Engaging parents in Early Years settings

When striving to engage parents of EAL learners in an Early Years setting, we must be mindful to provide extra sensitivity and inclusivity. As well as potentially struggling with the language barrier, this may also be their own and their child’s first experience of a UK-style school, which may be very different to what they grew up with in their home country. To help parents feel included in their child’s learning, Learning Village provides members with a parent booklet detailing the workings of the programme, translated into over 100 languages.

By being aware of differences in culture, language, and education systems, teachers can support parents of EAL learners to engage with the learning that takes place within the setting. Teachers can communicate with parents - even with a language barrier - by using some of the creative methods suggested in this article.

Begin by fostering relationships

• Arrange a first meeting with parents; you can use the New Arrival EAL template to help you. Ask about any cultural considerations that may be required.
• Learn words from the family’s home language, especially greetings, and share these at pick-up and drop-off. Aim to use a few words with the learner and parent from their home language.
• Provide a key person to support the child and parent(s) so that they know who they can approach if they have any questions.
• If you have several parents from the same cultural background, see if you can arrange to have one key parent contact to support others with notices, interpretation, etc. This can work quite well if the parent forms a ‘WhatsApp’ group or similar.

Provide translations if possible

• For newsletters, notices, and records, use translation software such as Google Translate (be sure to proofread for accuracy).
• Use bilingual staff or interpreters in meetings, arranged by either the parent or the school.
• Use Early Years software such as Seesaw or Tapestry which has the option to translate your messages.

Use visual cues

• Email or use an app such as Seesaw or Tapestry to send visual aids such as videos and photos home, to support communication about school between the child and parent.
• Explain class routines through images and share them with the parents; the child can then talk through each step in their home language, which will support translanguaging.
• Front-load new vocabulary that will be used in class and in activities, offering a translation either using your own photos or via Learning Village’s sentence visualiser. You may include basic, tier-one words here to improve their understanding of everyday language (Downs, 2017).

Invite parents to your setting

• Provide open days, picnics, and similar activities where they can meet other parents. You may want to open this up to several year groups if you know that there are parents from the same country throughout the school. Try to include events which reflect the families’ backgrounds.
• Check your calendar for special events/days that recognise the learners' culture. Celebrate aspects of the day with the class, and invite parents to share a book, food, story, or culturally important objects.

Support inclusivity in the classroom

• Look out for opportunities to celebrate diversity and ensure your resources/toys in the classroom are representative of as many different cultures and backgrounds as possible. Have objects from different cultures readily available for children to play with (such as tea-making equipment), and include a variety of cultural topics in hands-on play (for example, creating foods from different countries using playdough).
• Provide labels and signs in the child’s home language, even if they are not yet reading. They may recognise the ‘shapes’ of their language for scripts. Ask for feedback from parents about what else you could include.
• Provide culturally relevant stories that support understanding of the different cultures within your class and beyond. Be careful of stereotypes and overused texts, and include bilingual books in the reading corner.
• For activities such as morning registration, choose a greeting in the ‘languages’ of the class. You could even have a language week whereby each day the students learn words in the EAL learners’ languages.

Support learners at home

• Provide parent workshops on the curriculum and how best to work with their child. Have regular conversations, via an interpreter or translation software, about their child’s language development.
• Ensure activities sent home do not require a high level of English, or are supported with audio. It is important that there is a ‘bridge’ to the home language when learning English, so the task could be to translate/complete a task in the home language.
• Encourage parents to have conversations in the home language about school, to strengthen the child’s home language skills to help with learning English later.
• Similarly, request that parents read and explore books in their home language.

Support parents' understanding of English

• Don’t be disheartened if parents do not attend all events; they may have other commitments or not yet have the confidence to attend. Perhaps look into whether offering the Community Village programme, either online or in school once per week, would be of interest to the parents to support their language development.

Reference

Downs, Mandy L. (2017). Effects of Front-loading Vocabulary for English as a Second Language Learners. Retrieved from Sophia, the St. Catherine University repository website.