CTEL Instructional Planning for ELs Questions and Answers

Question 1

A fifth-grade teacher is planning a science lesson with the content objective: "Students will be able to explain the process of photosynthesis." Which of the following would be the MOST effective language objective to pair with this content objective for English learners at the expanding level?

Accepted Answer

Students will write a paragraph using key vocabulary (e.g., sunlight, chlorophyll, glucose) and sequential language (e.g., first, then, after that) to describe the process.

Answer

Students will understand the scientific concepts of photosynthesis.

Answer

Students will listen to a lecture about how plants make food.

Answer

Students will create a complex diagram comparing photosynthesis and cellular respiration.

Question 2

Mr. Liu is planning a unit on community helpers for his first-grade class, which includes several English learners at the emerging level. To make the concepts more concrete and comprehensible, he brings in a firefighter's helmet, a stethoscope, and a mail carrier's bag for students to see and touch. This instructional strategy is best described as using:

Accepted Answer

Realia

Answer

Authentic assessment

Answer

Cognates

Answer

Text-based evidence

Question 3

A teacher is planning a history lesson that requires students to compare and contrast the motivations of colonists and the British government leading up to the American Revolution. To best support intermediate-level ELs in organizing their thoughts for a subsequent writing task, which scaffolding tool would be most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

A Venn diagram

Answer

A K-W-L chart

Answer

A word search with key names and dates

Answer

A narrative storyboard

Question 4

Which of the following instructional activities best integrates all four language domains (listening, speaking, reading, writing) in a meaningful, content-based sequence?

Accepted Answer

Students watch a documentary clip (listening), discuss its main points in a small group (speaking/listening), read a related article (reading), and then write a summary of what they learned (writing).

Answer

Students read a chapter in their textbook silently and then answer multiple-choice questions about the main ideas.

Answer

Students listen to a song, draw a picture about it, and then share their drawing with a partner.

Answer

The teacher leads a whole-class discussion about a historical event, and students take notes on the key points mentioned.

Question 5

In planning a unit on fables, a teacher wants to use a culturally responsive approach. Which of the following strategies would be most effective for this purpose?

Accepted Answer

Inviting students to share and analyze fables or traditional stories from their own cultural backgrounds alongside the core curriculum.

Answer

Focusing exclusively on Aesop's fables as the primary examples of the genre.

Answer

Requiring students to memorize the morals from a pre-selected list of fables.

Answer

Having students research the historical origins of Greek and Roman fables.

Question 6

A teacher is planning a persuasive writing assignment for a class with ELs at various proficiency levels. Which of the following demonstrates the most effective differentiation of the PROCESS for this assignment?

Accepted Answer

Providing emerging ELs with sentence frames and a graphic organizer, while allowing expanding ELs to create their own outlines.

Answer

Grading the essays from emerging ELs more leniently than those from other students.

Answer

Allowing students to choose between writing an essay, creating a poster, or giving a speech.

Answer

Assigning a shorter essay length for emerging ELs compared to other students.