three consonants on the board daily. Add them to a Collaborate Board and have students list as many English words that begin with each letter sound. Students enjoy getting to “heart,” or like their peers’ posts and respond with comments. Early finishers complete review questions at the end. Using Nearpod to build this routine helps any newcomer feel comfortable and builds confidence. Explore more ways to build easy classroom procedures and routines to engage students.

3. Utilize student data for instruction and parent-teacher conferences

Utilizing student data to inform and implement effective strategies for teaching English language learners is crucial for targeting language development. It helps educators create personalized learning experiences by assessing individual language proficiency levels and tracking progress in specific language skills. This data-driven instructional approach ensures targeted ELL support and effective language development. Nearpod has data reports for the whole class and each student that teachers can use to differentiate instruction and track learning. Additionally, in Nearpod’s teacher dashboard, teachers can see student responses to assessments and activities in real-time.

As an ESL teacher, there are times when I am pulled into last-minute parent-teacher conferences. You should always be able to access students’ performance reports and work in an organized, in-the-moment, and manageable way. Nearpod helps me walk into that meeting confident and prepared. With limited time given to prepare, Nearpod allows me to quickly print out reports. I take them as evidence to show the student’s progress. Even across home language barriers, the user-friendly student reports help parents see how their student’s language skills are growing. These strategies for teaching English language learners will impact students’ language development by analysing their prior knowledge and their learning outcomes over time.

4. Use educational resources you can trust

As an ESL teacher, I work with newcomers across grade levels. This means that when exploring how to support English language learners, we need resources to support many different lessons. Nearpod makes that easier. The Nearpod Lesson Library has an extensive collection of high-quality, ready-to-use lessons. I can use them as-is or edit a few slides to suit specific small-group needs. This is helpful for those times when I receive an update from a homeroom teacher and need to adapt the lesson quickly. You can use the filters to narrow lessons down by grade level, subjects, standards, and activity type.

Additionally, Nearpod’s EL Program includes thousands of lessons, videos, and activities available for schools and districts. In this program, ESL or ELL teachers can use premade content with these supports already built into their favorite Nearpod lessons. Additionally, they can find newcomer-specific content and vocabulary lessons. Explore sample lessons from the program here.

5. Amplify, don’t simplify, with vocabulary support

Teaching academic vocabulary to newcomer students is essential for their academic success, effective communication, and cognitive development. Proficiency in academic language enables ELL students in the classroom to comprehend lessons, excel in assignments and assessments, and engage in critical thinking and discussions. These strategies for ELL students empower them to navigate educational challenges and fully realize their academic potential.

Nearpod helps break down academic vocabulary words and vocabulary instruction in general. From virtual field trips to engaging visual slides, Nearpod allows me to amplify, not simplify, grade-level texts. Instead of giving fifth-grade newcomers a kindergarten passage on the same topic, I will use the same grade-level passage from their teacher. I chunk the text on slides and support each piece with extra visual supports.

Additionally, tools like Microsoft’s Immersive Reader on Nearpod offer valuable support for teaching vocabulary to English language learners. Through features like text-to-speech, translation, and word highlighting, Immersive Reader provides a multisensory experience that aids in comprehension and retention. ELL technologies for learning a new language can help students hear, see, and understand new words, making vocabulary learning more accessible and engaging. One way of teaching English language learners through technology that’s impactful is through the translation feature on this tool. It bridges language gaps, facilitating a deeper understanding of word meanings, and word highlighting reinforces correct pronunciation and context.

Start using Nearpod for teaching English language learners

Implementing dual language instruction in lesson planning encourages students, particularly ELL students, to engage actively in both speaking and writing. By intertwining speaking and writing exercises within dual language frameworks, educators create holistic approaches that cater to diverse learning styles and linguistic backgrounds, maximizing the effectiveness of teaching strategies for ELLs.

As an ESL and ELL teacher, supporting newcomers with effective teaching is an immensely rewarding experience. By leveraging technology, educators can create a more inclusive and engaging learning environment for ELL students. Tools like Nearpod can support the instruction of language acquisition and honor students’ native languages through interactive lessons and activities.

New to Nearpod? Make sure you’re signed up to access these lessons and activities!
Teachers can sign up for free below to access and create interactive lessons. Administrators can schedule a call with an expert to explore the English Language Learners K-12 Program and unlock the full power of Nearpod for schools and districts.

Melissa Sienko

Melissa is an ESL teacher in a large, urban district in the Southeast. She enjoys using effective Ed Tech to address the needs of a diverse ELL population. Before becoming a resource teacher, Melissa was an upper elementary literacy teacher for several years and taught EFL in Japan.

The post 5 Impactful strategies for teaching English Language Learners (ELL) appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

Content Companions

Nearpod EL’s Content Companions are scaffolded versions of lessons found in the Nearpod Library, intentionally built to support ELL students. These lessons have been a staple resource since the beginning, and we are adding 900 more lessons to help teachers routinely differentiate their instruction.

View lessons

Video Mini-Lessons

Video Mini-Lessons provide teachers with additional ways to teach or re-teach important English language arts, social studies, science, or math concepts using scaffolded content. Each lesson is intentionally built to support ELL students by breaking down key vocabulary before the video begins, providing checks for understanding throughout the video, and ending with a scaffolded practice activity. We are adding 600+ Video Mini-Lessons to Nearpod EL, giving teachers more ways to differentiate their instruction.

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Activities

Give your ELL students even more ways to engage in active learning with quick, stand-alone activities intentionally built to break down language barriers around academic subjects as well as provide EL-scaffolded content practice. These scaffolded activities include vocabulary explanations, explicit directions, visual examples, and other embedded language supports to support students in successfully completing rigorous tasks. We are adding 1,800+ stand-alone activities aligned to each of our Content Companions, saving teachers time finding and creating their own resources for pre-teaching, enrichment, and differentiation.

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New Program Layout and Content Organization

We’ve made it easier for teachers to navigate, find, and launch Nearpod EL content to encourage routine differentiated instruction for ELL students. Begin by selecting your subject to find content broken down by grade and organized by nationally recognized subject domains (NGSS, Common Core, NCSS). Our new lesson layout page surfaces all the aligned resources available to teachers including a standards-aligned Content Companion lesson, practice activities, video mini-lessons, language supports, SEL lessons*, and Flocabulary videos*.

We are committed to optimizing Nearpod EL to further encourage routine support of ELL students by making it easy to find and deliver scaffolded resources. Nearpod EL will continue to grow and receive updates that enhance the experience for both teachers and students.

Bring Nearpod EL to your school or district

Nearpod Team

Nearpod’s award-winning platform is used by thousands of schools around the globe, transforming classroom engagement.

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The post A new way to experience Nearpod for English Learners appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

How did you take on this new teaching challenge?

This was my first year as a Technology Integration Specialist for Minnewaska Area Schools. I absolutely love my job but wanted to keep the relevance of teaching my own classroom.  I found a part-time online teaching opportunity where I would remotely teach students in Zhenghou, China.  I was a little nervous to see how this would work, as I had no experience with remote teaching or a class of entirely ESL students.  I met with the program coordinator in Minneapolis to observe her teach and demo a lesson for the director in Beijing.  Things went well, and I was accepted to teach in the program!

How did you use Nearpod, and how did Nearpod enhance the experience?

I wanted to use technology to engage and assess my students. With language and cultural barriers, I wanted to ensure I knew exactly what my students were comprehending. I turned to my “go to” tool, Nearpod, which I used consistently in my social studies classroom at Blue Earth Area High School in Minnesota.  My high school students loved it! Not only did Nearpod increase student engagement and understanding, but it transformed my classroom environment.  All students had a voice, and they became confident risk-takers. The decision to use Nearpod was a no brainer!

Using Nearpod enhanced my experience and made my job easier. I was able to monitor student progress and understanding, which enabled me to adjust my lessons and provide remediation when needed. I became a better teacher.  I truly knew the level of comprehension for each student, even in a new teaching environment.

What did the students think of the remote teaching experience with Nearpod?

Students were familiar with remote teaching from the previous classes they had taken through American Standard Academy, but they had never participated in a Nearpod lesson. They immediately enjoyed the activities. Because I had ESL students, we primarily focused on defining and pronouncing words. Nearpod enhanced my vocabulary strategies.  Instead of learning the pronunciation and definition of words through direct instruction, students had to complete a fill-in-the-blank or draw-it activity in Nearpod to demonstrate their understanding of the word.  These instructional strategies were new to my students, but they were clearly engaged.  I asked students to draw a visual representation of vocabulary words, then justify why that picture represented the word.  This challenged my students, but they had fun and developed a deeper understanding of our vocabulary words.

Interested in Nearpod for English Language Learners? Learn more! 

Find more engaging lessons here

Nearpod Team

Nearpod’s award-winning platform is used by thousands of schools around the globe, transforming classroom engagement.

nearpod.com/

The post Engaging English language learners with Nearpod appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

These thoughts led our team to conceive of using Virtual Reality (VR) in an augmented way to tackle the most challenging aspects of a newcomer’s adjustment to life in U.S. which include understanding how to live and thrive in a community and culture vastly different from what they had previously experienced.

Now, our team has ventured to create these Virtual Reality lessons rooted in common locations around the community. Take a look at this lesson, “At the Grocery Store” (see slide 13 for the VR).

Inside the actual VR, students become the protagonists in a first-hand experiential learning environment. These VR slides remind me of my own immigrant story coming to the U.S. From watching my first American film, Terminator II Judgement Day, unsurprisingly, I had a completely distorted view of America. If you have seen the movie, you might remember the first time seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator vision. Fast forward 30 years, now we are giving our students a new way of seeing and interpreting the world around them.

Stay tuned for more features on our VR Series for newcomers.

Yefei Jin

Yefei Jin is the EL Product Manager at Nearpod. He focuses on building content for English Learners and supporting teachers of ELs. Yefei has an extensive background in EL pedagogy/bilingual research, policy around English Learner education, and programming around mental health. Yefei has a BA from the Univ. of Minnesota and his Master’s from Harvard in Education Policy.

www.yefeijin.com

The post Experiential Learning for ELL Newcomers appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

Visual Language in Makerspace

In a makerspace, students communicate through many different types of language, including visual language. What is visual language? Visual language as defined by Design Professor Josiah Kahane describes “the perception, comprehensible, and production of visible signs” that become real through a combination of elements that not limited to “line, shape, color, form, motion, texture, pattern, direction, orientation, scale, angle, space, and proportion” (1). This type of visual language develops students’ cognitive modeling and conceptual thinking skills, both of which are helped by literacy but not defined by it -this presents a powerful use case for English Learners

Makerspace for English Language Learners

Numerous case studies have presented the unique benefits of a maker education for ELs, including making core subjects more comprehensible and interesting. Whether it’s encouraging students to operate through visual language or teaching them in parallel the academic language as it’s used in real-time, a makerspace reinforces and expands traditional language at the very least through truly engaging all five senses. Beyond English language development, other areas such as group collaboration skills, self-efficacy, and persistence all spiral and develop together, each informing the effects of the other.

Our Nearpod EL Makerspace Lesson

When we started filming the Makerspace lesson, we knew that not every school is equipped with one or at least the extent of options that a full makerspace provides. However, being able to virtually explore the space and visualize students using the tools can be a powerful way to learn a language while priming the mind for a lesson that necessitates creativity and problem-solving. For example, in this lesson, before learning Tier 2 vocabulary such as “design”, “trace”, “represent”, students make connections to real-life problems from watching this short video on 3D Printed prosthetic hands. Later in the lesson, students listen to the founder of the makerspace share his perspective on hands-on learning.

We recommend this lesson to complement a unit on engineering or technology and real-life applications to design thinking.

Bring Nearpod EL to your school or district

Nearpod Team

Nearpod’s award-winning platform is used by thousands of schools around the globe, transforming classroom engagement.

nearpod.com/

The post Importance of Visual Language for ELLs appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

When going to Nearpod’s World Languages lessons folder, you’ll start by selecting the language you want to teach and then find all of our lessons. As you explore, you may notice lessons from our team of experts at Nearpod as well as lessons from our award-winning partner Breaking the Barrier. 

Nearpod offers a full K-12 curriculum for Spanish.

K-5: Spanish lessons that can also flex for dual-language settings thanks to Novice-, Intermediate-, and Advance-leveled lessons. These lessons focus on short vocabulary sets reinforced via authentic visuals, media, and conversation templates. 

6-12: course-long resources for Spanish 1, Spanish 2, and Spanish 3, including Breaking the Barrier lessons, which cover vocabulary and grammar essentials centered around cultural themes from the Spanish-speaking world.

Spanish 1 lesson  on stem-changing verbs

Spanish 2 lesson on indefinite pronouns

Spanish 3 lesson on the conditional

Breaking the Barrier Spanish 1: Scope & Sequence

Breaking the Barrier Spanish 2: Scope & Sequence

Breaking the Barrier Spanish 3: Scope & Sequence

Nearpod Team lessons reinforce oral proficiency by diving into culture with media-rich experiences that foster authentic conversations. While being carefully adapted to average proficiency levels in each course, these lessons do not include explicit grammar instruction but focus solely on conversational and cultural competencies, such as idiomatic constructions and national and regional identities.

Nearpod offers 6-12 resources for French 1, French 2, and French 3, including Breaking the Barrier lessons, which cover vocabulary and grammar essentials centered around cultural themes from the French-speaking world, including France and Québec.

Nearpod Team lessons reinforce oral proficiency by diving into culture with media-rich experiences that foster authentic conversations. While being carefully adapted to average proficiency levels in each course, these lessons do not include explicit grammar instruction but focus solely on conversational and cultural competencies.

French 1 conversation lesson about school supplies, focusing on France

French 2 conversation lesson about outdoor activities, focusing on Senegal

French 3 conversation lesson about folk tales, focusing on Morocco

Nearpod Team

Nearpod’s award-winning platform is used by thousands of schools around the globe, transforming classroom engagement.

nearpod.com/

The post Learn world languages with Nearpod: Spanish and French classroom resources appeared first on Nearpod Blog.

MIAMI (Nov. 15, 2018) – Nearpod, the award-winning K-12 instructional solution that increases student understanding and engagement, today announced its partnership with Breaking the Barrier to transform foreign language instruction. Together, the companies are creating Nearpod World Languages en español, a grade 6-12 supplemental Spanish curriculum that combines foundational skills and exposure to Spanish-speaking cultures. Both Nearpod and Breaking the Barrier will be attending ACTFL this year. Attendees of the 2018 ACTFL Annual Conference can stop by booth #1243 for in-person demos. More information on the curriculum is available here.

“Educators know that engagement is the key to learning, and research strongly supports that. Nowhere is student engagement more critical than when learning a world language,” points out Guido Kovalskys, co-founder and bilingual CEO of Nearpod. “Breaking the Barrier’s blending of cultural insights with language fundamentals naturally lends itself to Nearpod’s highly-engaging content and provides teachers with a powerful teaching tool to bridge meaningful connections between cultural and linguistic knowledge.”

As we prepare students for a global workforce, there is an increased need for language learning, as well as cultural competency. Additionally, the study of a world language is required by America’s most competitive colleges, which makes it critical to preparing students for higher education. However, approaches to learning languages through rote memorization are hardly a student favorite and can hinder learning by focusing on effort rather than practical mastery, according to research from MIT.

Nearpod’s World Languages en español shifts the focus away from dry memorization to the vibrant connections between language and culture. Standards-aligned lessons cover Spanish 1 through 3 and focus on Countries and Communities, Oral Language Production, Grammar and Vocabulary, and Reading and Writing. Built around AP Themes, and the ACTFL’s 5 Cs, World Languages en español lowers the affective filter and increases oral language production through dynamic, authentic multimedia and Virtual Reality experiences. Lessons also offer real-world contexts, giving students a compelling opportunity to speak and converse.

The culturally rich lessons will include:

• Dynamic multimedia: Videos, cultural articles, online content, and Virtual Reality which highlight Spanish-speaking communities and engage students
• SEL skills: Embedded social and emotional skills based on CASEL’s core competencies, to create culturally-aware and empathetic students
• Language learning widgets: Automated self-checking widgets for self-paced grammar and vocabulary practice, which allow students to move at their own pace and get immediate feedback, without waiting for a teacher to grade their work
• Virtual Reality: Expose students to the Spanish-speaking world with engaging contextual experiences, like visiting a baseball stadium in Puerto Rico

About Nearpod:

Nearpod is an award-winning education technology company that is empowering teachers to transform instruction and is used in over 60 percent of school districts across the US. The company is changing how teachers are integrating technology into the classroom through a combination of software that merges multimedia with real-time student feedback, ready to run digital content designed in partnership with respected publishers like Common Sense Education, PhET and Readworks, and unparalleled educator support.

About Breaking the Barrier:

Founded by educators, Breaking the Barrier has been providing award-winning print and digital materials for language learning since 1997. Blending the rigor of serious content with simplicity, clarity and a student-friendly voice, Breaking the Barrier leads students down a path to fluency while building their confidence to read, write and speak proficiently. Up to date cultural content brings the language to life and inspires students as the company works toward its mission to help the world communicate – better – by offering the best materials available for mastering a new language.

Media Contact
Maggie Philbin
VSC for Nearpod
nearpod@vscpr.com
203.394.1818

Janet Dracksdorf
Breaking the Barrier
janet@tobreak.com

Nearpod Team

Nearpod’s award-winning platform is used by thousands of schools around the globe, transforming classroom engagement.

nearpod.com/

The post Nearpod Partners with Breaking the Barrier to Bring the World into World Languages appeared first on Nearpod Blog.