For ELL, MLL & ELD Educators · Grades 2–12
One lesson. Every English learner.
LingoLift brings short, authentic video and audio stories your multilingual learners actually want to finish. It’s a single platform already scaffolded for the newcomer who arrived in October, the long-term EL working toward the next proficiency level, and the reclassified reader who still needs an academic bridge.
LingoLift is currently in Early Access — we’ll set your account up personally, usually within a day.
Good stories are the key to language acquisition.
Built for the real spread of English proficiency
Your classroom is dynamic, beautiful – and exhausting.
In a single period, you might have five distinct proficiency levels and three home languages. A lesson that lands for your emerging speaker loses your almost-reclassified reader. Meanwhile, the material that stretches your advanced kids leaves your newcomer out.
LingoLift approaches this differently: What if your English learners don’t need a different lesson? What if they need a different way in?
Listening to good stories has the power to draw kids in and teach them language — yet listening virtually disappears from our classrooms by the time kids learn to read.
Every story on the platform comes with comprehension and language activities tagged to both EL level and grade — so the whole class can sit inside the same story, each student working at the edge of their own English.
You get to plan exactly one lesson.
Your newcomer gets survival-level scaffolds and native-language instructions.
Your Level 4 student gets the academic rigor and complex syntax they need to reclassify.
Testimonials
Educators in English language development love LingoLift
The strongest sign a tool belongs in your school: it’s already being used three doors down.
Hear from real teachers who have used us, formerly Listenwise, for years.
Stories multilingual learners ask to hear again
Language sticks when students care what happens next. LingoLift rejects dry, synthetic read-alouds and repetitive grammar drills. Instead, our lessons are built entirely from authentic, real-world media—featuring actual human voices, natural conversational cadences, and stories with real stakes.
Real-World Input
Students hear English as it is actually spoken in the wild, helping them master natural phrasing, intonation, and idiomatic expression.
Low Affective Filter
When students are deeply engaged in a story about animal survival or modern technology, their anxiety drops. The student who typically groans at the workbook asks to hit play again.
Content-Rich Learning
With thousands of lessons across ELA, social studies, SEL, and science, language acquisition happens inside academic subjects they are graded on, not instead of them.
Looking for Special Education support?
Learn how LingoLift removes the decoding barrier for students with learning differences.
Comprehensive literacy for English learnerS
Listening, speaking, reading, and writing — practiced together.
Listening is the cognitive on-ramp, but it’s just the beginning. Once a story has their attention, students are guided to practice and produce language on all four domains:
Listening (Receptive)
Engage with authentic voices and varying dialects across diverse media formats, featuring videos and audio graded for low linguistic complexity but high intellectual interest.
What you’ll see:
Focus replaces typical “tuning out” behavior during listening tasks. Comprehension grows as engagement deepens.
Speaking (Expressive)
Integrated pronunciation activities built directly into the lessons — no complex external recording apps to manage.
What you’ll see:
Anxious speakers practice their English in a safe, zero-judgment digital space – before they are asked to speak in front of peers.
Reading (Receptive)
Rooted in the science of reading, read-along transcripts map spoken words directly to their written form, paired with Tier 2 vocabulary definitions.
What you’ll see:
Students track the text seamlessly with their eyes, building the essential “ear-to-print” connection that drives sight-word recognition.
Writing (Expressive)
Scaffolded writing, spelling, and sentence-framing exercises directly tied to the video or audio they just experienced.
What you’ll see:
Students utilize complex sentence structures and newly acquired academic vocabulary in their independent writing.
Survival English to academic-ready
100+ lessons for newcomer English learners
Transitioning a student from “survival English” to academic readiness requires dedicated scaffolding. LingoLift includes a robust, specialized library designed specifically for newcomers:
Survival to social vocabulary
Access lessons focused on the essential language of school, food, family, and daily life, delivered through short, visually rich videos.
Native-language scaffolding
Directions and instructions are available in multiple native languages, ensuring that a lack of English comprehension is never a barrier to understanding the task.
A safe space to fail
Our short, highly repeatable lessons allow newcomers to watch, listen, and practice privately until the language clicks—building confidence before introducing linguistic complexity.
Tactile extensions
Stories include resources from printable worksheets, visual reference guides, and teacher supports that give your newcomers concrete, hold-in-your-hands materials to anchor their learning.
Differentiate over your morning coffee
Aligned to how you already plan ELD instruction
LingoLift is designed to fit seamlessly into your existing ELD framework—whether you plan using WIDA, ELP, or your state’s individual standards. Our lesson levels map directly to the proficiency language you already use for lesson planning, placement decisions, and parent conferences.
It adapts beautifully to any instructional model:
✴ Designated ELD / Pull-Out
Short, high-impact lessons fit perfectly into a 30-minute block with time to spare for direct instruction.
✴ Integrated ELD Instruction / Inclusion
Provide the entire classroom with the same core content while LingoLift’s built-in scaffolds handle the differentiation behind the scenes.
The scaffolds are built in and student activities are ready to assign. You can configure your differentiated instruction over your morning coffee.
Trusted (and loved) by district & program leaders
LingoLift is built on the trusted instructional heritage of Listenwise. In 2025 California assessment data, school districts utilizing Listenwise saw meaningfully higher rates of students meeting or exceeding standards on the CAASPP. We are proud of our growth towards comprehensive literacy support for students like yours.
All lessons are built using high-quality, trusted media from premium editorial sources, providing students with rich, diverse cultural representation. Our methodology meets ESSA Level 4 (Demonstrates a Rationale) requirements, grounded in extensive research linking strong oral language comprehension to rapid reading development.
We have fully integrated Single Sign-On (SSO) and automatic student rostering, are completely WCAG 2.2 compliant, screen-reader optimized, and captioned across all video content.
Your teachers will tell you whether a tool works. Contact us and schedule a pilot!
Every English learner is ready for literacy.
Make your classroom the proof.
Already loving LingoLift (or Listenwise)?
Join LingoLift Insiders for early looks, a say in what we build, and — naturally — swag!
It’s just a no-brainer. The curation is excellent, and the resources provided are amazing.
★★★★★
FAQs
Learn about LingoLift
Does LingoLift work for newcomer English learners?
Yes! We have 100+ onewcomer lessons from survival English to intermediate, with native-language instructions.
What grade levels does LingoLift support?
Our academic content and curated media library span grades 2 through 12, ensuring that older English learners get age-appropriate content rather than elementary-level materials.
Does LingoLift align to WIDA?
LingoLift is fully customizable to your school’s specific language framework. Our proficiency tags map directly to standard ELD levels (Emerging, Expanding, Bridging) to make planning and tracking a breeze.
Can this be used for both Integrated and Designated ELD blocks?
Absolutely. The platform is designed to allow whole-group thematic learning (Integrated) while offering the targeted, leveled activities and short lessons necessary for small-group intervention (Designated).
Is LingoLift free for teachers?
Free to try during Early Access; district licensing via quote.
Still have questions?
Join our community on Substack and chat with us!