10 Research-Backed Strategies for ELL Students in Middle School and High School
Secondary ELL students face a specific version of a hard problem: they need to learn a new language while keeping up with grade-level content in every other subject, at an age when raising your hand and getting it wrong feels like a bigger deal than it did in third grade. The strategies below are consistently supported across the research — not just popular, but genuinely effective.
1. Build in Scaffolding — But Don't Overdo It
Scaffolding is temporary support that helps a student complete a task they couldn't yet do alone — a sentence frame, a broken-down text, a modeled example. A large research synthesis covering 87 studies found scaffolding nearly always produces positive results. The one caution worth knowing: over-scaffolding can quietly undercut student independence if it never gets removed. The goal is support that fades as competence grows, not a permanent crutch.
2. Teach Vocabulary Explicitly, Not Incidentally
Don't assume academic vocabulary will be picked up through exposure alone — pre-teach key terms before a lesson, not just after a student stumbles on them. This shows up consistently across the research as one of the higher-impact, lower-effort strategies available.
3. Use Sentence Frames for Speaking and Writing
A sentence frame ("I think ___ because ___") gives students a structure to produce language even when they don't yet have the vocabulary or grammar to build a sentence from scratch. It lowers the barrier to participation without lowering the rigor of the task.
4. Build in Structured Peer Talk
"Turn and Talk" and similar structured discussion formats give students low-stakes practice producing language before they're asked to do it in front of the whole class. This matters especially at the secondary level, where the social risk of speaking imperfectly in front of peers is higher than it was in elementary school.
5. Activate Prior Knowledge Before New Content
A short warm-up — a KWL chart, an anticipation guide, a quick discussion of what students already know — connects new material to something familiar and measurably improves engagement and comprehension.
6. Chunk Complex Texts
Break long readings into smaller sections with comprehension checks between them, rather than assigning a full text and hoping students process all of it at once. This is one of the most common and best-supported scaffolding techniques specifically for reading comprehension.
7. Use Visual Supports Deliberately
Graphic organizers, labeled diagrams, and anchor charts make abstract academic concepts concrete — genuinely useful for every student, but especially for ELL students still building the vocabulary to hold abstract ideas in working memory without a visual anchor.
8. Slow Down and Build in Processing Time
ELL students often need more time to process oral instructions than their fluent-English peers — not because they don't understand the content, but because they're translating and processing in real time. A brief pause after instructions, and a willingness to repeat rather than rephrase entirely, both help.
9. Coordinate With Your ESL Specialist
If your school has an ESL coordinator or specialist, that relationship is one of the most underused resources available to content-area teachers. They can flag a specific student's proficiency level and needs in ways that save significant guesswork.
10. Recognize That "ELL" Isn't One Group
ELL students vary enormously in background, prior schooling, and proficiency level. A student newly arrived with strong literacy in their home language needs different support than a student who has spent years in U.S. schools but is still building academic English. Broad strategies matter, but so does knowing which student you're actually adjusting for.
