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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.
I will never forget the ‘feelings’ I experienced during my EAL teacher training, when I sat in a class with a tutor who entered the room with a basket of goodies and greeted us in Swedish. My immediate reaction was one of confusion, which then led to frustration and finally a sense of hopelessness, before I even realised that I was actually expected to experience learning some Swedish without a single word of English allowed in the classroom.
Have you ever considered to what extent a learner’s English language proficiency level affects their academic success in English-medium school?
English language proficiency is usually measured by learners’ ability to use English effectively in different contexts, i.e. how well they can speak, listen, understand, read and write in English.
Barry and Matthew Carpenter’s ‘Recovery Curriculum’ has many applications for EAL pupils. Their ‘Recovery Curriculum’ was created during the 2021-21 pandemic, over concerns about how learners would cope when back in school. The Carpenters describe how the Recovery Curriculum is built on five levers, “as a systematic, relationships-based approach to reigniting the flame of learning in each child” (Carpenter and Carpenter, 2020).