Download resource

Please enter your details to download this resource
Login
 

Enter your details to access this video

Or if you already have an account login to watch the video (if you don't you can register here).
Login
Family studying in mother tongue
Author: Caroline Scott, author and director
Download Parent information card
Email share link LinkedIn share link Twitter share link Facebook share link
Approximate reading time: 2 minutes

We are all faced with very different learning situations at the moment and home learning has become the current norm. The challenges it poses are significant. Parents often have limited time available to support learners, limited understanding of where to start, sometimes a lack of technological know-how in accessing online classrooms - or even a lack of access to an online environment altogether. These issues are exacerbated amongst parents with limited understanding of the school language. Whilst some parents are well ahead, their language-learning counterparts are facing the huge task of supporting a child who is learning in a language they aren't confident in speaking themselves.

The importance of the mother tongue

There is a large body of research showing that the use of mother tongue benefits second language development. Learners are more likely to be successful in English (or any language) if they use what they know in their mother tongue to help them with their new language (Cummins, 2000). 

"In the process of learning English, children's primary cultural and linguistic identities should not be submerged, nor should the process of learning a new language and culture be a one-way journey away from family and community."
Gibbons, 2015.

The impact of using mother tongue to discuss learning at home

Working from home provides a wonderful opportunity for parents to support the development of a learner's home language. The chance for learners to discuss learning in their home language provide learners with:

  • additional confidence in their school work, in both languages
  • additional vocabulary in both languages​
  • valuable time spent thinking and working in their home language, using this as a support for articulating themselves in English
  • support in reading in their home language (perhaps on curriculum topics)

​Our Parent Information Card, which gives parents some key questions they can ask in their home language, can be downloaded by clicking on the button below.

References:

Cummins, J (2000) Language, Power and Pedagogy Bilingual Children in the Crossfire.​ Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

​Gibbons, P. (2015) Scaffolding Learning: Teaching Second Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom. Portsmouth: Heinemann.

Download Parent information card
Email share link LinkedIn share link Twitter share link Facebook share link

More articles by this author

Why should we use an EAL learning record?

Created: Fri 8th Jul 2016

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?

Teaching high numbers of EAL learners

Created: Sun 16th Feb 2014

It’s hard to even start to highlight the challenges of teaching EAL students in such a short article but there are a few key areas to consider:

Including learners of all cultures into the classroom environment and the school

Supporting families with fostering cultural identity

Created: Wed 4th Dec 2024

Fostering each learner's cultural identity, what can you suggest to parents? There is more awareness now than ever before on fostering an understanding of migration, refugees, general diversity and mother languages. There is rightly a tremendous sense of pride from parents over their own culture, which is often enhanced due to their distance from home.

Back to Blog