Ohio Valley Educational Cooperative’s ESL Quick Reference

Stages of Language Acquisition	Stage I Pre-Production	Stage II Early Production	Stage III Speech Emergence	Stage IV Intermediate Fluency
An ESL student in this stage:	Newcomer	Low Beginner	Beginner	High Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced
	Responds with movements	Responds with one or two words, but is hesitant to speak	Responds with simple sentences and is less hesitant	Responds with simple-to-complex sentences with little or no hesitation
	Doesn’t speak; is in Silent Period	Speaks brokenly, with major grammar and pronunciation errors and omitted words	Speaks more fluidly but with many grammar and pronunciation errors	Speaks very fluidly for longer periods of time with fewer grammar and pronunciation errors
	Understands very little overall	Understands to a small degree overall	Understands fairly well overall	Understands very well overall
	Acquires 1-500 listening words	Builds up to 1000 listening/speaking words	Builds up to 3000 listening/speaking words	Has more than 3000 listening/speaking words
	Attempts to comprehend when listening: --Becomes comfortable with sounds, rhythm, and pattern of English --Begins to comprehend key words or gist given rich context clues	Comprehends more when listening: --Gets gist of conversations --Frequently misunderstands at first but comprehends with repeating	Comprehends at higher levels when listening: --Understands details of conversations, etc. --Frequently misunderstands jokes, slang, etc.	Has excellent listening comprehension: --Understands everything or almost everything --Understands jokes, slang, etc.
	Pays attention to shared readings, but heavily relies on pictures and context clues for understanding	Mainly relies on pictures and context for clues in reading, but begins to decode by end of Stage II	Reads lower grade level books on own and relies less on pictures and context for clues by end of Stage III	Reads different texts at or below grade level with more understanding
	Copies ABCs/words/sentences	Writes ABCs/words/simple sentences on own but makes many spelling errors	Creates original writings (sentences/short paragraphs) but with grammar and spelling errors	Writes in greater length (paragraphs/pages) with fewer grammar and spelling mistakes
	Begins to understand present tense verbs and uses gestures to communicate past, present, future and/or hypothetical events	Understands and uses present tense verbs to communicate past, present, future and/or hypothetical events	Understands and uses present tense, simple past and simple future tenses to communicate past, present, future and/or hypothetical events	Understands and uses all or nearly all tenses of verbs, from simple to complex, to communicate past, present, future and/or hypothetical events
	Performs academically in Math, but not other subjects	Performs academically in Math, but not other subjects	Performs academically in Math and begins limited study of key concepts in content areas	Performs academically in all subjects to some extent
	Interacts very little with American peers	Interacts some with American peers	Interacts more with American peers	Interacts fully with American peers