English learners tend to spend most of the school day in mainstream classrooms with content-area teachers who often do not know how to teach language through academic content.
To address this gap, English-language development specialists in Maryland’s Montgomery County district have been coaching their content-area peers on how to identify and teach academic language across subjects.
The hope is that if content-area teachers highlight language use in the content they already teach, then English learners are more likely to use said language, said Renee Hokanson, an English-language development specialist for the Montgomery County district.
Hokanson and fellow ELD specialist Katie Lazo shared examples of coaching activities that other specialists can use to coach content-area teachers on language use and instruction in their own districts during a session at the annual WIDA conference in September.
“We’re not asking you to be a language teacher. We are asking you to think about language differently,” Lazo said of the ask for general education teachers.
Expanding the responsibility of language instruction
In a March EdWeek Research Center survey of more than 1,100 educators across the country working with English learners, 64% of respondents said bilingual education or English-as-a-second-language teachers were the most responsible for the instruction of English learners.
The traditional role of these specialist teachers has often focused on language instruction for English learners and modifying instructional materials for content-area teachers to use with English learners in mainstream classrooms, Hokanson said. But if language instruction becomes a shared responsibility among all educators, English learners benefit in significant ways.
“What that means for our students is that they’re able to access the information, they’re able to participate in those rich, deep conversations. They’re able to thrive,” Hokanson said.
To help content-area teachers teach language through academic content, they must first understand how to spot language in what they already do.
To illustrate this, Hokanson and Lazo led an activity where participants discussed an image from the final game of the 2026 World Cup in the context of an academic subject.
In this example, a math teacher could say something about how defenders form an angle of about 40 degrees, creating a narrow passing lane and how, if that angle widened to 80 degrees, then their passing lane could double in size.
In such a statement, the teacher uses technical math language (angle, 40 degrees), causal language (creating), and conditional language (If the angle widened…the passing lane would double in size).
Helping teachers across subjects see the various types of language they already use in their communication with students can help them teach language in a variety of academic contexts and proactively plan for that instruction, Lazo said.
“They make lessons, and then they’re like, ‘Oh, how am I going to do that for my [English learners] and my students with disabilities?’ It shouldn’t be like that. We start instruction with those students in mind, so everybody’s covered from margin to margin,” Lazo said.
Teachers can practice understanding language functions
When content-area teachers can identify the language they already use in their classroom, they can better prioritize and teach specific language uses.
Lazo reminded the audience of the four key language uses from the WIDA English-language development standards framework, which cover the four primary purposes for academic language: narrate, inform, explain, and argue.
Content-area teachers can look at any classroom and determine what students are meant to do with language. Across the school day students must tell something (narrate), report something (inform), elaborate on something (explain), and justify something (argue).
In a group activity, biology teachers could review the following paragraph that students need to read in the classroom: Wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park to help regulate the elk population. Before wolves returned, elk consumed large amounts of vegetation along riverbanks. As a result, plant growth declined, and habitats for other species were reduced. After wolf populations increased, elk spent less time feeding in those areas, allowing vegetation to recover. Therefore, the return of the wolves contributed to changes throughout the ecosystem and improved conditions for many organisms.
In such text, a possible key language use for students is to explain something, Lazo said.
Teachers can highlight language in the text, such as the use of “before” and “after,” “as a result,” “therefore,” and “contributed to.”
Then teachers can prioritize what language they want to teach, Lazo said. For instance, based on the students in the class, the biology teacher can focus on causal language that helps students explain cause and effect.
As content-area teachers plan their lessons, Lazo encourages them to think about the following questions: What are the students doing in my classroom? What is the function of language in the lesson? What language helps me identify that function, and how can I prioritize teaching that language function?
Ileana Najarro is a reporter for Education Week covering race and opportunity in schools across the country.