How to teach english to ELL primary school students using New Zealand Cirrcula and ELLP pathways.

Kia ora! I am excited to help you unpack the (ELLP) and help you feel confident using them in your classroom.

Before we dive into the core framework and look at how it fits into the New Zealand Curriculum, I would love to know a bit more about your background so we can make this session as practical and useful for you as possible.

I am a classroom teacher new to teaching English language learners.

Thank you for sharing that! Being new to working with English language learners (ELLs) is an exciting journey, and having the right framework makes a world of difference. To get us started, let's look at the overall road map for our session so you can see where we are heading.

Your path

Identifying and Assessing ELL Stages

Planning and Instructional Strategies

Ongoing Monitoring and Support

What is the ELLP Framework?

At its heart, the (ELLP) is a professional tool designed by the New Zealand Ministry of Education. Instead of treating language learning as a separate subject, the ELLP helps you see how a student's language development unfolds alongside their everyday, mainstream classroom learning. Think of it as a specialized map. It shows you the path students typically travel as they acquire English across four key language modes: oral language (both speaking and listening), reading, and writing. Rather than relying on a single high-stakes test, the ELLP guides you to gather everyday observations, classwork, and informal assessments. You use these to make an (OTJ) about where a student sits on the progression matrices. This ensures your teaching is always targeted exactly to their current language needs.

What are the specific language modes?

In New Zealand, we look at language through four distinct within the ELLP: oral language (which is split into listening and speaking), reading, and writing.

While we assess and track progress in each of these modes separately, they aren't meant to be taught in isolation. In a primary classroom, they naturally feed into and support one another.

Three overlapping circles representing Speaking and Listening, Reading, and Writing, intersecting at a central core.

For instance, when you read a picture book together as a class, you are not just teaching reading. You are using oral language to discuss the story, listening to each other's ideas, and perhaps writing a sentence about it afterward.

This integrated approach mirrors how children naturally acquire language, using their strengths in one mode to build confidence in another.

Let's continue to the next step: identifying and assessing ELL stages.

How We Assess ELL Stages

When teachers think about assessing language, it is common to imagine handing a student a test booklet, setting a timer, and grading the results. However, when working with the (ELLP) in Aotearoa New Zealand, that is not how it works. There is actually no single test that can tell you what ELLP stage a student is in.

A rigid, one-off language test can be incredibly stressful for a young student, and it rarely shows what they can genuinely do when they are feeling comfortable and supported in class.

Instead of testing, you will gather natural evidence of their language use during your everyday classroom routines. Let's look at how we can start collecting those observations.

Can you give me a worksheet on assessing ELLs?

I can absolutely help with that! Since you're looking for a practical way to gather evidence for assessing your students, I have put together a guide to help you build your own observation worksheet based on the New Zealand Ministry of Education guidelines.

SHEET

Worksheet

This resource is designed to help you move away from stressful, formal testing. Instead, it prompts you to look for natural language indicators during daily classroom activities like or group work. By noting down what a student actually says, writes, or understands during these times, you will easily gather the evidence you need to place them on the stages.