Gear Up for a New School Year: Back-to-School Ideas for Educators of ELLs

If you teach English language learners (ELLs), there are several things you can do to prepare for the coming school year and start the year off on a positive note! Here are some ideas from veteran educators of ELLs. Think about which ones would be a good fit for your setting.

Preparing for Your Students

Create a student packet

At the Open House, provide families with "Welcome Kits" that include information regarding their child's classroom. It may have a variety of items such as a Free and Reduced Lunch form, the daily schedule, a "back-to-school" supply list, descriptions of any special activities or fieldtrips the class will take during the year, a student questionnaire to be turned in on the first day of school, a short explanation of the curriculum or academic expectations, etc. Provide translated copies of print materials for multilingual families.

Get your classroom ready

Prior to the first day, it is important to decide how the classroom will be organized, and how you can make it as welcoming as possible. Where do you want desks? How will assignments be turned in, corrected, and returned? What jobs will students be responsible for? How will attendance be done? As you think about classroom set-up and student files, you may find this ELL Teacher's Back-to-School Checklist helpful!

In addition, try to think through an average day and what steps you will need to take to make smooth transitions. Consider how you will best communicate with your ELLs at the beginning of the year.

In terms of student responsibilities and communication, here are some suggestions:

• Simple language: As you introduce the classroom activities to students, be sure to break down directions into shorter statements and model what you expect the students to do. This will add extra support for ELL students who are trying to understand the English explanation.
• Mailboxes and Files: Use a "mailbox" system to communicate with students. Students put assignments in the teacher's mailbox and check their own mailboxes daily for messages and returned assignments. Another option is to use a "file" system to exchange assignments and hold student project information. This can be a milk crate with each student's name on a file folder.
• Jobs: Create a jobs board and have students rotate through the different jobs, such as line leader, attendance delivery, librarian, clean room checker, etc. Consider which jobs might be a good fit for any newcomers who come after the school year has started.
• Cozy corner: Create a "cozy corner" or some comfortable area in the room that gives students a place to relax and read or work on special projects. You may want to have pillows, stuffed animals or slippers as a fun, relaxing part of this area. Sitting in this area can also be used as a reward for good behavior or achievement. 
• Calm corner: You may wish to also use your "cozy corner" as a spot for students to calm down (or create a different area for the calm corner). This is a place students can go if they need to cool down that might include some fidgets, calming activities such as art supplies, and posters and books that offer reminders on strategies for calming down, like taking deep breaths. Visuals in the calm corner can be helpful for all students and especially for ELLs, such as a mood meter or a poster that show emojis with labels of different emotions
• Decorations: Make the room colorful, but not too busy. Put up posters and bulletin boards. They may reflect the first units you will be working on, or they could include student activities that you will be completing early in the year.
• Student Ambassadors: Develop an Ambassador program and train some students, especially those with bilingual skills, to be an Ambassador to newly arriving students throughout the year. The Ambassadors can wear special buttons that signify the work they are doing when introducing a new student to the building. Make sure the Principal and other staff in the building know about the program so they understand why the student may be in the hallway during class time, or visiting the office or nurse's office. For a less formal approach, assign student buddies who are friendly and patient. Remember: while a bilingual student can help their classmates navigate through the day, it is never appropriate to ask them to interpret for families, in more formal settings, or for any confidential information.

Create visuals to support learning

Back in the "old days," I created visuals by looking through magazines, cutting out relevant pictures, pasting them to construction paper and laminating them. I then used the pictures to teach new vocabulary, give visual support to a new concept, or have the students do matching or writing activities. It can still be fun for teachers and students to look through magazines and make their own visuals. Today, with the explosion of technology tools, it is easier than ever to find visuals online and now even to create customized images using AI.

Visuals not only can support instruction, but they can also help things run more smoothly in the classroom. You can use visuals to:

• Create a daily or class schedule
• Provide reminders for classroom routines
• Support social and emotional learning

Ice-breakers for the first day

Look for easy, friendly ice breaker ideas that will allow for success for all of the students. There are lots of ideas online! You can also try generating some ideas with AI prompts, such as example we created with Claude AI. 

For ELL student participation, you may want to either provide a translation of written activities or think of an activity that doesn't rely so heavily on speaking or writing. For example, students can share a photo that is special to them, do "charades" and demonstrate different things such as something fun they did this summer, or share their favorite part of school.

Students may also like to draw and fill in a grid with four squares about themselves and their interests:

1. In each square they draw something different, such as: Where I live, What I like to do for fun, A place I'd like to visit, Something I'd like to do when I grow up.
2. Once the students have completed the chart, the teacher has them get into groups based on their answers.
3. Students who have similar answers get together and share more information about their experience. If a student has a picture of swimming at the beach and other students have swimming as well, then they are a group and they share their experiences.

Think about how to build a classroom community

The beginning of the year is an important time to create community and establish shared expectations. You can do this by:

• Learning how to pronounce students' names correctly
• Welcome and greet students with smiles and positive body language
• Creating classroom expectations together
• Sharing a survey so you can get to know students' interests
• Using appreciation activities on a regular basis
• Ensuring students understand what bullying is and how to prevent it (ELLs may need explicit explanations)
• Inviting students to bring in special photos or mementos
• Creating signs and labels in students' languages

Note: It's important not to ask too many direct questions early on; some ELLs and immigrant students may be hesitant to share personal information. Provide open-ended questions, lots of options, and give students time to acclimate and build trust in the classroom.

Related resources

• How to Create a Welcoming Classroom Environment for ELLs
• Building Community in the Classroom
• Creating Shared Expectations in the Classroom
• 8 Tips to Protect ELLs from Bullying in Your Classroom and School

Get familiar with some key instructional strategies

Whether you are new to teaching ELLs or a veteran, there are great resources to support your ELL instruction, including on Colorin Colorado! One popular new resource is the ELL Strategy Library, which has lots of ideas you can use in the classroom immediately, along with resources for professional learning.

You can also find quick tips on our free web app, Colorín on the Go! No download is required and you can share tips easily with colleagues and families.

Connect with colleagues

If needed, introduce yourself to other grade-level, mainstream, content, and special education teachers at your school, as well as any aides who will be in your classroom. If you are an ELL specialist, share some ideas on how you can help support students and collaborate with colleagues. If you are not an ELL specialist, ask your ELL colleagues for ideas on how you can work together.

Once you have connected with colleagues, review the content you will address in the first weeks of school. If possible, look for areas where curriculum themes overlap. Talk with your principal about setting aside some time for regular collaboration time so you can continue to coordinate your instruction throughout the year. If planned collaboration time is not a possibility at this point, keep track of how you are collaborating informally. Later in the year, you and your colleagues can take those examples back to the administrator to try again!

You may also wish to connect with colleagues through online networks, such as the ELL Facebook Group or your state/regional affiliate for TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages).

It also may be helpful to share ideas with colleagues on how you will take care of yourselves and each other during the year. What are some check-in's or routines you can think about setting up early together?

Closing Thoughts