Abstract
The state of California expects English Learners to learn academic content and oral academic English at the same time and mandates that all students be taught in English. This unit was created to meet the needs of first grade teachers who do not have an English Language Development program and find it very difficult to teach English Language Development in a small group setting to English Learners, while engaging the rest of the students in class in meaningful activities. The literature has been reviewed in the following areas: second language acquisition, adaptations to instructional delivery methods that meet the needs of EL student, vocabulary and academic language development, and strategies for implementing a science-based unit for EL students. Sources of data used were professional journals, books and websites. The unit found in the appendix is an English Language Development unit written to the California Science Standards relating to plants and focusing on the use of academic language. The lessons in the unit consist of whole group activities, team work, individual work and teacher-directed small group English Language Development activities.