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ESL vs ELL: What’s the Difference? (And Which One You Teach)
ELL is the student. ESL is the program. An English Language Learner is a person. English as a Second Language is the instruction that person gets. That’s the whole difference.
The confusion comes from schools using ESL for both, for about forty years, and then quietly changing what they say. If you teach online and a parent tells you their child is “in ELL,” they’re telling you about a label their school has given, not about a method.
This post was rewritten in September 2026. An earlier version of it had the ESL acronym wrong, which is a bad look on a page about acronyms, so we fixed it and checked the rest.
ESL vs ELL at a glance
| ESL | ELL | |
|---|---|---|
| What it labels | The program, class or method | The student |
| Stands for | English as a Second Language | English Language Learner |
| Used about | A course, a curriculum, a teaching job | A person, usually one enrolled in school |
| Where you hear it | Private tutoring, language schools, adult courses, TEFL job ads | US school districts and their paperwork |
| Still current? | Yes, in tutoring and the wider industry | Being replaced by English learner and multilingual learner |
Read the table down the middle column and you get the practical version. You teach ESL. Your student is an ELL. Nobody has ever been “an ESL,” and no school runs “an ELL class,” though plenty of people say both.
What each acronym actually stands for
Seven of these turn up in tutoring, and they’re not interchangeable.
- ESL, English as a Second Language. Teaching English to someone living where English is spoken. The term for the program, not the person.
- EFL, English as a Foreign Language. Teaching English to someone living where it isn’t. A student in Seoul or São Paulo is an EFL student, and most online tutoring is EFL even when everyone calls it ESL.
- ELL, English Language Learner. The student. Standard in US schools from the 1990s onward.
- EL, English Learner. The same student, one word shorter. This is the term in US federal law since 2015.
- ESOL, English for Speakers of Other Languages. The usual term in the UK, and used in some US states. Covers people who already speak two or three languages, where “second” would be wrong.
- MLL or ML, Multilingual Learner. The newer term, adopted by a growing number of US states. It counts the languages a student has rather than the one they’re missing.
- LEP, Limited English Proficient. The old US federal term. You’ll still see it on forms. It’s been replaced and it reads badly now.
For teaching qualifications the letters shuffle again. TEFL, TESL and TESOL are certificates to teach, not labels for students.
Why US schools stopped saying ESL
Two reasons, and one of them is law.
The Every Student Succeeds Act, passed in 2015, replaced “limited English proficient” with “English learner” in federal education law. That single change pushed the wording across every state that reports to it, which is all of them.
The second reason is arithmetic. “Second language” is inaccurate for a student who already speaks two or three. A child arriving in a US classroom speaking Quechua and Spanish is not learning a second language, she’s learning a third. That’s the thinking behind ESOL, and behind the move to multilingual learner.
Tutoring didn’t follow. Search for teaching work and the job ads still say ESL, because the industry outside US K-12 never had a reason to change. So both vocabularies are live at once, in different rooms.
The distinction that matters more for online tutors
Not ESL versus ELL. ESL versus EFL.
An ESL student goes home and English is still there. On the bus, in the shop, in the group chat. They get hours of unplanned practice a week and your job is partly to organize input they’re already swimming in.
An EFL student closes the laptop and English stops. Your class might be the only English they hear that week. That changes what a lesson has to do. More production inside the class, because there’s nowhere else to produce. More review, because forgetting between sessions is the default. And homework that puts English into their actual day, which is why “find one English sign or menu near you and send me a photo” beats a worksheet.
Most online tutoring is EFL wearing an ESL name tag. Worth knowing which one you’re actually doing, because it decides how much of the work has to happen while you’re watching.
Other terms you’ll meet
These come up in school reports, and a parent may quote one at you without explaining it.
- BICS, Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills. The English you use to chat, joke and get by. Jim Cummins’ term. It usually arrives within a couple of years.
- CALP, Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency. The English you need to write an essay or follow a science lesson. Cummins again, and the one that takes five years or more.
- The gap between them is the single most useful idea on this page. A student who sounds completely fluent in conversation can still be lost in a textbook, and teachers who only hear the BICS assume the work is done.
- Newcomer. A student who has recently arrived in the country, usually inside their first year. Often has its own program.
- Push-in and pull-out. Whether language support comes to the student in their regular class, or the student leaves the room for it.
- Sheltered instruction. Subject teaching adapted so the language isn’t the barrier. The content stays at grade level, the wording around it doesn’t.
- Dual language or two-way immersion. A program teaching content in two languages on purpose, aiming for fluency in both rather than a handover to English.
What to call your student
Their name. That’s not a dodge, it’s the answer for the classroom.
For anything in writing, three rules cover it. Match whatever the parent or their school already uses, because arguing terminology with a parent wins you nothing. Put the person first if you need a label in a report, so “students learning English” rather than “ELLs.” And if you’re writing a profile for a marketplace, use ESL, because that’s the word the people searching for you are typing.
None of these terms is offensive. LEP is the only one that’s been formally retired, and even that turns up on forms that nobody has updated since 2014.
ESL vs ELL: frequently asked questions
What is the difference between ESL and ELL?
ESL, English as a Second Language, names the program or the teaching method. ELL, English Language Learner, names the student receiving it. One is a class, the other is a person.
Is an ESL teacher the same as an ELL teacher?
In practice, usually yes, and the job title follows the employer. A US school district is more likely to advertise for an ELL or EL teacher. A language school, an online platform or a private client will say ESL. The work overlaps almost entirely.
Is ELL a form of special education?
No, and it matters that it isn’t. Language support and special education are separate services under separate law in the US. A student can be identified for both, but being an English learner is not a disability and doesn’t put a child in special education.
Which is better, ESL or ELL?
Neither, because they’re not alternatives. It’s like asking whether a patient is better than a clinic. If the real question is which term to use in your own writing, use ESL for programs and courses, and name the student as a student.
What is ESL called in the UK?
ESOL, English for Speakers of Other Languages. It’s the standard term across UK further education and adult learning, and you’ll see it on qualifications and funding paperwork.
What’s the difference between ESL and EFL?
Where the student lives. ESL is learning English in a country where English is spoken around you. EFL is learning it where it isn’t. Most online tutoring is EFL, whatever the listing calls it.
Why did schools change from ESL to ELL to EL?
Federal law drove the last step. The Every Student Succeeds Act replaced “limited English proficient” with “English learner” in 2015. The earlier shift from ESL to ELL moved the label from the program onto the student, and the current move toward “multilingual learner” counts the languages a student already has instead of the one they’re learning.
What does ELL stand for in education?
English Language Learner. In a US school it’s a formal designation, assigned after a home language survey and a proficiency test, and it comes with services and annual assessment attached. It isn’t a casual description.
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