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Is it important for young English language learners to read dual language text?
It can be helpful for learners to read texts in both languages. It can provide a quick reference to aid comprehension and fosters an appreciation of the languages. It can be used creatively as a shared reading teaching tool in a bilingual setting. However, it is not a necessary part of learning the language. Often young learners will read one language and ignore the other. Additionally, if the majority language is English, this tends to reduce the desire to read in a minority language. Controversially, English quite frequently becomes the favoured language of choice due to its dominance/status in environments where English is widely used.
This ‘Introduce Me’ activity is a fun and rewarding way to introduce a new topic, while developing language skills.
It’s ideally suited to learners of English, allowing them to hear knowledge presented in different ways, by more than one source, in a non-threatening environment. There’s plenty of opportunity for repetition and rephrasing. This is an adaptable activity to suit any topic where you need to introduce content. This particular example is based on trading goods (see References), but a blank template is provided for you to create your own resource.
In today’s multilingual classrooms, teachers are constantly balancing between helping learners access the curriculum content whilst supporting the development of their English language skills. For those of us who teach EAL learners, the question isn’t what to teach, but how to make the curriculum accessible without diluting its richness and simplifying it too much.
New Year is a time to take stock – and often to think about making changes. One of the most common New Year’s resolutions is to try to eat more healthily. But how do you explain healthy eating to new arrivals who don’t have a firm grasp of English?