TEL Ted: NELI Intervention
The TEL Ted: NELI Intervention is a targeted intervention program for students with weak oral language skills. The intervention is designed to improve students' vocabulary, develop their narrative skills, encourage active listening, and build confidence in independent speaking.
Program Structure
The TEL Ted: NELI Intervention comprises 20-weeks of small group and individual sessions, split into two ten-week blocks. The sessions within each block are further broken down into topic areas: My Body, Things We Wear, People Who Help Us, Growing, Journey, and Time. Sessions provide an intensive focus on active listing, building vocabulary and narrative skills. Each student taking part in the intervention receives three 30-minute group sessions per week in a small group of four to six students and two 15-minute individual sessions per week
What’s in the TEL Ted: NELI Intervention Resource Pack?
The TEL Ted: NELI Intervention includes a comprehensive pack of physical resources to support with delivering the intervention to students. It includes:
- Two Teacher Guides which provide teaching plans for each of the sessions in the 20-week program.
- Engaging materials including flashcards to support with key vocabulary development, and story cards for the narrative activities.
- And most importantly, Ted the puppet, who is always a big hit with students.
Group Sessions
Each Group Session follows a similar structure, with an introduction to settle students into the session and encourage active listening with a short listening game. New vocabulary is introduced as ‘Special Words’ and words students have already been introduced to are reinforced. Then the session focuses on developing narrative skills to understand the sequencing of events and how stories fit together. Sessions conclude with a review of what has been introduced in that session.
Individual Sessions
The Individual Sessions enable you to concentrate on a student’s individual needs. They follow a similar structure with a focus on active listening, building vocabulary and narrative skills, but allow you to focus on specific areas a student might be struggling with, or extend the use of vocabulary or narrative where a student may be able to move at a faster pace.
The research and evidence behind the TEL Ted: NELI Intervention
The TEL Ted: NELI Intervention is the world’s best evidenced oral language intervention. A series of randomized controlled trials and independent evaluations have shown that it brings about educationally meaningful improvements:
- Students make 3-5 months’ additional progress in language skills in just six months.
- Those from less advantaged backgrounds made an average 7 months’ additional progress in their language skills.
- Behavior was shown to improve significantly (compared to the control group).
- English Language Learners (ELL) made the same additional progress as students speaking English at home.
- Positive effects can be seen long-term, with improvements in language and word reading being seen in students two years after the intervention.
The kids really like coming in and doing the sessions with Ted. It's developmentally appropriate and they enjoy him being a part of the sessions. The intervention sessions are short but impactful so the students are not getting bored. As a result of the intervention we are not only seeing a higher spike in our literacy instruction but improved behavior and confidence in students.
Tara Livermore, MTSS Coordinator