These sentence starters were used by Claudia Morales in her Fifth Grade classroom at Ellen Ochoa Learning Center.

Teachers can use sentences frames to model grammatical structures. Students use sentence stems to support their effort to communicate their understanding of mathematics concepts during pair and group work.

By giving students specific words to use in their group and pair work, the teacher ensures that the students practice using mathematical words in meaningful communication.

A communication guide is a cognitive strategy. A cognitive strategy enables second language learners to learn, remember, and understand language input. So, a communication guide provides the forms of language we want students to practice - first orally, then in writing. It involves constructing meaningful sentences by putting together known elements in new ways, also called recombining.

Example: Instead of "I like_____ because it is nice.", We could give students a Communication Guide: "I enjoy _____ for two primary reasons. In the first place, ________ makes me think of..... And, secondly, ________ is a way to...."

Rationale: It is essential to that English learners have daily time for oral rehearsal of language before writing, then oral retelling/sharing after writing. A communication guide lends structure to this task, and enables the teacher to target academic language according to the needs of the students.

Sources: "Teacher's ELD Seminar Guide" (LAUSD, LAB, 2005); "Task Based Learning & Teaching" (Rod Ellis); A Focused Approach to Instruction for English Learners (Susana Dutro), "Rethinking English Language Instruction" (Dutro & Moran)

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