Identify some concepts and key points that students may need to learn before the lesson. Keep in mind that ELLs may have different cultural references and experiences than students who have grown up in the U.S. For example, one middle school ELL teacher notes that she needs to spend extra time teaching her students the names of the 50 states in social studies lessons.

Videos

Part II: Strategy: Pre-teaching content and vocabulary
Dr. Diane August: Lessons learned about peer interaction for ELLs

More Resources

Background Knowledge and ELLs: What Teachers Need to Know

ELL Strategies for Success

Background Knowledge and ELLs: What Teachers Need to Know

By

Lydia Breiseth
(2021)
Teacher reads Spanish information about penguins

Learn about the importance of background knowledge for ELLs, as well as strategies for accessing and building students' background knowledge as part of lessons.

Photo credit: Photo by Allison Shelley for EDUimages

When students learn new information, they need a hook to hang it on. Background knowledge is that hook.

Having the right background knowledge is critical to ensuring that students understand a lesson. This knowledge provides a foundation on which the rest of the lesson can be built. For ELLs, it can make a significant difference in their comprehension of the lesson and any related materials or texts.

When thinking about background knowledge and ELLs, it's helpful to think of two areas:

  • Accessing students' existing knowledge
  • Building new knowledge

Finding out what your students know about a particular topic can help you figure out how to make meaningful connections to their experiences, which is an important step in making your instruction more culturally responsive. This can also help you be strategic about which background knowledge to provide.

Here's a step-by-step process to help you think through important considerations for ELLs when looking at the background knowledge needed for your lessons.

Recommended reading

To see more research about the academic and cognitive benefits of culturally responsive instruction, see Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain by Zaretta Hammond.

1. Identify key background knowledge needed for the lesson

Review your lesson plan and:

  • Look for key concepts, events, and references that students will need to understand the lesson
  • Take a second look for areas that you may be taking for granted, such as names of places, daily activities that may vary across countries, cultural customs, and events from pop culture, etc.
  • Identify vocabulary needed to comprehend the content
  • Determine what background knowledge is most critical for students to understand the lesson

Video: An overview of background knowledge and ELLs

ELL teacher Amber Prentice discusses the necessity of accessing and building students' background knowledge before a lesson begins.

2. Identify students' existing background knowledge

Find out what background knowledge your students have on your lesson plan's topic. You can do this by:

Note: Choose strategies that match your students' language and literacy levels. For example, having students speak in groups may be a good fit for younger students who aren't writing yet or for older students with interrupted formal education who are still developing literacy skills. Graphic organizers are helpful to use with younger students who have some language background or older students who are acquiring new language skills.

During this process, keep in mind that:

  • ELLs bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to their classrooms.
  • ELLs' background knowledge varies greatly from one student to another.
  • ELLs' background knowledge will likely differ from students who were raised in U.S., and that students' background knowledge will vary by U.S. regions too. (For example, not all students live in climates where it snows in the winter.)

By getting individual student input, you will have a better idea of what students know about a topic. Then you can look for ways to connect the content to things that are familiar, students' experiences, and their funds of knowledge.

For many more ideas on accessing and activating students' background knowledge, see How to Connect ELLs' Background Knowledge to Content.

Note: ELLs may bring different perspectives or frames of reference to the topics you are discussing, such as in the example at the end of the article about how many continents there are. It's important not to frame background knowledge as a question of what's "right" or "wrong," but to approach these teachable moments with an open mind and encourage all of your students to do the same. 

Video: Story setup: Pre-reading strategies for comprehension

Buffalo teacher Michelle Lawrence Biggar shares pre-reading strategies that will help lay the groundwork for ELLs before tackling a new text. Strategies include previewing vocabulary, activating background knowledge, and introducing academic concepts (such as literary elements) important to the text in an ELL-friendly way.

3. Build background knowledge students need

Once you have identified some areas of background knowledge your students need, build that knowledge by:

  • Using visuals, realia, and multimedia resources and relating material to students' lives when possible.
  • Pre-teaching important vocabulary words and concepts
  • Explaining concepts and labeling them in English and their home language. This is a great time to point out cognates, or words that are related in multiple languages. For example, "This is the Statue of Liberty. Liberty means freedom. Liberty means libertad. The people of France gave us the Statue of Liberty…"

Home language connection

You can also use resources in students' home languages, such as books or videos. If you work with bilingual colleagues, such as teachers, paraprofessionals, or family liaisons, ask them if they have any recommended resources. And if you don't have any bilingual support available, considering connecting with a PLC online to find more resources. Other ELL educators around the country have a wealth of knowledge to share, particularly around low-incidence languages where there might not be as much material.

In addition, students can discuss, brainstorm, and write in their home language to show what they know and identify their key questions.

Video: Pre-teaching concepts and vocabulary before a lesson

ESOL specialist Katy Padilla collaborates with a fifth-grade team to plan a science lesson about vascular plants. You can also hear more about the planning process from Katy's related reflection interview.

Video: Teaching ELLs the names of all 50 states

ELL teacher Amber Prentice explains how she teaches ELLs the names of all 50 states in her middle school geography lesson.

4. Target the necessary background knowledge needed for comprehension

When reading grade-level text with ELLs, it's important to think carefully about which background knowledge (and how much) to provide.

  • Build text-specific knowledge by providing students with information from the text beforehand, particularly if the text is conceptually difficult or has an abundance of information that is important. For example, if there are six main topics on the animal kingdom, highlight them beforehand.
  • Establish the purpose for reading (e.g., "Now we are going to read to find out about a country called France. What are some things we might learn about France as we read?")
  • Select a specific comprehension strategy for students to use.
  • Look for books that students will find relatable. For more recommendations on selecting these books, see our related tips on using "mirror" books with students.

For more in-depth discussion of how much background knowledge to provide when reading grade-level texts, take a look at these blog posts from Dr. Diane Staehr Fenner, which discuss an American Educator article from Dr. Tim Shanahan on this topic:

 

5. Avoid assumptions

It is critical to avoid making assumptions about what background knowledge students do or don't have. Not only is this important for instruction, but it is critical for creating a welcoming classroom environment in which students feel respected.

For example, Dr. Ayanna Cooper shares a story in the video below about U.S. history teachers who mistakenly thought their Haitian student was an African American student who had a deep knowledge base about U.S. history. As mentioned above, the better you know your students, the better you can plan lessons that will give all students access to grade-level content.

Videos: ELL educators speak about background knowledge

Applying what you have learned

Consider the following scenarios:

Activating background knowledge

A middle school math teacher was trying to teach points on a grid and vertical/horizontal axis to her ESL students, three boys from Vietnam. She tried many approaches, including visuals, games, simulations, and manipulatives, and was just about to give up after very little progress. Suddenly, a student said, "Oh, I know -- same same you drive a boat!" It turns out the child had helped his uncle use the stars to navigate a raft when they were fleeing Vietnam and trying to reach refugee camps in Thailand. He explained the concept to the other boys in Vietnamese with gestures and drawings on the board, who knew exactly what he was talking about. The teacher reflected, "I felt so humble. These boys knew a lot more about math than I had given them credit for. I had failed to activate their prior knowledge, and in the process had almost given up."

Source: This vignette is presented in Chapter 4 of Special Education Considerations for English Learners: Delivering a Continuum of Services.

More background knowledge needed

A fifth-grade teacher was preparing her class to learn about the American Revolution. She enlisted the students' help in acting out the events that led to the Revolution with elaborate props and exercises. When the class ended, the students were told they would read more about the Revolution the following day. As they left the room, an ESL student stopped and asked urgently, "But who won?"

Different perspectives

An elementary teacher was preparing a lesson about the continents. When he asked how many continents there are, an ELL said confidently, "Five." The teacher was a bit taken aback. "Do you mean seven?" he said. "No," said the student. "I mean five." After class, the teacher did some research and realized that in some countries, students learn that there are 5 continents and consider the Americas to be a single continent. (This Spanish-language article from the BBC discusses the reasons there are different approaches to this question.)

The family connection

In California, a group of teachers organized a meeting for the school's Hmong and Cambodian parents (whose people had been farmers for many generations), in which they would discuss the creation of a new school garden. The teachers were disappointed when just a few parents attended the meeting, and they took that as a sign that there was little interest in the garden. On garden day, however, eighty family members arrived with hoes and dug up the garden in a single day. One of the parents said to the teachers, "We don't do meetings. We do gardens" (Ferlazzo, 45).

For additional scenarios, see the videos throughout the article, as well as those included in our article about accessing students' background knowledge.

Tying content to students' experiences

Mr. Philips told his class they were going to talk about plant life cycles. He asked his students what they knew about life cycles. The students stayed quiet. He decided to try another question: "What do you know about planting seeds?" Hands started to go up. One student talked about her grandmother’s garden and how her grandmother orders seeds from a catalog. Another boy talked about collecting acorns in the fall. And a third student shared that his parents worked on a farm, harvesting fruits and vegetables that had been planted earlier in the year. Mr. Philips realized that his students had a lot of working knowledge about plant seeds that would provide a great jumping off point for learning about life cycles.

Discussion questions

  • What lessons about teaching background knowledge can you learn from these examples?
  • What are some strategies that you might use to identify which background knowledge your students have or need?
  • Do these scenarios remind you of any of your own experiences in the classroom?
  • What are some benefits of learning more about the experiences your ELL families and students bring to the school community?

Recommended Resources

References

Ferlazzo, Larry, and Hammond, Lorie. Building Parent Engagement in Schools. Denver: Linworth, 2009.

Reprints

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Selecting Vocabulary Words to Teach English Language Learners

Selecting Vocabulary Words to Teach English Language Learners

A large letter R on the wall with the word responsibility below it.

This article offers guidance for selecting vocabulary words when teaching ELLs and explains the difference between Tier 1, 2, and 3 words.

A student's maximum level of reading comprehension is determined by his or her knowledge of words. This word knowledge allows students to comprehend text. As the teacher, you can explicitly teach word meanings to improve comprehension. However, to know a word means knowing it in all of the following dimensions:

  • The ability to define a word
  • The ability to recognize when to use that word
  • Knowledge of its multiple meanings
  • The ability to decode and spell that word

Therefore, it is vitally important to teach key words that children will need to comprehend texts, learn the content in those texts, and pass tests. Words are taught through direct instruction of word meanings as well as through discussions about words (including prefixes, suffixes, and roots) – all combined with a lot of reading.

For English language learners (ELLs), vocabulary development is especially critical for their ability to read and comprehend texts. The selection of vocabulary words to teach ELLs can be grouped into three tiers.

Tier 1 words

Tier 1 words are words that ELLs typically know the concept of in their primary language, but not the label in English. For example, a Tier 1 word might be butterfly. This is a word that English language learners may not know, but it can be easily taught by pointing to a picture of a butterfly during text discussion.

Another Tier 1 word might be march (move like a soldier). A word like march can be easily instructed during text discussion by marching in place. But because this word has multiple meanings, it also merits further instruction. This can be accomplished through oral language activities that follow the text discussion.

Teaching Tier 1 words

We take it for granted that native English-speakers know most Tier 1 words, but this is not the case for ELLs. Many Tier 1 words may be unknown to ELLs and key to the comprehension of a passage. Different types of Tier 1 words require different teaching strategies:

  • Some Tier 1 words cannot be demonstrated and do not have multiple meanings, but students will need to know them. An example of this is the word uncle. A simple explanation of the word's meaning during the story reading will suffice. Or, if the teacher and students are bilingual, a quick translation is sufficient.
  • Idioms and everyday expressions (like "make up your mind," "let's hit the books," and "once upon a time") are also in the Tier 1 category. Teachers will need to explain the meanings of these phrases to students.
  • Some Tier 1 words are simple cognates (like family/familia or preparation/preparación). The cognates in this category consist of words that are high-frequency words in Spanish and English. They may not require substantial instruction because students may know the word meanings in Spanish. The teacher can merely state the English cognate and have students provide the Spanish cognate. Or, the teacher can provide the English cognate and students can say both the English word and Spanish cognate.
  • It is also important to point out false cognates and give the correct translation. Examples of false cognates are: rope/ropa (clothing) and embarrassed/embarazada (pregnant). There are also some false cognates that have multiple meanings in one language, and one or some of those meanings do not coincide with the meaning of the other language.

Here is a list of helpful Spanish-English cognates.

Tier 2 words

Tier 2 words are more complex than Tier 1 words. They may also be more abstract. These include:

  1. Words that are important and useful to understanding the text, such as: character, setting, plot, even numbers, and country.
  2. Words that have connections to other words and concepts, such as: between, among, by, combine, and estimate.
  3. Words for which students understand the general concept, but need greater precision and specificity in describing a concept or a person, such as: sets, tables (for math or science, or for a table of contents), shy, ashamed, and stubborn.

Teaching Tier 2 words

Tier 2 words appear in grade-level texts. They can be worked with in a variety of ways so that ELLs build rich representations of them and connect them to other words and concepts. Different types of Tier 2 words require different teaching strategies:

  • Some Tier 2 words will not require elaborate discussion, because they can be demonstrated. These include words with multiple meanings, such as trunk, which can be taught by using gestures to show that it is part of an elephant, part of a tree, part of our body, and the back of a car.
  • In addition, many Tier 2 words are cognates. In this tier, they are high frequency words in Spanish and low frequency words in English. This means that Spanish-speaking ELLs will have a head start with these words (such as coincidence/coincidencia, industrious/industrioso, and fortunate/afortunado) because they will know both the concept and an approximation of the label in English.
  • The Tier 2 words that should be targeted for pre-teaching include words that cannot be demonstrated and are not cognates.

ELLs should be expected to master Tier 2 words in order to do well on comprehension and on tests.

Tier 3 words

These are low-frequency words that are found mostly in content books in the upper grades. Examples include witticism, isotope, procrastinate, amoeba, or words that are not demonstrable or cognates. These words are rarely encountered in the early grades, but if they do appear, you can translate them or briefly explain them in either English or in the ELLs' first language.

Note: It is advisable at all grade levels to have bilingual dictionaries available in the classroom. If you do not know the translation for a vocabulary word into students' native language, it is an easy reference and clarification tool. Also, when reading texts on their own, students can look up unknown words and ensure their own comprehension.

References

Beck, I., McKeown, M. & Kucan, L (2002). Bringing words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction. New York: The Gilford Press.

Calderón, M., August, D., Durán, D., Madden, N., R. Slavin & M. Gil (2003 and in press). Spanish to English Transitional Reading: Teacher's Manual. Baltimore, MD: The Success for All Foundation.

Calderón, M. & L. Minaya-Rowe (2004). Expediting Comprehension to English Language Learners (ExC-ELL) Teachers Manual. Center for Data-Driven Reform in Education, Johns Hopkins University.

Calderón, M. & L. Minaya-Rowe (in press). Teaching Reading, Oral Language and Content to English Language Learners - How ELLs Keep Pace With Mainstream Students. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

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Strategy: Preview Content and Vocabulary