Providing EAL learners with questions or sentences to match is a good strategy to use. I have used it in a number of ways. For instance, I have used question matching when my learners are reading. An example is in the image below. It shows that learners had to match the beginning of the question to the end. We then read the extract and answered the questions. To support New to English EAL learners I showed them where the question could be answered and which question. I call this margin questions which is a great strategy from Prof. Pauline Gibbons.
Matching sentences is also a good strategy to use with new to English EAL learners. After listening / reading to some content they can match sentence halves from what they have been listening or reading. This scaffold can then be used to get learners to create sentences of their own because it provides them with a model. Learners could possibly use substitution tables, gap fills etc to write their sentences.
I would encourage question or sentence matching as an effective strategy to support EAL learners. The matching of questions or sentences provide good models of language which learners can use as a scaffold to write sentences of their own.
EAL in the Daylight 