Strategies for students learning English
Practical vocabulary and grammar strategies for English language learners, organized by proficiency band, age and setting. Search, filter, and share a filtered list with your team.
Filters
Labelled classroom environment
Label the objects and places students use every day with a picture and the English word, and use the labels in your own talk. New arrivals get a constant, low-pressure source of everyday English.
Visual word wall
A word wall where every word has a picture and an example sentence, organized by topic or routine. Students use it during lessons to find the words they need to speak and write.
Total physical response
Students respond to spoken instructions with actions before they are asked to speak. It builds understanding of everyday words quickly and lowers the pressure of the first weeks.
Realia and gesture
Show real objects or pictures and use consistent gestures alongside new words, so the meaning is clear without translation.
Picture dictionaries and bilingual word cards
Give students a picture dictionary or bilingual word cards for the topics they are studying, and teach them to use these independently. New arrivals can find words without waiting for an adult.
Home language bridging
Invite students to think, plan and check their understanding in their home language, then bridge into English. Students learn more of the content, and their English grows from what they already know.
Survival sentence frames
Teach a small set of sentences students need to get through the day, such as asking for help or for the bathroom. Keep them on display so students can use them straight away.
Same language buddy
Pair a new arrival with a classmate who shares their home language and has more English, for the first few weeks. The buddy explains routines and key instructions, so the new student can take part from the first day.
Daily routine language
Teach the language of the school day as a set of routines: arriving, the register, lining up, lunch, changing for PE. Repeated every day, it quickly becomes students’ first reliable English.
Explicit teaching of five to seven words per unit
Choose the five to seven academic words that matter most in a unit and teach them directly, then use them again and again across the unit. For middle and high school, Coxhead’s Academic Word List is a good place to choose from.
Frayer model
A four-box organizer for a key word: definition, characteristics, examples and non-examples. It builds a precise understanding of a concept.
Morphology and word families
Teach how words are built from roots, prefixes and suffixes, so students can work out new words and choose the right form. One known word can unlock a whole family.
Collocations
Teach the words that naturally go together, such as draw a conclusion or strong evidence. Knowing a word’s usual partners makes students’ writing sound accurate and academic.
Whole-school word of the week
Every class focuses on the same academic word each week, using it across subjects, in assemblies and on displays. Students meet the word in many contexts, which helps it stick.
Sentence frames built around target words
Give students sentence frames that use the unit’s key academic words, so they practice each word in a correct structure straight away.
Spaced retrieval practice
Bring back taught words in short quizzes and tasks days and weeks later, as well as in the lesson where they were taught. Recalling a word several times over a period of time helps students remember and use it.
Semantic mapping and shades of meaning
Map how related words connect, and line up similar words by strength or formality, so students choose the precise word instead of the first one they know.
Frontloading before the unit
Teach the key subject words before the unit starts, so students can follow the first lessons instead of meeting every term at once.
Bilingual subject glossaries
A glossary of key subject terms with the English word, a simple definition, a diagram where useful, and the home language term. Students can check meanings quickly and link new terms to what they already know.
Labelled diagrams
Students label a diagram with subject terms, then use their labels to talk and write about the process. The diagram carries the meaning while the language grows.
Cognate awareness
Show students where English subject words look and sound like words in their home language, and warn them about false friends. Some languages share many academic words with English, which students can use as a shortcut.
Concept maps
Students map how the key terms of a topic connect, writing a linking phrase on each line. The map shows whether they understand the relationships as well as the words.
Student unit word banks
Students build their own word bank for each unit, with the word, a picture or example, a translation if helpful, and a sentence. It becomes their personal reference for the unit and for revision.
Graded sentence frames and starters
Offer sentence frames at different levels of complexity for the same task, so every student can express the same idea at the edge of what they can do.
Substitution tables
A table where students build correct sentences by choosing one item from each column. Students practice a new structure many times and get it right each time.
Sentence combining
Give students short, simple sentences and ask them to combine them into one longer sentence using connectives or clauses. It builds complex sentences from ideas students already have.
Color-coded sentence parts
Use the same color for each sentence part every time, for example subject, verb, object and time phrase, so students can see how English sentences are built. It helps students whose home languages order words differently.
Dictogloss
Read a short subject text aloud twice while students note key words, then groups rebuild the text in accurate English. It combines listening, grammar and writing in real subject content.
Noticing tasks with model texts
Give students a model text and a focused task to spot one grammar feature, such as every past tense verb or every connective. Students notice how the feature works before using it themselves.
Deconstructing a model paragraph
Take a model paragraph apart with the class, labelling what each sentence does, then write a new paragraph together with the same structure before students write alone.
Oral rehearsal before writing
Students say what they are going to write aloud to a partner before they write it. Saying the sentence first catches errors and builds confidence.
No strategies match these filters. Try removing one, or clear them all.
Subject grammar profiles
The grammar that matters most in each subject, with a sentence frame for each structure.
Templates
Editable Word documents, ready to adapt for your students.
Personalised Learning Plan
One language target per student, completed within six to eight weeks, with fortnightly milestones and a named strategy and setting.
Download .docx