South Carolina Individualized Language Acquisition Plan Best Practices

Best practices are intended to support multilingual learners (MLs) in all classes, no matter their proficiency level. These strategies are expected to be used by all teachers within lessons, assignments, and assessments to support MLs and all learners. Best practices are strategies that educators can quickly implement within daily instruction, activities, and classroom assessments.

Activate prior knowledge Allow alternative assignments and assessments*​ Check for understanding Give positive reinforcement/can do attitude Incorporate student culture Pre-teach key vocabulary and key content Provide comprehensible input Provide examples and models of completed projects and papers Provide sentence frames or sentence stems Provide word banks Provide visual cues Teach to all modalities Use graphic organizers Use manipulatives

* Temporary modifications can be appropriate for Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE) and newcomer students.  “Districts may use a curriculum that temporarily emphasizes English language acquisition over other subjects, but any interim academic deficits in other subjects must be remedied within a reasonable length of time” (EL Toolkit, Chapter 4). However, long-term modifications are not allowable for students seeking a South Carolina high school diploma.