Differentiating for ELL students

Over half of my class receives services for English Language assistance. As a result, I do a lot of work to provide differentiation for them, focusing on vocabulary. One of the ways that I pre-teach vocabulary in my class is to do a carousel activity. The way that this works is to write a different vocabulary word on the top of pieces of poster paper. Place the poster papers around the room. Divide the class into small groups (Enough so that each group has one vocabulary word) and have each group stand or sit next to one of the posters. Tell the students that they are to come up with as many synonyms to this words as they can. They are allowed to guess, to think of words that sound or are written similarly, or think of cognates that they might recognize from their native language. Their only rule is that they are not allowed to say that they don't know. Give the group about forty-five to sixty seconds to write down their words. After that, have the groups rotate clockwise around the room. The activity is completed when every group has visited every word.

When the groups are back to their original word, collect the poster papers, and review the correct definitions of the words. What is so impressive is that students will eventually find the definitions of the words, since they build off of the ideas of the groups that go before them. It is such a valuable activity because it teaches students that words can be decoded, and it makes them problem solve when they come across an unfamiliar word.

This activity is a great way to differentiate for English Language Learners. It also works well for kinesthetic learners, who enjoy being able to move around the room.