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The start of a new school year can be a daunting experience for new EAL arrivals. Some may be devastated to leave their friends, schools and homes. Some may be excited at the experience of a new adventure, but for all arriving with little or no English can be an alienating and exhausting experience. It is important to gain an understanding of how the child feels about the move to enable them to settle well.
One example is a girl who refused to speak English for the first term. She spoke only French to the teacher in the EAL lessons who in turn would give her explanations in French (although it was a group lesson conducted in English). After a term and a half she started to settle, she loved her new friends and school, and spoke only English and made good progress but it was important for her to have that settling in time.
Finding a buddy who speaks the new arrival's home language, preferably in the same year, can be a great help in the beginning as they can relax and express themselves effortlessly in a comfortable language. The amount of concentration needed to follow a school day in a new or less familiar language is draining and exhausting. Both parents and educators are often unaware of the toll this takes on the child.
This footage of two siblings settling in their new school in Russia revealed some surprises for the parents who were under the impression that the younger brother settled in effortlessly as he a did not show any signs of having difficulties.
Tips for starting the year:
Glance over these features of best practice for new arrivals:
“Scaffolding is the process a teacher uses to model or demonstrate how to solve a problem (in the case of language learning, to support learners with using the language needed to articulate themselves). After modelling, they step back, offering support as needed.”
Scott, 2019
Effective teacher-parent collaboration has undoubtedly been found to be beneficial for a child’s wellbeing and academic performance with relevant research recently highlighting two distinct approaches to home-school partnerships associated with specific parent behaviours each (Epstein, 2001). Below we will attempt to shed light on the differences between ‘parent involvement’ and ‘parent engagement’ in an effort to help schools make more informed decisions on what really matters when it comes to promoting successful collaboration with parents.
As a Head of Early Years in an international school following the EYFS and IPC curriculums it has always been important to ensure that the teaching of the English language is done in the classroom without the help of specialist EAL support. Early years teachers are great physical, visual talkers!
One of the key principles of teaching in the Early Years is that bilingualism has an advantage and that as the first language it has a continuing and significant role in identity, learning and the acquisition of additional languages.