ESL Monthly Themes Matrices

Themes are geared for English Language Learners (ELLs) so that they learn English and information about the world around them.

Activities are designed to motivate the student to learn the themes seen in each month, however when students come at other times in the school year, they are given adapted activities that blend the earlier themes with activities the other ELLs are learning at their grade and proficiency level. 

There are three basic groupings of English Proficiency Levels.  We have put the Pre-Emergent, Emergent and Basic English Proficiency levels into the Beginning English Proficiency Level.   The other two levels include the Intermediate and Advanced.  This is NOT to be confused with the Fluent or Proficient Level at which ELLs exit the program after multiple assessments.

August/September:                          February:
Assessment of English Proficiency     Presidents
Getting to Know you                            Friendship
Life in the USA                                      Dental health
Conversation Skills                               Mammals
Alphabet/Numbers                              Holidays/Seasons
Holidays/Seasons                                Mammals
Back to School                                      ACCESS Testing(6-12)

October:                                           March:
Survival Skills                                   Weather (K-12)
Environmental Print                        Our Community
Favorite Things                                Keeping Healthy
Parts of the Body                            Telling Time
Number Words                                 Fractions
Colors                                                World Geography/Immigration (6-12)Holidays/Seasons                            Heredity/Health/Migration 
                                                           Issues(6-12)  

November:                                       April:
Food                                                 Spring
Plants                                               Ecology
Thanksgiving                                   Recycling
Veterans' Day                                 Sharing Cultures
Seasons/Harvest                            Fractions
Government (6-12)                        Independent Reading 
                                                           Project  (6-12)

December:                                      May:
Animals                                           Skills Review
Winter Holidays                             Manners
Customs around the World          Money/Economics
                                                         Restaurant Skills (6-12)
                                                         Newspaper/Recipes 
                                                         Post- Assessment           
                                                         Proficiency   
                                                 
January:                                         June:
Famous men and women             Summer Plans
Nutrition                                         Record Keeping
Habitats                                          and Reporting
Holidays/Seasons
Racial Issues (6-12)

Remember- when you are using the themes- this is a starting point.
Use the themes to give you ideas of topics and then develop your instruction from there to include your grammar and vocabulary concepts you need to teach. This allows you some versatility if you have the same ELLs year after year. You will choose different topics within that theme to use for instruction, spiraling the grammar and vocabulary concepts you need to teach.  If you do this, you will also be able to differentiate instruction within the lesson for ELLs at different English proficiency levels. When you have more than one proficiency level in your class, you will need to scaffold instruction for the less proficient ELL. At the same time this allows your more proficient ELL to help explain the concept in their own words to the less proficient ELL, strengthening the more proficient ELL's understanding of the concept.  You will thus instruct, reinforce, enhance and expand each ELL's understanding of English and the concepts you are teaching. Sometimes the themes are basic so that Beginning Ells can concentrate of their acquisition of vocabulary, whether they are naming words and actions words for first grade English beginners or twelfth grade english beginners.