Tips for Choosing Appropriate Materials for Use with English Language Learners

Diaz-Rico and Weed, in their book The Crosscultural, Language, and Academic Development Handbook, give the following tips on how to choose appropriate material for your English Language Learners. The two most important questions to ask are these:

• Are the content objectives for the lesson adequately presented by the material?
• Is the material comprehensible to English learners?

How do you know if it's comprehensible to all students? Ask yourself the following questions:

• Is the information accurate, up-to-date, and thorough?
• Are the tasks required of students appropriate to the discipline?
• Is the text clearly organized, with print and layout features that assist students' comprehension?
• Does the text appeal to a variety of learning styles?
• Is the language of the text straightfoward, without complex syntactic patterns, idioms, or excessive jargon?
• Is new content vocabulary clearly defined within the text or in a glossary?
• Are diagrams, graphs, and charts clearly labeled and complement and clarify the text?
• Will most of the students have prior experience with the content, or will much time be necessary for schema building?

These questions are attributed to Allan & Miller, 2005)

I know all of these questions may seem overwhelming but hopefully they just give you some ideas for how to look at your materials with fresh eyes, taking all of your learners into consideration.