At the beginning of every lesson, Ms. Varney writes a question on the board related to the topic that she is planning to introduce that day. She asks the students to write or talk about the question with a partner before starting the lesson. Throughout the lesson she explicitly links students' past learning and new concepts. Her approach shows knowledge of what strategy commonly used with ELLs?

a. think-aloud strategies
b. GIST building
c. background knowledge
d. pre-teaching