A Checklist of Strategies for Teaching ELLs

In the Salt Lake City School District (Salt Lake City, Utah) website, located at http://www.slc.k12.ut.us/staff/larmad/science/Pages/ELLScience.htm, there is a section entitled "Teaching Science to English Language Learners" which contains some basic instructional approaches in teaching ELLs. On this page, there is also a link to "A Tool for Reflective Practioners", which I suspect I will use frequently throughout my teaching career during reflection of lessons planned. The tool is a suggested checklist of strategies for teaching of ELL students, and a checklist from a score of "1" for rarely included strategies to a "5" for often included strategies. I was pleased to note that I automatically included some of the strategies recommended during my lesson planning for Junior Field (including use of visual aids and color coding, among others), but there were many that I had not thought of using; therefore this checklist is an easy method of evaluating lessons specifically as they attempt to help the ELL student. I would highly recommend this checklist for any content area or grade level!