Tier 2 words are the most productive for ELLs.
Tier 2 words are academic vocabulary which
occur frequently over several domains such as
“concept” and “analyze”.
Tier 1 words can be taught using visuals,
realia or gestures. Tier 3 words are often taught
by content teachers so that students can
understand specialized knowledge. However,
tier 2 words are sometimes not taught because
teachers feel students might already have that
vocabulary. Nevertheless, for ELLs these are the
words they need to make sense of the content
they are learning, especially words which have
multiple meanings such as “monitor” or “table”.
Nisbett (2010) gives useful guidelines for
choosing which words