Strategies for Differentiating Assessments for ELL and ESL Students

Testing an English Language Learner (ELL) on content knowledge is a complex task. If a biology quiz uses dense, complex clauses, a student might get a question wrong not because they don't understand cellular respiration, but because they struggled to decode the English sentence.

Our goal is to measure academic understanding, not reading speed or English decoding. Differentiating assessments helps remove linguistic barriers.

Here are strategies you can implement to design accessible quizzes:

1. Simplify the Sentence Structure Keep question stems direct and clear. Avoid complex clause structures, double negatives, and unnecessary background information.

2. Provide Visual Support Whenever possible, pair questions with diagrams, charts, or images. Visual aids provide context and reduce the cognitive reading load.

3. Offer Word Banks and Sentence Frames For short-answer questions, provide sentence starters or a list of key vocabulary terms. This scaffolding helps students structure their answers.

4. Tier the Reading Passages If assessing reading comprehension, use a worksheet creator to adjust the complexity of the passage while keeping the core content and assessment standards consistent.

By adapting the language of your quizzes, you can ensure that ELL and ESL students have a fair opportunity to demonstrate their content knowledge.

Generate your quiz free →