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Most schools with early stage learners of English will have some form of guided reading record. This record supports the learner, parents and the teacher in acknowledging, monitoring progress and rewarding good reading habits. We do this because we know the profound influence reading has on progress in literacy (not just reading alone. Try reading Krashen, the Power of Reading, 2004).
However, have you considered the impact of a similar record for learning EAL through the use of flashcard activities?
Research evidence supporting the strategic use of flashcards to learn vocabulary and language structures alongside a communicative approach to language learning is strong.
Nation and Waring point out:
“There is a very large number of studies showing the effectiveness of such learning in terms of amount and speed of learning. See Nation (1982), Paivio and Desrochers (1981) and Pressley et al (1982) for a review of these studies.
Research on learning from context shows that such learning does occur, but that it requires learners to engage in large amounts of reading and listening because the learning is small and cumulative (Nagy, Herman, and Anderson 1985; Nagy, (1997). This should not be seen as an argument that learning from context is not worthwhile. It is by far the most important vocabulary-learning programme. For fast vocabulary expansion, however, it is not sufficient by itself. There is no research that shows that learning from context provides better results than learning from word cards (Nation, 1982).”
Why not track the strategic use of flashcards in the same way we track reading? To download your EAL learning record to track the strategic use of flashcards: Click here!
At Communication Across Cultures we produce flashcards (click here) for all lessons on the Learning Village as well as special numbered cards to reduce the need to print every subject! Strategic use of flashcards are also integral Teaching English as an Additional Language 5-11: A Whole School Resource. Most schools do have a bank of such cards available and there is no reason why learners can’t make their own!
References:
Nation, P & Waring, R (1997) Vocabulary size, text coverage and word lists in Schmitt & McCarthy (1997) Vocabulary, Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy, Cambridge
Krashen, S (2004) The Power of Reading, Insights from the Research, Heinemann, Porstmouth
The term 21st Century skills is becoming significantly part of the classroom learning environment, but what exactly does that mean? There are a few definitions, however, in essence, these are the skills that our learners need to prepare them for their future (Puchta & Williams, 2014), taking them from their studies, to their futures as adults.
Many researchers today acknowledge the 4C’s. They are known as:
Learners with speech and language difficulties may find it difficult to use the correct tense or find it hard to understand the concepts of time.
Tip or Idea: Take 5 minutes to chat together at the end of a busy day or lesson. Talk about what you did, what you enjoyed or what made you laugh. This gives learners the opportunity to practise using the past tense and maybe time and order words too like first, next and then.
What tools are there if you have a sixth sense that something is not quite right?
At what point does a teacher start to question whether an EAL student’s lack of progress is due to English Language Development (ELD) issues or due to specific learning differences (SpLD).
These questions come up again and again. Learning English as an Additional Language is not a learning difficulty, however 20% of EAL students will follow the norm of having specific learning differences (Chapter 1, SFR24/2012, GovUK). Therefore, there is a possibility that an EAL student has SpLDs.