Teaching about the Elections
Tips for beginning/Intermediate Multilingual Learners
Teaching about the election for newcomers and multilingual learners is crucial for community engagement. Some of your students may be able to vote. But, even if they can’t, they need to know how the election system works in the country where they are living. With the 2024 election coming up soon, millions of people in the U.S. will be voting for the first time. But, according to a Harvard report, young people are less likely to vote in 2024 than they were in 2020, which makes it important for them to show up on Election Day. Also, first-time voters are the least likely to sign up to vote and go through with voting when it’s time.
I’ve perused a few teaching sites with ideas for teaching students about the election. With those ideas, I share a few ways to adapt for your Multilingual Learners at the beginning and intermediate levels.
Here are some ideas to try:
1. Vocabulary Building
Introduce Key Terms: Use visuals or flashcards for terms like "vote," "president," "candidate," "election," "community," and "country." Use sentence frames like, "A candidate is someone who wants to be ______ (the president, governor, etc.)."
Create a Word Wall: Display election-related words with pictures and definitions.
2. Use Visuals and Graphics
Visual Timelines: Show the steps in an election (campaign, debate, vote, result) with pictures and simple captions.
Infographics on Civic Topics: For example, use visuals to show what “voting” looks like and who can vote.
3. Mock Voting Activity
Simple Voting Exercise: Hold a class vote on a topic relevant to students (favorite food, activity). Use ballots, “candidates” (represented by simple icons or cartoons), and a ballot box. This gives students hands-on experience with the concept of voting.
Bilingual Ballots: If students share a common language, consider providing a ballot in both languages to build vocabulary recognition.
4. Simplified Reading and Listening Comprehension Activities
Read Aloud: Use a simple text or a read-aloud story about elections or choosing leaders. Model thinking aloud about the voting process or the importance of choosing leaders.
Basic Sentence Frames for Discussion: Provide frames like “I want _____ because _____,” to help them articulate preferences.
5. Collaborative Art Project
Campaign Posters: Have students create simple posters supporting their choice for “candidate” (fictional or real). This allows them to use colors and words creatively and discuss their choices in simple terms.
6. Interactive and Visual Multimedia
Videos or Animations on Voting and Civic Engagement: Use age-appropriate videos with subtitles that explain voting and why it matters. Pause to discuss in simple terms. Here’s a good short one with images.
Map Activity: Use a U.S. map to show where the election is happening, simplifying it to a few colors to represent states or regions.
By grounding election topics in activities and visuals, beginning and intermediate (WIDA Level 1 and 2 learners) can engage meaningfully with the concept of elections, even if they are not yet ready for complex political discussions.
Here’s an additional resource that can be useful for supporting your students:
Five Ways to Support Undocumented Students During Election Season
Are you teaching about the election?
What sources are you using?
