I don't normally write about any commercial products for fear of appearing to endorse them, but Diffit for Teachers has a free-for-teachers version that might be of interest to anyone teaching English language learners. Diffit makes graphic organizers for history learners, too. You can try it for free before committing to any kind of paid package (individual or school subscriptions available).
If you wish to adapt reading levels of texts and other media for your ELL students, below is the Diffit website's general description of ways you might use its product for your students:
Adapt any PDF, text/excerpt, Article URL or YouTube video for any reading level or language - to help all students access the content you’re teaching. Great for:
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An article you found and want to use for your lesson, but is too hard - for some (or all) of your readers
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Supporting students learning English
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Modifications for students with IEPs
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Challenge for advanced students
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Enabling all students - regardless of reading level - to access grade level concepts, while providing “just right”, curriculum-aligned readings, vocabulary, comprehension checks, and more.
I would add that primary source descriptions and other Library of Congress content might also be adapted using this tool. Has anyone tried Diffit for Teachers? What other tools do you use for adapting primary sources for your ELL students?
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Edited
Mary, this is so timely. One of the teachers in the Accessing Inquiry for English Learners through Primary Sources fall 2023 cohort wrote in a comment about developing a lesson,
- "I also was able to use an amazing app that a fellow teacher from the course showed me called “Diffit” (https://beta.diffit.me/#text), which translates the difficult and dense text from the book [secondary source: “1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving” by Catherine Grace] and creates a third-grade appropriate text for each section. It also created the multiple choice questions at the end of each of the lessons. It also was able to translate all of the text, vocabulary, and multiple choice questions into Spanish for my two students who are at a beginner level in their English language knowledge."
She also described other uses of Artificial Intelligence speech-to-text tools:
- "I also found all of the primary sources and used text-to-speech to transfer the text from the physical book to a digital format, as well as adding all the necessary tiered vocabulary for each lesson."
I would love to hear how teachers are harnessing these methods, and any limits or complications they currently encounter, or no longer encounter because of changing technology.
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