As Echevarria, Vogt, and Short (2014) describe what strategies teachers should use to support English learners, they begin with the suggestion to make "content objectives clearly defined, displayed, and reviewed with students." With my students, I have the content objective written on the board, and I also read it aloud. This helps students who might have trouble with audio or visual processing; if the objective is not comprehensible in one modality, it will be in the other. And, for English learners, they might not know a word in its spoken form, but they will recognize the word in its written form, or vice versa. If necessary, write the objective in "layman's terms" and familiar words so students can understand it. You may also choose to use the more complicated phrasing and treat it as a vocabulary lesson.
Once we go over what we are doing and how we are doing it, I ask the class to think about why that skill/those activities are important. Be sure to give at least a few seconds of wait time for all students to consider it. The question gets them thinking more deeply about the subject and connect it to the "bigger picture," because we all have been asked, "When will I use this in real life?" It also is another reminder to students of our goal for that day, so instructions become clearer. After students give their answer of why, I write it on the board, and erase it after each period for the next set of students to answer it afresh.
Something as simple as spending an extra minute at the beginning of class talking about the goal for the day saves time later because students are less likely to ask, "Wait, what are we doing?" And if they do, I can just point to the board. If our English learners - all our students, really - can understand better what they are doing, they will be able to do it better. Keeping the instructions for the day from being "lost in translation" will prevent lots of frustrations for your students and for you.
Once we go over what we are doing and how we are doing it, I ask the class to think about why that skill/those activities are important. Be sure to give at least a few seconds of wait time for all students to consider it. The question gets them thinking more deeply about the subject and connect it to the "bigger picture," because we all have been asked, "When will I use this in real life?" It also is another reminder to students of our goal for that day, so instructions become clearer. After students give their answer of why, I write it on the board, and erase it after each period for the next set of students to answer it afresh.
Something as simple as spending an extra minute at the beginning of class talking about the goal for the day saves time later because students are less likely to ask, "Wait, what are we doing?" And if they do, I can just point to the board. If our English learners - all our students, really - can understand better what they are doing, they will be able to do it better. Keeping the instructions for the day from being "lost in translation" will prevent lots of frustrations for your students and for you.