Correct Response: A. At the developing and expanding levels of language proficiency, middle school students benefit from scaffolding activities that involve preteaching topic-related vocabulary words and language forms and conventions they will likely encounter in core academic classes. The SEI teacher can best meet the students' needs by preteaching intermediate- to advanced-level words and terminology, as well as gerund forms associated with the subject area at the middle school level.
According to the WIDA ELD standards, all students should know content-related words and expressions appropriate for their grade level, regardless of language proficiency. WIDA recommends that students be able to describe scientific questions and conclusions using word banks and graphic organizers, such as using paragraph frames to summarize procedures and findings. B is incorrect because repetitive sentence frames would be inadequate for describing the different outcomes of experimentation and for organizing and documenting results in a middle school science class. C is incorrect because teaching beginning- to intermediate-level vocabulary words and the use of compound sentence frames and graphics for sorting data would be more appropriate for students at the elementary level. D is incorrect because working with the English learners to help them differentiate between pairs of content-specific words and phrases such as quantitative and qualitative data is too narrow in scope and does not encompass enough academic language development to promote middle school English learners' academic success in their science class.
