This brief is part of a series that highlights key features of high-quality instruction for English learners and the role formative assessment plays in their success. Formative assessment supports teachers to enact these features by providing them with tools to gauge and react to student learning in real-time. These practices also support students to assess their own learning, enhancing their sense of agency. Overall, the series illustrates how instructional methods and assessment practices work together to improve English learner outcomes. This brief highlights that quality instruction for English learners integrates learning of concepts, analytic practices, and language simultaneously. Quality instruction also intentionally draws attention to how language works to make meaning in the academic discipline through rich, authentic tasks.