AI-Powered Supports for Emergent Bilingual Students in Secondary Classrooms

Vocabulary terms and definitions focusing on language acquisition theories, educational AI tools, and pedagogical frameworks for supporting secondary emergent bilingual learners.

Emergent Bilingual (EB) Students

Secondary learners navigating the dual challenge of mastering grade-level academic content while developing the academic English needed to engage with and communicate that content.

Input Hypothesis (Krashen, 1982)

A second language acquisition theory emphasizing the necessity of comprehensible language input that extends slightly beyond a learner's current proficiency level.

Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky, 1978)

A developmental concept highlighting instructional support and scaffolding that enables learners to perform tasks beyond their independent capabilities.

Language Production (Swain, 1985)

The principle that communicative competence requires opportunities for learners to formulate ideas, experiment with language, and refine spoken and written communication rather than relying on comprehension alone.

Texas English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS)

State standards adopted by the Texas Education Agency (TEA, 2024) that emphasize integrating English language development with academic instruction across content areas.

Diffit

An AI tool used by educators to adapt instructional readings, develop vocabulary supports, and generate comprehension questions while preserving essential academic concepts and terminology.

Gemini

An AI tool used to generate contextualized explanations, academic discussion prompts, and differentiated language scaffolds such as sentence stems.

NotebookLM

An AI platform that allows educators to organize teacher-selected sources to create study guides, questions, and audio overviews for revisiting academic concepts.

Canva AI

A tool that generates visual representations, infographics, and graphic organizers to connect academic language with concepts and provide multiple means of representation.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

An instructional framework (CAST, 2024) emphasizing multiple means of representation and diverse pathways for students to access information and demonstrate understanding.

Adobe Express Animate Characters

A tool that converts recorded speech into animated presentations, providing students with lower-stakes opportunities for oral language production and practice.

Knowt

An application used to reinforce academic vocabulary through flashcards, practice questions, and retrieval activities.

Human-Centered AI (U.S. Department of Education, 2023)

The educational principle that educators must remain central to AI implementation decisions, reviewing outputs, protecting data privacy, and ensuring students retain active responsibility for their learning.