vocabulary - A World of Language Learners

Winter Holidays for ELLs

December 7, 2025 aworldoflanguagelearners Comments 0 Comment

Winter holidays can be a fun experience for those students who celebrate them. Some holidays are a great opportunity to teach students about different traditions and infuse fun into learning. Some English Language Learners might be unfamiliar with the winter holidays that their classmates have celebrated for years. It can be helpful to go over basic holiday traditions and facts before the holiday begins. For American holidays such as Martin Luther King Day, Groundhog Day, or Veterans day most students…

Read More Read More

How to Create Vocabulary Folders for MLs

November 30, 2025 aworldoflanguagelearners Comments 0 Comment

Vocabulary folders are a convenient way to organize vocabulary pages. I used illustrated vocabulary sheets to help my English Language Learners speak and write about new vocabulary. They are also helpful for younger students with spelling. Some primary classroom teachers I supported had a set of these folders on student tables or in a writing center. All students had access to them. I also used them with small groups of ELLs. These folders are simple to set up. Vocabulary Folders…

Read More Read More

Best Halloween Tips and Activities for MLs

October 20, 2025 aworldoflanguagelearners Comments 0 Comment

Many children look forward to Halloween each year. Multilingual Learners (MLs) who are newcomers may not have experienced Halloween in the past or celebrated it in a much different way. These students will benefit from a basic explanation of what the holiday is and the different ways that it is celebrated in their community. This will help alleviate the confusion that may come up otherwise. Here are some Halloween activities and tips to use as you introduce the holiday to…

Read More Read More

How to Use Patterned Texts with MLs

August 31, 2025 aworldoflanguagelearners Comments 0 Comment

Predictable or patterned texts can be a helpful tool for multilingual learners (MLs) in the ELD classroom. While these books often support language development through repeated sentence structures and high-frequency vocabulary, they often include words that are challenging for students to decode independently. Because of this, patterned texts are not typically the best fit for guided reading with beginning readers until they have developed the necessary phonics skills and sight word knowledge. Instead, ELD teachers can use these books during…

Read More Read More

How To Build A Personal Picture Dictionary For MLs

July 21, 2025 aworldoflanguagelearners Comments 0 Comment

A personal picture dictionary is a helpful tool to build your students’ vocabulary. Newcomer ESL students and Multilingual Learners (MLs) benefit from seeing pictures as they learn new vocabulary words. Beginning readers also benefit from using a picture dictionary to help with spelling. When you create your own picture dictionary for students to use, this gives you the flexibility to introduce the vocabulary or phonics words before adding them to the dictionary. Add in content vocabulary that goes along with…

Read More Read More

How to Teach Prefixes and Suffixes to MLs

April 28, 2025 aworldoflanguagelearners Comments 2 comments

Teaching students the meaning of prefixes and suffixes is a great way to increase their vocabulary. When they know basic prefixes and suffixes they are better able to use context clues to determine the meaning of unknown words. This is true for all students, but it is particularly helpful for Multilingual Learners (MLs), as they may not be familiar with some of the words that have affixes from past exposure. Some suffixes can make changes to words such as tense,…

Read More Read More

How to Use a Newcomer Vocabulary Workbook

April 20, 2025 aworldoflanguagelearners Comments 0 Comment

Learning basic vocabulary will help newcomer students improve in all areas of English development. For the majority of the day, many newcomers will be in class with English speaking peers. They will learn a large amount of vocabulary when their teacher uses visuals and by listening to what is happening in the classroom. It is important that this is taking place. That newcomer students are a part of the classroom and not off to the side doing separate work the…

Read More Read More

Fall Teaching Ideas for MLs

September 15, 2024 aworldoflanguagelearners Comments 0 Comment

Fall is a great time to teach about changes. If you live in an area where the leaves change colors during the fall, this might be a new experience for English Language Learners who are new to the country. Apples and pumpkins are also popular fall themes. Here are some ideas for teaching ELLs about the fall. Create text sets with longer articles and books you read to students and short passages and books they read independently or in groups….

Read More Read More

Labeling Pictures to Support ELLs

October 9, 2023 aworldoflanguagelearners Comments 0 Comment

Students at the beginning stages of writing need support with vocabulary development. One way to give this is to have students label pictures. This supports English Language Learners and beginning writers in learning new vocabulary and using beginning sounds. Here are some benefits of having students label pictures before they start writing. Vocabulary Support As students label a picture, they are getting practice writing the vocabulary word. ELLs might not know all of the objects and actions in a picture….

Read More Read More

How to Teach Vocabulary to ELLs

October 1, 2023 aworldoflanguagelearners Comments 0 Comment

How to teach vocabulary to ELLs can be one of the biggest concerns for teachers that are new to working with English Language Learners. How do you teach a lesson when some of your students are unfamiliar with the words that you are using? Which words are the most important ones in a story? Which words are worth the time it will take to find visuals or preteach them? Here are some strategies to help you support your ELL’s vocabulary…

Read More Read More