Community Village

 

Download resource

Please enter your details to download this resource
Login
Email share link LinkedIn share link Twitter share link Facebook share link

In schools where English is the language of instruction we welcome new arrivals with limited English and, step by step, they become skilled in speaking English. These young learners have a gift, the gift of bilingualism. A skill that has a profound effect on their lives. This skills may affect their identity, the way they are educated, their employment, the friends they keep, marriage, where they choose to live, travel and how they think. The consequences are significant.

However, we often see cases of young learners losing their valuable mother tongue as a result of immersion in a new majority language, in this case, English. It’s very easy to focus so much on the importance of the new, majority language that the mother tongue is lost almost completely in some cases.

It is essential to foster the ongoing development of mother tongue in class and with parents and, where possible, try and ensure learners are immersed in their mother tongue from time to time.

To find out more about bilingualism in general and all kinds of question a teacher or parent may have about the area, have a look at Colin Baker’s book: A Parents’ and Teachers’ guide to Bilingualism. It includes an easy to follow list of questions highly relevant questions. Examples include:

Neither of us speaks a second language. How can we help our child become bilingual?

  • My child mixes two languages. What should I do?
  • Is it better to develop two languages together or one language later than the other?
  • Will my child learn two language only half as well as a monolingual child?
  • I do not speak the language of the school. How can I help my children with their homework?
Email share link LinkedIn share link Twitter share link Facebook share link

Further learning - Blog

ABC International School using the Learning Village

Created: Mon 6th Nov 2017

Academia Británica Cuscatleca (ABC) in El Salvador joined the Learning Village in April 2015.  However, they weren't fully active across Upper Primary until Communication Across Cultures came to their school in February this year to give an inset on EAL. 

Since then, they have used the Learning Village to support learners with accessing some of the basics of English as well as the curriculum content needed to help them to be successful in their lessons.

EAL Parent Helping Child Read

Involving EAL parents with children's education

Created: Mon 13th Mar 2023

Parental involvement in children’s education can take many forms and can be experienced differently by each parent. The benefits and advantages of parental involvement are unquestionable. 

Plan successfully for EAL learners

Created: Thu 5th Jun 2014

Everyone is talking about differentiation for EAL in whole class teaching, but how do we actually approach it consistently and effectively?

At Across Cultures we have been developing some systematic ways of approaching this in a structured, yet flexible format. In the downloadable plan you'll see a framework to support EAL teachers with planning for content learning alongside language learning. The plan is based about the theme of sea pollution and provides a writing frame for a persuasive text.

This lesson follow a particular format:

Show more