Texas ELPS & TEKS Integration

Texas ELPS & TEKS Integration

The Legal and Educational Framework (19 TAC §74.4)

In Texas public education, the instruction of Emergent Bilingual (EB) students is governed by Title 19 of the Texas Administrative Code (19 TAC §74.4), which establishes the English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS). The ELPS are not an isolated curriculum taught in separate ESL blocks; rather, state law mandates that the ELPS be integrated directly into the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) across all foundation content areas (mathematics, science, social studies, and English language arts and reading). The core statutory requirement is that language acquisition and grade-level content learning must occur simultaneously.

This legal mandate requires all Texas educators—regardless of grade level or subject specialization—to serve as language teachers. When designing instructional units, teachers must formulate dual objectives: a content objective derived from the grade-level TEKS and a language objective anchored in the ELPS. For instance, in an 8th-grade science lesson on cellular respiration, the content objective requires students to analyze energy transformations (TEKS), while the corresponding language objective requires students to use academic sentence frames to orally explain the process to a peer using target vocabulary (ELPS Speaking domain).

The Five ELPS Domains

The ELPS framework is organized into five distinct, mutually supportive domains that address the cognitive, receptive, and expressive dimensions of language acquisition:

1. Learning Strategies

This domain focuses on the metacognitive and self-regulatory strategies students employ to acquire language and content. Expectations include using prior knowledge to comprehend new concepts, monitoring understanding, employing visual and graphic organizers, asking clarifying questions, and recognizing cross-linguistic transfer (such as English-Spanish cognates). Teaching learning strategies equips EBs to become autonomous, strategic learners.

2. Listening

Listening is an essential receptive skill. The ELPS mandate that EBs acquire spoken English skills necessary to comprehend academic and social discourse across varied classroom settings. Instructional expectations range from discriminating English phonemes and identifying main ideas to processing multi-step oral directions and evaluating complex academic lectures.

3. Speaking

Speaking is an expressive skill vital for academic discourse and social collaboration. The ELPS require EBs to speak in diverse formats, including informal peer conversations, structured group discussions, and formal academic presentations. Instruction must support vocabulary development, correct structural usage, and academic sentence construction.

4. Reading

Reading is a receptive literacy skill critical for content mastery. The ELPS outline expectations for developing phonemic awareness, phonics decoding, silent reading fluency, vocabulary acquisition in context, and deep text comprehension across narrative and informational genres.

5. Writing

Writing is a highly complex expressive literacy domain. The ELPS guide EBs from basic letter formation and phonetic spelling through structured sentence construction to multi-paragraph academic essay composition using genre-specific conventions.

The Four ELPS Proficiency Levels

The ELPS define English language proficiency across four progressive levels. Educators must understand these level descriptions to tailor instructional accommodations accurately:

• Beginning: Learners have little to no ability to understand or express English in academic settings. They rely heavily on visual cues, gestures, native language support, and highly familiar social expressions. Spoken and written output consists of isolated words or short memorized phrases.
• Intermediate: Learners possess a limited ability to understand and express English. They comprehend simple, routine directions and participate in basic conversations. In academic tasks, they struggle with complex syntax and abstract vocabulary, frequently exhibiting pauses and errors that reflect language transfer.
• Advanced: Learners can handle grade-appropriate English with targeted linguistic support. They comprehend main ideas and key details in academic lectures and texts, participating actively in classroom discussions. Errors in grammar or pronunciation occur occasionally but rarely obscure overall communication.
• Advanced High: Learners command English at a level comparable to native English-speaking peers, requiring minimal linguistic accommodation. They comprehend complex academic discourse and write well-structured, coherent essays with sophisticated vocabulary.

Mandated Principles of Linguistically Accommodated Instruction

Under 19 TAC §74.4, Texas educators must provide linguistically accommodated instruction tailored to each EB student's documented ELPS proficiency level. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) establishes three imperative pillars for effective accommodation:

1. Communicated: Input must be made comprehensible. Teachers utilize clear speech, deliberate pacing, visual supports, body language, realia, simplified syntax, and L1 translations to ensure content is accessible.
2. Sequenced: Instruction must be logically structured, moving from concrete concepts to abstract ideas, activating background knowledge, and building incrementally on prior learning.
3. Scaffolded: Teachers provide temporary cognitive, graphic, sensory, or peer structures during instruction. As student language proficiency advances, scaffolds are systematically faded to foster independence.

Dual Objective Formulation & Content-Language Alignment

Integrating the ELPS into daily lesson plans requires educators to align grade-level TEKS content standards with specific language expectations. Content objectives specify what students are expected to know and be able to do conceptually (e.g., "Students will calculate the perimeter of composite rectangular figures"). Language objectives specify how Emergent Bilinguals will demonstrate that understanding using receptive or expressive language skills (e.g., "Students will write paragraph descriptions of their calculations using sequence sentence starters such as 'First I added,' 'Next I multiplied'").

By explicitly stating and unpacking both objectives at the beginning of each lesson, teachers ensure that language acquisition is treated not as an afterthought, but as an integral component of content mastery. Content-area teachers utilize language objectives to identify key Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary, required sentence structures, and necessary graphic scaffolds prior to delivering instruction.

Texas ELPS Framework Overview