Teaching Science to Multilingual Learners: Strategy of the Week

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Each week we share one strategy that you can use to meet the needs of your diverse multilingual learners in secondary content classes. This week’s strategy is specifically for secondary science teachers but could be adapted for use in many content areas.

Strategy: Snippet

Language Objective: I can talk about my predictions for a lesson based on something I read.

SNIPPET: How-To

Before the Activity

1. Select a short piece of text that will activate students’ background knowledge and curiosity about a topic.
2. Plan student groupings to facilitate conversations.

During the Activity

1. Provide students with a snippet of text related to the lesson for the day and give them time to jot notes about their predictions.
2. Students then share predictions with a partner or group. Students with higher writing proficiency can write their predictions.
3. Invite students to share their responses aloud with the class.
4. After the lesson, review and evaluate predictions made from the snippet of text.

Extra Support for MLs

• Pair newcomers with more advanced readers.
• Preteach vocabulary used in the snippet.
• Provide sentence frames for partner discussions and/or provide a target list of academic words to use during discussion.

Example: Science 7

LT: I can analyze data on fossils, rocks, continental shapes, and seafloor structures.

Choose snippets of text from short articles or paragraphs that describe fossils, rocks, continental shapes, and seafloor structures during different time periods. Students will discuss their predictions about the different time periods using evidence from prior learning. Students then continue learning by reading or other learning about the changes of Earth over time.

Helpful Links to Learn More

• Background Knowledges and ELLs blog post 
• Snippet graphic organizer from Ellevation