ELPS Online Helper | Free Interactive Tool for Texas Teachers

November 30, 2025
Luis Hernández

Category: AI in Education, Biliteracy, EdTech, Leadership, Teaching Strategies

AI-Generated Audio

For years, teachers in bilingual and ESL programs have relied on binders, PDFs, and scattered resources to navigate the ELPS (English Language Proficiency Standards), the PLDs (Proficiency Level Descriptors), the TELPAS accommodations (Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System), and the TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills). These tools are essential for supporting emergent bilingual students, but using them during planning can be time-consuming and difficult.

Today, we’re excited to share the alpha release of the ELPS Online Helper, a new web app designed to make this work faster, clearer, and more intuitive for teachers across Texas.

This early access version is available now, and we would love your feedback as we continue refining it.

Try the Alpha Version Here:
https://apps.enablinglearning.com/elps-online-helper/

Why We Built This Tool

Planning for emergent bilingual students requires teachers to combine state standards, proficiency levels, instructional strategies, and content objectives, all while keeping up with the demands of a busy classroom. Our goal was to create a tool that simplifies that process while keeping everything aligned to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) guidance.

The ELPS Online Helper turns the entire ELPS and TELPAS framework into a smart, digital filter. Instead of flipping through long documents, teachers select the grade level, subject, domain, and proficiency level. The system then brings forward only the supports that matter for that instructional moment. It’s a faster, cleaner way to access sentence stems, scaffolds, accommodations, and PLDs, right when teachers need them.

AI-Powered Tools to Support Planning

In addition to the smart reference system, the app includes several AI-powered planning tools for teachers who create a free account. These tools do not replace teacher expertise, but they offer a strong, standards-aligned starting point that teachers can modify and adapt for their teaching styles and students.

When using the AI Lessom Plan Generator, teachers can select a TEKS objective and a student profile with a specific English proficiency level, and the system instantly creates a complete lesson plan with differentiated language objectives, recommended scaffolds, and strategies aligned to ELPS.

A verification process checks the plan before it is shown to the user, helping ensure alignment and safety. To do this, we use an AI multi-model verification loop, in which a second model, such as Google Gemini, reviews the lesson plan generated by a first model (typically OpenAI). Each model analyzes the output for accuracy, TEKS/ELPS alignment, clarity, and potential errors. Using two independent systems allows us to cross-check the content from different perspectives, greatly increasing reliability and reducing the risk of missing important instructional details. This process helps ensure that what teachers receive is accurate, appropriate, and aligned to Texas standards before it ever reaches their screens.

For those moments when teachers have only 15 minutes to support a small group, they can use the Quick Tutoring Generator to create a structured “I Do, We Do, You Do” script aligned with each student’s proficiency level. It provides clear examples, checks for understanding, and a ready-to-use intervention sequence.

Try the Alpha and Share Your Feedback

This is an alpha release, which means we are still refining the experience, adjusting features, and expanding functionality. Your insight at this stage will help us shape the next versions before we offer the tool to a broader audience.

If you would like to share suggestions or report something that could be improved, you can use the feedback form on the About page inside the app. You’re also welcome to email us anytime. We would truly appreciate hearing from you.

Access the ELPS Online Helper (Alpha):

https://apps.enablinglearning.com/elps-online-helper/

Thank you for supporting this work. Our goal is to create tools that save teachers time, support compliance, and help students succeed. Your feedback will help us make this tool the best it can be for classrooms across Texas.

2 thoughts on “Introducing the ELPS Online Helper”

Mary
August 23, 2026 at 8:12 pm

I work in a K-2 elementary school and the principal wants teachers to start posting ELPS. We need examples of how to do this when there are different proficinecy levels in the classroom? Can we choose one elps from each domain to focus on?
Reply
1. Luis Hernández
  August 24, 2026 at 8:22 pm
  
  Thank you for this question, Mary. It is one many Texas campuses are asking this year, so we built the answer into the ELPS Online Helper: an Objectives Card. You post one content objective and one language objective per lesson for the whole class, and a short strip underneath shows what meeting it looks like at each of the five proficiency levels, so the differentiation lives in how students meet the objective, not in posting five objectives. It is free and needs no account: https://apps.enablinglearning.com/elps-online-helper/reference/objectives-card. Two short videos on that page walk your teachers through it. On choosing one ELPS from each domain: our suggestion is one language objective per lesson, on the domain the lesson actually uses, rotating domains across the week within one subject so all four are covered. The ELPS do not prescribe how many objectives to post, so that stays a planning choice, and if your campus requires an objective for every domain, the card covers that too, one card per domain.
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