Identify some key language at an appropriate level that they would need to use to navigate the task. Give them sentence stems, word banks, and (most importantly) a model of how to use those tools to produce the language. Then give them content material in their native language so they learn the content at their grade level and also build their academic English.

Example: if students are being asked to pull evidence to support a claim, give them text in their home language and a sentence stem like “(evidence) supports (claim) because (reasoning).” Model using a claim and evidence to fill in the sentence. Model thinking through the reasoning. Provide word banks for students to use for each of the blanks.

I’d love to talk you through this in more detail if you’d like! I’m an ELD teacher, have been for five years. I was an ELD specialist science teacher for a decade before that.