This module provides strategies and activities for teaching English Language Learners skills from the four domains of the language arts according to four developmental levels of language proficiency.

Level 1 Language Proficiency

Level 1 Listening/Speaking Activities

• Total Physical Response (TPR) with basic commands
• TPR with pictures, forced choice or individual selection response to commands or questions
• Read stories aloud with picture clues
• Complete cartoon strip dialogues
• Listening to a story in English and retell a partner in LI
• Matching pictures with words
• Sorting and/or classifying objects and pictures
• Word sorts based on phonics or concepts
• Naming characters from stories or pictures
• Associate sentences to pictures
• Writing numbers from dictation
• Drawing objects from discussion
• Finding points on a map from oral directions
• Guessing names of objects from oral descriptors
• Labeling common objects or familiar objects in a picture or photograph
• Following a set of directions
• Reading aloud to complete a task, recipe, or art project
• Plotting points on a graph from dictation
• Completing dictated problems with/without a calculator
• Patterned responses using audio-lingual strategies
• Sequencing of events based on pictures or familiar short narrative

Level 1 Reading/Writing Activities

• Sight word recognition
• Picture labeling
• Modified cloze procedures using familiar paragraphs or narratives
• Language experience stories using omissions, identifications or associations
• Sentence completion and transformation

Level 2 Language Proficiency

Level 2 Listening/Speaking Activities

• Role playing
• Reader’s Theater
• Questions to be answered with phrases and/or words
• Labeling a picture, scene, or event with short sentences
• Who, what, where question responses: Naming the subject or location
• Describing a picture, scene, story, or event
• Barrier games
• Find-the-differences pictures
• Mental arithmetic with simple equations
• Estimating number
• Responding to how and why questions
• Making word associations
• Language experience stories
• Repeating phrases or filling in rhyming words in poetry being read aloud
• Predicting outcomes of common situations, stories or narratives
• Solving simple story problems
• Group discussions to generate lists or short sentences
• Sentence expansion & transformation activities
• Story telling based on familiar events or personal experiences and routines
• Retelling stories
• Creating sentences and descriptions based on classroom/classmate information charts

Level 2 Reading/Writing Activities

• Completing a cloze passage
• Cloze dictation
• Writing descriptions based on guide questions or template
• New stories
• Sentence building based on promps
• Chain writing
• Completing dialogues based on prompts or clues
• What am I? Guessing games based on descriptions
• Writing recipes or short series of directions
• Creating a paragraph based on a sequence of pictures
• Completing a story using substitutions for characters, objects, adjectives, antonyms or synonyms

Level 3 Language Proficiency

Level 3 Listening/Speaking Activities

All levels 1 and 2 activities can be used with greater complexity at paragraph or short oral narrative level and more vocabulary words

• Jokes, riddles and word games such as Who Am I?
• Simulation activities and role playing
• Analysis of charts, graphs, tables
• Oral panel presentations
• Speechmaking to describe, narrate or inform

Level 3 Reading/Writing Activities

• Creating monologues/dialogues under teacher guidance
• Journal entries based on personal experiences
• Short descriptions of objects, scenes from photographs
• News telling using formats or templates: who, what, where, when and why
• Anecdotes
• Diary entries
• Captions for photos or cartoons
• Journal entry
• Personal letters
• Dialogues/monologues based on communicative functions
• Telephone messages
• Postcards
• Friendly notes
• Class notes
• Memos
• Directions or steps in a process
• Letters to the editor
• Letters of inquiry to a business or organization
• Speeches based on a communicative function or purpose
• Advertisements and commercials

Level 4 Language Proficiency

Level 4 Listening/Speaking activities

All levels 1, 2, & 3 activities can be used with greater complexity at paragraph or short oral narrative level and higher level of critical thinking and comprehension

• Debating
• Creating and performing skits and role-plays
• Problem-solving simulations
• Short speech making to persuade based on format or template
• Skits and plays
• Oral reports
• Impromptu characterizations and role playing
• Storytelling and re-telling

Level 4 Reading/Writing Activities

• Monologues/dialogues
• Advertising copy
• Character sketches
• Poems such as haiku or limerick
• Eyewitness memoir
• Biographical sketch of self or other familiar person  or literary character
• Scripts
• Folk tales
• Vignettes based on a photograph or a “story starter”
• Short stories based on a format or template
• Myths based on familiar story or literature
• Autobiographical incidents
• Ballads and other poetic forms with a story emphasis based on familiar characters or narratives
• Essays
• News reports
• Accident reports
• Advertisements
• Report of information based on research of a topic
• Business letters (complaint, order, information, etc.)
• Interviews
• Applications
• Summaries
• Editorials using a template or format
• Reviews of a familiar movie or play using a template or format
• Eyewitness memoir
• Library research papers
• Poems to persuade, analyze, or make analogies
• Single or multi-paragraph assignments to describe, narrate, analyze, compare or contrast based on an outline or graphic organizer
• Define, support, interpret, or evaluate information from a newspaper article