Teaching English as a second language: a practical guide for school teachers
Teaching English as a second language means helping learners whose first language is not English build the English they need to communicate and, in a school, to learn every other subject. In practice, you teach it well by finding out what each learner can already do, making your input easy to understand, giving structured chances to speak before writing, teaching subject vocabulary explicitly, treating the home language as a resource, and checking understanding often. This guide explains each step and ends with a worked lesson example.
It is written for teachers in international schools, where English-language learners are rarely taught in a separate class. They sit in mainstream science, history and maths lessons alongside fluent peers, often in classes where five or six home languages are spoken. Most online guides skip that situation, because they are written either for people starting out in language schools or for a single national school system.
Table of contents
What is teaching English as a second language?
Several overlapping terms describe the same broad field:
- ESL (English as a second language): teaching English to people who live, study or work in a setting where English is widely used.
- EFL (English as a foreign language): teaching English where it is not the language of daily life, usually as a timetabled subject.
- EAL (English as an additional language): the term used in many British-curriculum and international schools. “Additional” is often more accurate, because many learners already speak two or more languages before they learn English.
- TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages): the umbrella term for the profession and its qualifications, covering all of the above.
In an international school, the setting matters more than the label. A learner in a small-group English session and a learner in a mainstream Year 9 chemistry lesson both need English teaching, but the chemistry teacher has to deliver it through the subject.
Why teach English as a second language through every subject?
Language is how pupils reach the curriculum, so every teacher of an English-language learner is also, in part, a language teacher. Two ideas explain why.
The first is the difference between conversational and academic English. Professor Jim Cummins distinguished Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS), the language of everyday social interaction, from Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP), the language of classroom learning. As Colorín Colorado’s summary explains, learners take from six months to two years to develop BICS, but at least five years to develop CALP. A pupil who chats fluently at break may still struggle to follow a textbook explanation or write an evaluation. Mistaking the first for the second can leave a pupil without support at exactly the point where academic demands rise.
The second is that language and content reinforce each other. Pupils learn the language of science by doing science, and understand science better when its language is taught explicitly. Separating the two, for example by giving a new arrival simple colouring tasks until their English “catches up”, risks slowing both.
How to teach English as a second language: seven principles
1. Find out what the learner already knows
Before planning, gather a short profile: home languages, literacy in those languages, previous schooling, and current English in listening, speaking, reading and writing. A pupil who reads fluently in Arabic or Russian has literacy skills to transfer; a pupil whose schooling was interrupted may need support with literacy itself. Ask the family, check the admissions file and talk to the pupil.
2. Make your input understandable
Speak clearly at a natural pace, pause more often, and allow longer thinking time before taking answers. Support spoken explanations with images, diagrams, gestures, objects and demonstrations. Give instructions both aloud and in writing, broken into numbered steps. Model tasks rather than only describing them: show a completed example and think aloud as you produce one.
3. Teach vocabulary deliberately
Pre-teach a small set of key words for each lesson and return to them often. It helps to sort vocabulary into three kinds: everyday words (heat, river), general academic words used across subjects (compare, evidence, therefore), and subject-specific terms (evaporation, tributary). Fluent peers usually know the first kind. English-language learners often need all three taught, and the middle group is the easiest to overlook because teachers assume it is already known.
4. Plan talk before writing
Pupils need to say an idea before they can write it. Build structured talk into lessons through think-pair-share, talk partners with assigned roles, and sentence frames such as “I think … because …” or “One difference between … and … is …”. Talk rehearses the grammar and vocabulary the writing will need, and it gives you a chance to correct misunderstandings before they reach the page.
5. Use the home language as a resource
Encourage learners to use their home language to think, plan and discuss, especially in the early stages. Writing for Edutopia, Larry Ferlazzo advises teachers not to ban it, because forbidding it “does not promote a positive learning environment where students feel safe” to take risks with English. In practice, this might mean letting two pupils who share a language discuss a problem before reporting back in English, or encouraging a pupil to make notes in their home language and then draft in English.
6. Give feedback on language, selectively
Correcting every error overwhelms learners and discourages them from trying. Pick one or two language patterns per piece of work, such as past tense endings or linking words, and give a clear model of the correct form. In speech, recasting helps: when a pupil says “He go to the market yesterday”, respond naturally with “He went to the market yesterday? What did he buy?” rather than stopping the conversation.
7. Check understanding often
“Does everyone understand?” rarely gets a useful answer from a learner who is unsure of the question. Use mini whiteboards, multiple-choice hinge questions or thumbs up and down, or ask a pupil to repeat the instructions in their own words before the class starts the task.
Adapting for each stage of English proficiency
Schools use different proficiency scales, but the stages below give a practical way to think about support. Treat them as a guide rather than fixed labels, because a learner may be at different stages in speaking and in writing.
| Stage | What the learner can typically do | Useful support |
|---|---|---|
| New to English | Understands a few words and gestures; may say little for a period while listening. | Visuals, labelled diagrams, bilingual glossaries, a buddy who shares their language, and tasks based on pointing, matching and labelling. |
| Early acquisition | Follows simple instructions; speaks in short phrases. | Sentence frames, word banks, partly completed notes, gap-fill activities and pre-taught vocabulary. |
| Developing competence | Takes part in most lessons; academic writing is still limited. | Writing frames, model paragraphs, and explicit teaching of connectives and subject-specific sentence patterns. |
| Competent or fluent | Uses English confidently, with occasional gaps in academic register. | Feedback on precision and style, demanding texts, and the writing conventions of each subject. |
Worked example: one lesson planned with language in mind
Here is an illustrative example of how a Year 7 geography lesson on “Why do people settle near rivers?” might be planned for a mixed class that includes two pupils new to English and several at the developing stage.
- Content objective: explain three reasons why people settle near rivers.
- Language objective: use because, so and this means that to explain causes and effects.
- Key vocabulary, pre-taught with images: settlement, fertile, trade, transport, flood, source.
- Starter (5 minutes): pupils look at a photograph of a river city and label what they see on sticky notes, in English or their home language.
- Input (10 minutes): the teacher explains each reason using a labelled diagram, modelling the target sentences aloud: “People settle near rivers because the soil is fertile. This means that farmers can grow crops.”
- Structured talk (10 minutes): in pairs, pupils sort picture cards into reasons and explain each one using a sentence frame printed on the table.
- Writing (15 minutes): all pupils write an explanation. Pupils new to English complete a labelled diagram and three frame sentences using a word bank; developing pupils use a paragraph frame; fluent pupils write independently and add one disadvantage of living near a river.
- Check (5 minutes): each pupil tells a partner one reason using “because” or “this means that”, while the teacher listens in to several pairs and notes errors to address next lesson.
Every pupil works on the same geography. What changes is the language support, and each learner leaves with a clear next step.
Teaching English in multilingual international schools
International schools, including many in the UAE, bring particular challenges that general guides rarely address:
- Many home languages in one room. A single class may include speakers of Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, Tagalog, Russian and French. Pair learners who share a language for some discussion, but mix groups for other tasks so that English becomes the common language.
- Family expectations. Some parents ask for English only at home, hoping it will speed progress. A more useful response is to explain that strong literacy in the home language supports English, and to suggest families talk about school topics in their strongest language.
- Staff turnover. When teachers change often, knowledge about individual learners is lost. A one-page language profile that moves with the pupil each year helps the next teacher start well.
- Mixed curricula. Pupils joining from other systems may have strong subject knowledge but be unfamiliar with the question styles used in your curriculum. Teach command words such as describe, explain and evaluate explicitly, with a model answer for each.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Placing English-language learners in low-attaining groups because of their English rather than their understanding of the subject.
- Assuming that fluent social English means a learner is ready for academic tasks without support.
- Simplifying the content instead of scaffolding the language, so learners fall behind in the subject.
- Correcting every error, which discourages learners from taking risks.
- Leaving all language support to the EAL department.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between ESL and EFL?
ESL is taught where English is used in daily life or as the language of schooling, so learners need it straight away for study and social life. EFL is taught where English is not the everyday language, usually as a timetabled subject. Many international schools use the term EAL instead, reflecting that pupils often already speak more than one language.
How do you teach English as a second language to complete beginners?
Start with survival language and classroom routines: greetings, instructions and asking for help. Use visuals, gestures and demonstration constantly, pair the learner with a supportive buddy, and set tasks that allow participation with little English, such as labelling, sorting and matching. Accept a quiet listening period, allow home-language use, and build vocabulary around the topics the class is studying.
How long does it take to learn academic English?
Colorín Colorado’s summary of Jim Cummins’ work gives six months to two years for conversational English and at least five years for academic English. It notes that learners with no prior instruction or no support in their home language may need at least seven years. Plan for long-term support, even for pupils who already sound fluent.
Why teach English as a second language rather than relying on immersion?
Immersion gives learners plenty of English to hear but little guidance on how it works. Explicit teaching of vocabulary, sentence patterns and subject-specific writing, alongside rich exposure, gives learners the tools to use the language they hear. For school pupils, it is also what allows them to keep learning the curriculum while their English develops.
For teachers who want to study the theory and methodology behind this work in depth, the Master of Arts (TESOL) is awarded by Plymouth Marjon University, UK, and takes one year, studied fully online. You can read about the programme on the MA TESOL online page.