The GO TO Strategies: Teaching Tools for Outstanding Educators

by Linda New Levine, Laura Lukens, and Betty Ansin Smallwood |

What is an outstanding educator? In today’s schools, educators are outstanding when they are
capable of using all the tools they have available to reach and teach all of the learners in their
classrooms all of the time. It is rare to find a catalog of tools that works equally well with
language learners, language delayed learners, ESL learners, EFL learners, children, adults, and
teacher educators. The GO TO Strategies: Scaffolding Options for Teachers of English Language
Learners K-12 is a compendium of tools for doing just that.

The 78 research-based strategies were compiled as a result of a National Professional Development Grant for general education teachers of English language learners (ELLs) in the North Kansas City Schools. Teachers in the project were exposed to the strategies during their coursework. They wanted to incorporate these strategies into their own classroom teaching and asked that all of the strategies be collected for their use.

Since that time, The GO TO Strategies have been available free on the Internet. They have been used in classrooms across the United States with a variety of students, used in foreign countries for EFL instruction, and taught in teacher education courses.

Resource Type: Teaching Tips

Audience: Elementary, Secondary, Teacher Training

Audience Language Proficiency: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced

Objective:

Because the strategies are generalized teaching techniques, they adapt to many different types of content and a wide variety of learners. Effective teachers can incorporate these strategies into specific learning situations that match the needs of their learners.

References:

Levine, L. N., Lukens, L., & Smallwood, B. A. (2013). The GO TO strategies: Scaffolding
options for teachers of English language learners, K-12. For Project EXCELL, a partnership
between the University of Missouri-Kansas City and North Kansas City Schools, funded by the
U.S. Department of Education, PR Number T195N070316. https://www.tesol.org/media/sx0l4qnn/the-go-to-strategies-booklet_c2013_levine-lukens-smallwood.pdf 

Useful Link:

January 2017 article in TESOL Connections: "The GO TO Strategies: Teaching Tools for Outstanding Educators"

Supporting Files:
The GO TO Strategies Booklet C2013 Levine Lukens Smallwood (1).pdf

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