One of my favorite aspects of teaching is the diverse blend of students I meet every year. But that’s simultaneously one of the more challenging aspects of my job, too.
This year, I have really devoted myself to creating and implementing meaningful ELL accommodations.
Here is a little more about one of my favorite ways to include my ELL students.
A Bit of Background for my ELL Accommodations
Before I begin, it’s worth sharing some information about how most of my ELL accommodations came to be.
While any given year I taught 8th grade ELA, I had between 5 and 10 ELL students, much of this post relates specifically to my time at the high school. My first year at the high school level, I had just 1 ELL student. Looking back, it embarasses me to think of how little I did to really help him succeed academically.
This year, I have more than a dozen ELL students, most of which are assigned to the same class period. When I received my class rosters last summer, I knew I had to up my game when it came to ELL accommodations.
At my school, we have an absolutely irreplaceable English Language Development teacher. She and I have become so close in the last year and a half I’ve worked at the same building as she.
This past summer, she really went to bat for our ELLs and advocated for so many beneficial ideas to help our non-native English speakers succeed academically and socially.
One of those ideas was to pinpoint particular teachers as being assigned the majority of ELLs. I was one of the teachers she recommended.
She and I have worked tirelessly together over the course of the year devising the most appropriate and inclusive ELL accommodations. At first, it was tough, time-consuming, and even terrifying work. But then I really got into a groove with one accommodation in particular.
Literature Summary Booklets
As a World Literature teacher, I enjoy a diverse curriculum that samples various texts spanning both continents and millenia. Other than Night by Elie Wiesel, we don’t usually study an entire text.
But something I like to do for all of my students is provide a comprehensive overview of whatever text we read. With my ELL students, it’s no different.
But providing ELL accommodations for World Literature can be a tough task.
So when we first studied Night in the fall, I put together my first summary booklet. And since then, I create summary booklets as often as I can.
What is a Summary Booklet?
Whatever larger text (i.e. book or novel) we’re reading, I think it’s important for my ELLs to understand the most important premises. Think: plot, characters, themes.
My summary booklets are created so they fold in half and resemble actual books.
The majority of the booklets feature first a summary of the chapter or section in English. Then opposite that same page is the Spanish translation.
Depending on the booklet, I’ll include additional information like characters, themes, and even comprehension questions.
But at the heart of one of my favorite ELL accommodations, students have a basic summary of each portion of the book we’re reading.
Summarizing the Booklet in English
I create my summary booklets within the Google Suite. I think very linearly, so I usually start with a Google Doc. There, I first write a summary of the chapter in English. But I don’t stop there. It’s important in ELL accommodations to consider the language itself. Though my ELLs are high school age, their reading comprehension abilities could be significantly lower. Let alone their language comprehension skills, which, understandably, are still strengthening.
My coworker and I collaborate to discuss our students’ needs, and we usually take into consideration their WIDA score. More often than not, I adjust my English summaries to suit a 2nd or 3rd grader. Adjustments vary, but usually that means I look at the specific word choice and vocabulary.
And when making my ELL accommodations, it’s important to also consider idioms and turns of phrase natural to English speakers but foreign to non-native speakers. For example, a native English speaker would have no trouble understanding this: “The protagonist put his head down and got right to it. He knew it was up to him.” But a non-native English speaker might not understand phrases like “up to him” or the figurative meaning of putting one’s head down.
If you’re considering making ELL accommodations, Magic School is an awesome AI resource that can help you tailor any reading passage to any grade level.
Translating the Booklet in Spanish
With the English summaries abridged and ready to go, I then set my sights on the Spanish translation.
To make the ELL accommodations most meaningful, I think it’s important to feature the translation on the opposite page as the English. Not only does it help fill in any comprehension gaps, but seeing the English and Spanish side-by-side can help my ELL students pick up on specific word choices and language devices.
There is a lot out there to help you out if you aren’t bilingual. Magic School AI, as I mentioned previously, can help you translate. So can Google. As does the paid version of Canva.
I’m blessed to have so many helpful colleagues and students where I work that I first translate my booklets and then ask my Spanish National Honor Society intern to edit my translation.
Finalizing the Booklet
As I said, I like to start with a Google Doc. But then I adjust a Google Slides presentation to be 11 x 8.5. From there, I divide the page in half and begin building the individual pages of the booklet.
Admittedly, this can take a while to get the hang of because this ELL accommodation isn’t just page one, page two, page three.
Because of how the booklet prints, you have to put a little extra thought into how the individual pages are laid out.
If space allows (depending on the number of chapters), I’ll also add graphics and sometimes comprehension or discussion questions on the individual pages or at the back of the booklet.
ELL Accommodations: My VIP Booklets
Once I got Night under my belt, I was kind of addicted to creating these booklets. Whenever we cover a larger text (i.e. Julius Caesar or Dante’s Inferno), I create one of these books.
But I’ve also created them for other teachers in my building.
Here’s a full list of all my current ELL accommodations summary booklets. If you teach any of these books, give them a look!
- Aesop’s Fables
- The Catcher in the Rye
- The Great Gatsby
- Hamlet
- Inferno
- Julius Caesar
- Night
- Of Mice and Men
- To Kill a Mockingbird
And if you have any ELL accommodations that you love, share them in the comments!
