A Simple Tool That Makes School Easier for Multilingual Learners
- Kyle Larson
- 23 hours ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 24 minutes ago
Over the past several years, I’ve noticed something about multilingual learners—especially the long-term ones who have been in our schools for a while. These students work hard. They show up. They do their assignments. But the language demands inside those assignments are often completely hidden from them.
And when the language is inaccessable, progress stalls. This doesnt happen because students aren’t capable, but because the structure they need simply isn’t there.
Most of us have been in this situation:
A student clearly understands the idea…but can’t explain it in writing.
A student has the evidence…but doesn’t have the sentence frame to cite it.
A student participates in discussion…but can’t make the leap to academic language.
And the truth is, content teachers rarely have time to create language supports for every assignment. EL teachers can’t be in every room. Students end up trying to “figure out” the language on their own, and for many, that’s where the learning stops.
A Missing Link: A Way to Make the Language of School Visible for Multilingual Learners
Over the last few months, I’ve been asking myself a simple question:
What if every student had a tool that made academic language easier to start, easier to organize, and easier to use across all their classes?
Not a new curriculum. Not a complicated app. Just something straightforward that students could rely on—no matter the subject, no matter the teacher.
That question is what led us to build one of the simplest and most useful pages in our new notebook, ACE the Next Level: the Sentence Starter page.
A Free Tool for Any Classroom
I’m sharing it here because it’s something teachers can use tomorrow without any extra planning. It gives students a way to:
begin their responses with confidence
explain their reasoning
cite evidence from a text
compare ideas
make predictions and inferences
strengthen their sentences using transitions
organize their thinking before they write
Here is the page:
I’ve watched students who normally freeze up suddenly put real academic sentences on paper just by choosing one of these frames. It lowers the barrier to entry without lowering expectations.
Teachers have told me things like:
“It finally gets my MLs started.”
“This saves me so much time.”
“I can use this in every subject.”
And they’re right. This page is universal—you can use it in science, social studies, ELA, math explanations, journals, and even during quick speaking tasks.
Why This Works
Multilingual learners don’t just need vocabulary. They need language moves.
They need to know how to begin:
“I think that…”
“One difference is…”
“According to the text…”
“This shows that…”
Once students have a place to start, the rest of the sentence—and often the rest of the assignment—comes far more easily. It gives them a pathway for thinking, not just writing.
And most important:it gives them independence.
What’s Coming Next
For the past year, we’ve been building a larger system around this idea—one that helps students connect classwork and language learning in a way that feels clear, doable, and consistent. Many of you have asked for something that can help long-term multilingual learners break out of that “stuck” place, and we’ve been working hard on a solution.
It’s called ACE: The Next Level.
I’m not announcing the full thing yet--stay tuned for the new year. At the beginning of 2026 I’ll be showing you the thing we have all been waiting for--tools that are simple, teacher-friendly, and designed to make language less opaque for students.
For now, feel free to download, print, and use the Sentence Starter page above. I hope it’s something that makes your students’ writing (and your planning) just a little bit easier.
More soon.
We’re just getting started.