Extensive modeling

When to use it

Use extensive modeling whenever a task, genre, routine, or language function is new or cognitively demanding, and especially when students meet it for the first time in English. It matters most at the earliest proficiency levels (Pre-Production and Beginning), where verbal directions alone are not yet comprehensible, and for any complex multi-step process at any level (for example, a lab procedure, a written argument, a math explanation, or a discussion protocol). It is also valuable for academic language functions students can already perform in their home language but have not yet expressed in English. Reduce and then remove the demonstration once students can initiate and complete the task with accurate language on their own, so support is matched to need and responsibility transfers to the learner, then add it back briefly when a genuinely new demand appears.

How to implement it

1. 1Identify the specific task, strategy, or language function to model, and break it into visible, sequenced steps so each step can be demonstrated rather than only described.
2. 2Think aloud while you demonstrate, narrating both your reasoning and the academic language you use ('First I look for the signal word, because it tells me the relationship, so I will write...'), so students hear the thinking and the language together.
3. 3Pair every demonstration with non-verbal supports such as gestures, visuals, realia, labeled diagrams, and color-coding, and invite students to draw on cognates and home-language understanding to anchor meaning.
4. 4Model the full task more than once with a varied example, and show both a strong finished product (a mentor text or exemplar) and the in-progress process that produced it, so students see the goal and the path.
5. 5Shift into shared practice ('we do') after demonstrating: repeat the model together, pausing to let students supply the next step or sentence frame with your support.
6. 6Leave a residual reference students can use during independent work, such as an anchor chart, an exemplar, or a short recorded screencast, so the model stays available after the live demonstration ends.
7. 7Plan the fade across the lesson or unit: shorten the demonstration, move to brief reminders, then withdraw the model as students show they can carry the task, monitoring so you can reintroduce support temporarily when a new genre or higher demand appears.

Examples

• •A biology teacher introducing lab reports projects an exemplar report, narrates writing a 'Results' sentence aloud, models it a second time with a different data set, posts the think-aloud as an anchor chart, and only then has students draft their own with the chart available.
• •A 3rd-grade teacher modeling a paragraph writes one in front of students while thinking aloud about the topic sentence and supporting details, rewrites a second example with the class supplying ideas, then has students write their own, removing the live model on the next assignment once paragraphs are solid.
• •A math teacher demonstrates a word-problem strategy by working two problems on the board with color-coded steps and a sentence frame ('I know ___, so I need to ___'), invites students to talk through a third together, then fades to just the posted frame for independent practice.
• •An ESL teacher introducing a 'turn and talk' routine role-plays the full exchange twice with a co-teacher, including gestures and the target frames, lets Pre-Production students point to the matching frame card, and shortens the demonstration to a one-line reminder over the week.
• •An Advanced-level teacher launching a new persuasive-essay genre gives one brief mentor-text walkthrough, then has a proficient student model how they planned their argument for peers, signaling the class is expected to carry most of the task independently.