Are you an ESL teacher struggling to integrate mathematical and scientific vocabulary into your instruction? Or maybe you're trying to support your ESL students in their content area classes? Or perhaps you're a Gen Ed teacher trying to find modifications for the multilingual learners (MLs) in your classroom. If any of these situations apply to you, read on to learn how to effectively teach STEM language to beginner level ESL students! It IS possible, but it takes patience, creativity, and careful scaffolding.
Set Realistic Expectations and Goals Before planning any lesson or creating any materials, we of course need to have an objective. Let's take a look at an example objective from the Common Core State Standards (I'm using one that certainly also applies to classrooms in states that do not use CC). Here is a 6th grade math standard about Expressions and Equations: CCSS.Math.Content.6.EE.A.2: Write, read, and evaluate expressions in which letters stand for numbers. So this standard has to do with understanding how to intepret, make, and calculate equations that have variables. A very simple example would be x + 4 = 9. This is a great example to start with because it involves a lot of mathematical vocabulary that Newcomer MLs need. We are still going to hold the MLs accountable to the standard, but we're going to carefully give them the language they need to understand it first. What I would do in this situation is add a language objective to my lesson. Something like the following: Students will use numerical (numbers 0-10), operational (add, subtract, multiply, divide), and alphabetical (x and y) vocabulary in English. This objective is more for the teacher, in my opinion, because it helps guide you in the language scaffolds you need to make/include in your lesson. Remember that your MLs are trying to do twice the amount of work as an English speaker. They are trying to interpret and use English on the fly and understand a new mathematical concept. Tricky? Yes. But impossible? Absolutely not! The last piece of advice regarding setting expectations is that what you have planned for one day very well might take two or three. This does not mean that you have to teach the same lesson again and again, but rather that you might include a review of the concepts (and language!) into your do-now or as a homework assignment. You could give your MLs a modified copy of your do-now that also includes a language review or translation task so that they are actively recalling the new words they learned. Remember, it takes MANY exposures to a new vocabualry word before students can recall and use it with automaticity. An example might be giving them the number words in English and having them write the digit that the word represents (eight = 8, nine = 9). The same thing goes for the symbols for the four operations (x = multiply, + = add).
Choose High Frequency Academic Vocabulary This may seem obvious, but the best way to help your Newcomer ESL students is to choose high frequency vocabulary. This means choosing the most useful language forms that get used the most often both in and out of the classroom setting. Below is an example of what I created for my MLs not only for our STEM unit in the ESL class, but also for their content classes (to use as a vocab reference sheet). Perhaps while your Gen Ed students are practicing something on IXL, your MLs could be reading, pronouncing, and writing the math operations vocabulary in their notebooks. The same thing applies to the science classroom. The science examples in the picture below are from a BOOM cards deck I created. (You can purchase either the Math Language sheets, STEM Language BOOM deck, or the Bundle, if you like.)
Remember the adage, "Every teacher is a language teacher." I firmly believe if you adopt this mindset, you'll start to think more holistically and creatively about how you can marry a language proficiency goal with a math, science, computers, robotics, etc. content objective. I'll share an example. A few years ago, my Ukrainian ESL students were having trouble with their science homework which was about moon phases. They had learned the vocab in class (waxing, waning, gibbous, etc.) but they were having trouble remembering all the new words and how to use them correctly. Instead of reviewing the technical definitions, I made up a rhyme for them to remember. Waxing means this: "Light on the right, bright at night." They DID know the words "light", "right", and "night." I only had to teach them what "bright" meant. Therefore, I was activating their background knowledge, giving them a place to use said knowledge, and incorporating the scientific concept. When the light of the moon is on the right side, that means it's in the waxing (growing) phase and the light will get more and brighter as the moon becomes bigger/becomes a full moon. "Waxing" was a necessary word to learn, but the definition did not have high frequency language that the MLs needed to support their comprehension. The words we used in the rhyme were ALL high frequency words, so the meaning stuck better in their minds. The use of a rhyme also helped because there is a musical kind of rythym to it.
Apply Authentically and Immediately An important phrase that language teachers learner during their teacher training is "authentic application." (Maybe other teachers learn this, too, but I've usually only heard it bandied about in the language acquisition teacher context). In case you've not heard this phrase, it basically means that when a student learns a new language form, they need to immediately use that form in the most realistic way possible in order for the information to encode in the brain. This is why you'll see language teachers bringing in realia (props) so that their students have real-life connections to the vocabulary. So let's take a look at a science class example. Here is the Next Generation Science Standard we will focus on: MS-ESS2-1. Develop and use a model to describe phenomena the cycling of Earth's materials and the flow of energy that drives this process. Last year (2024), I went on a science field trip with my MLs to a mine. The had just completed a unit in school on the rock cycle, and so one of the goals of the field trip was to apply their knowledge of rock formations to study the rocks that were discovered in the mine (addressing the aforementioned standard MS-ESS2-1). We received little boxes with paritions in which we could put the differnet rocks we found. I remember that we were looking for garnet, basalt, quartz, and a few others. The students could easily identify the rocks once they had been shown picture examples, but then they needed to write about them. So let's say you are in this similar situation and you have novice ESL learners with you. Here's an easy solution:
Before the trip, give your students a vocab list and bring in some realia to support comprehension. The vocab list, in this particular scenario, should include color, texture, size, andw eight vocabulary. Words like red, rough, smooth, small, multicolored, heavy, light, etc. should be on this list. Bring examples of any objects that match these descriptions and let students touch them. If you are a science teacher, you could ask the ESL teacher to incroporate this into one of her lessons prior to the field trip (give her plenty of advance notice). ESL teachers are normally more than happy to support gen ed teachers in this way because they are supporting their own students as well! Colleague collaboration is fun, folks! You could make a very simple worksheet like the one below (I like to use Canva), and make the students to the translating and write a sentence using the word. Alternately, if you do have props, you could show an example that demonstrates each word and (if you speak their language) have them guess. This is often not an option, but some teachers speak Spanish, for example, and in that case, it would work. Use all the resources you've got! Make the students bring this worksheet with them on the field trip. The additional exposures to the vocabulary that you've provided them with will help them retain and use the words. Once they are actually touching the rocks and using the language in an authentic context, you're golden!
But now let's say that you don't have the luxury of a field trip through which to bring the learning to life. Don't worry, most of us don't! Field trips are expensive and difficult to organize with the ever increasing shortage of bus drivers post Covid. I'll give you an example of some photosynthesis worksheets I made for a Newcomer ML from Kazakhstan (5th grade). I've blurred this image a bit because it's one of my products for sale, however, you can still easily see how I first taught the key vocabulary with visual supports. Then, I provided a simple explanation using high frequency words, and finally, I used carefully selected images in order to show the process. (If you would like to purchase this Photosynthesis product or my Bilingual Water Cycle product, click the hyperlinks).
I hope this article has helped spark some ideas and give some guidance, whether you're a gen ed STEM teacher or an ESL teacher. If you do find that you need some ready made resources to have on hand, please check out my Teachers Pay Teachers Shop. ALSO, if there's a specific product you have in mind that you need, email me at limitlesslanguagetpt@gmail.com . If I think it's a high-need product, I'll make it and you'll get a free copy! Win-win!
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