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If you have EAL new arrivals in your school with limited English, you need a scheme of work in English that supports learners with language learning alongside the curriculum content you are delivering. This is to ensure young learners are understanding the basics of language needed for success.
Learning can be split into two parts:
The downloadable scheme of work for providing learners with the survival language they need for later success with academic language. They are split into sessions. Often, it takes a huge amount of time to prepare resources to support learners with the survival language alongside the academic language they need to access the demands of the curriculum.
Many researchers agree that note-taking is an important skill, as it facilitates learning from text (Kobayashi 2006, Rahmani and Sadeghi 2011, Wilson 1999). Siegel (2015) iterates that note-taking benefits second learners, as it provides them with an ‘external record’ which they can use for future tasks and review. Furthermore, Dyer, Riley and Yekovich’s 1997 study confirmed the effectiveness of note-taking in enhancing reading skills.
If Katerina spoke in Russian again in the classroom, the teacher warned her, her name would be put on the board and she would miss out on certain privileges. 'Katerina' - a seven-year-old Russian speaker newly arrived in the UK - was finding it difficult to let go of her mother tongue (also referred to as 'home language', 'first language' or 'L1') in class, to the frustration of her teacher. Her story is the central point of a recent research paper by Olena Gundarina and James Simpson (see References below).
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