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The person that I was before I started listening to podcasts pales in comparison to the person I am today. I have laughed, cried, changed my mind, picked up new habits, adopted new behaviors, started businesses, learned to forgive, and stopped to catch my breath - all while listening to podcasts.

I want you to have the same life-altering experience! This podcast will give you greater access to the content of my blog in a convenient, travel-friendly way.

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This is a podcast for teachers passionate about language learners. I interview leading academic, sought-after consultants, and inspiring teachers like you.

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The Garden Pod is a podcast of unscripted conversations about learning, leadership and all things education. It is recorded at Garden International School in Kuala Lumpur, one of the leading international schools in South East Asia. More information about Garden International School can be found at www.gardenschool.edu.my.

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The Headteacher Update Podcast offers practical and useful advise, ideas and insights to support the work of primary school senior and middle leaders. Out on the first Wednesday of every month, each episode features a panel of school leaders discussing best practice relevant to the primary phase.

Listen to our latest episodes via your streaming service or by clicking below.

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The Headteacher Update Podcast offers practical and useful advise, ideas and insights to support the work of primary school senior and middle leaders. Out on the first Wednesday of every month, each episode features a panel of school leaders discussing best practice relevant to the primary phase.

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TESOL Pop: The Mini Podcast for Busy English Language Teachers

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Bite-sized interviews with fellow educators on teaching, careers, and trends in English Language Teaching that you can fit into your coffee break.

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In this episode we talk to Yoshito Darmon-Shimamori about his new book 'In Search of the Lost Words' which is aimed at multilingual teens. We talk about how we can support multilingual teens at home and in the classroom.

Who is Yoshito Darmon-Shimamori? Yoshito is half-French and half-Japanese, and was raised bilingually and bi-culturally in France. He is now a French and Spanish teacher in a secondary school in England, and is raising his two sons to be multilingual, multicultural, and multi-literate.

Growing up, he happily endorsed, and has always felt empowered by his role of " bridge" between the French and Japanese cultures. Helping others communicate and understand each other despite their cultural differences naturally became a passion!

Becoming a dad made him reflect on the values he wanted to pass on to his sons. And more importantly he started thinking about how he could help them be(come) happy, fulfilled, and accomplished individuals.

The answer he found was: "Knowing who you are and being proud of it". For a bi/multilingual child, part of this identity is found in the languages they master. Being able to speak a language can help them connect with people, and to feel part of a culture / community. And knowing how to read and write in that language adds a layer of independence.

As a teenager, not being able to read as easily in Japanese as he could in French, he would see the gap between his command of both his languages grow even bigger. Therefore, with his sons, it has always been a big priority to gift them with the ability to read and write in all their languages.

As he started his Instagram account (@multilingual_dad) to document his multilingual parenting journey, he realised quickly that his expertise in teaching languages could benefit many families. It was also apparent very quickly that the way information is stored on social media, was only helpful up to a certain level.

This is how he came to writing The Parents' Guide to Raising Multi-literate Children and creating this website: https://www.library4multilinguals.com/about-the-library-4-multilinguals

If you would like to sign up to Twinkl EAL please follow this link: https://www.twinkl.co.uk/l/72uh3

You can download our FREE EAL Membership Guide here: https://www.twinkl.co.uk/l/1gldlo

All of our Twinkl EAL resources can be found by clicking here: https://www.twinkl.co.uk/l/1gx63t

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Talking their language with Helen Bodell

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Talking their language is an educational podcast aiming to celebrate multilingualism in the classroom. We speak to educators and experts to give you - the listeners - support, advice, guidance and an insight into teaching EAL learners and empower you to celebrate cultural diversity and languages in the classroom.

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Missed a Teacher Talk Radio live show? Have no fear! You can listen back to the live shows as a podcast here.

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Join the Tes News team as we discuss the big stories and trends from the past week in education - including on-the-ground reporting from the Conservative Party conference

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Intervention Groups: Supporting Primary EAL Learners Beyond the Classroom

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Intervention Groups: Supporting Secondary EAL Learners Beyond the Classroom

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FOBISIA offers a range of engaging webinars to its members including Sports Club Socials, Member School Webinars, and Affiliate Webinar Series. FOBISIA WEBINARS

Through these webinars we aim to provide a platform to open up conversations with our membership on both social and academic topics. There is no cost in participating for our webinars.

Our webinar programme promises a rich variety of content from Affiliate Members and Member Schools. Keep an eye on this page or click on the bell icon below to subscribe to updates in our webinar calendar.

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A weekly ELL blog examining strategies for visible reading, lesson design, best practices and teacher collaboration. Strategies for language & content.

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A community blog focused on educational excellence and equity

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The NALDIC Blog is back with exciting work on EAL policy, practice and research!

It is NALDIC's mission to support and advocate for the community of EAL learners and practitioners, and through the blog we will continue to share ideas and resources (for free!) taking a stand on the issues that face us all and showcasing the fantastic work that EAL practitioners and young people do every day. Half-termly, we will post blog articles from researchers, students and practitioners who will bring practical advice and share their experience of teaching, learning about teaching and/or researching EAL and multilingualism more broadly. In line with the theme of the 30th Anniversary conference (November 2022), the new series of the NALDIC Blog aims at broadening the conversation on EAL, multilingualism and language education by including perspectives and experiences from other language education-related contexts and sectors.
NALDIC's EAL blog is produced by the NALDIC publications team | publications@naldic.org.uk.

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The NALDIC Blog is back with exciting work on EAL policy, practice and research! It... Read more → The NALDIC Blog is back with exciting work on EAL policy, practice and research! It is NALDIC's mission to support and advocate for the community of EAL learners and practitioners, and through the blog we will continue to share ideas and resources (for free!)

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Top 10 Blogs and Guidance for EAL Teachers This Summer

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In this blog, we provide an overview of The Bell Foundation's most popular EAL blogs and guidance to add to your summer reading list.

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TEFL tips and ideas from a developing teacher

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Content and language objectives are often recommended as a learning strategy for MLLs but are excellent for all students. Additionally, they are helpful for teachers to make their lessons specific.
General Tips:

Display in the same place every lesson

Review at beginning and end of learning time

Use academic vocabulary and annotate

Make age-appropriate

Be inclusive (all students can do)

Be specific. Use verbs that are action-oriented, observable, and assessable.

Avoid general verbs like "review, practice, learn, understand"

Content Objectives

use content and curricular competency learning standards

use verbs related to the content area

Language Objectives

use verbs related to communication (reading, writing, oral language)

use the language needed to achieve the content objective

Example
Curricular competency learning standard from English Language Arts 5: Identify how differences in context, perspectives, and voice influence meaning in texts.

Content Objective: We will identify the protagonist's description of the party in Chapter 6 and predict how the other characters may have described it.

Language Objective: We will identify the adjectives used in the passages and isolate ones related to emotion. We will list the possible emotions of other characters. We will rewrite the passage from another character's perspective in small groups.

Content Objective Verbs

Language Objective Verbs

Compare

Contrast

Apply

Rank

Design

Measure

Solve

Discover

Research

Compute

Search

Acquire

Arrange

Choose

Collect

Draw

Answer

Tell

Identify

Name

Discuss

Rephrase

Ask

Predict

Preview

Find

List

Summarize

Create

State

Justify

Define

Describe

Explain

Write

Journal

Log

Bring your questions and queries to in-person meetings to work on using MyEd with ELL.

Location: Room 8, Canada Way Education Centre

Time: 3:30-5:00pm

Dates: September 20, 2022 (This meeting will be located in Portable 26 at Brentwood Park Elementary)

November 17, 2022

January 12, 2023

February 16, 2023

March 28, 2023

May 16, 2023

Sign up here: https://forms.office.com/r/59M8nV25BU

Practical ideas that you can incorporate immediately into your practice. Open for K-12 teachers of all subjects.

Location: Room 8, Canada Way Education Centre

Time: 3:30-5:00pm

Dates: October 18, 2022

December 13, 2022

February 7, 2023

April 4, 2023

Sign up here: https://forms.office.com/r/2pdv5HzbTf

In our second year, we have set a goal to improve parent engagement of ELLs in our schools, communities, and district.

New members will receive a copy of Culturally Responsive Teaching for MLLs by Snyder and Fenner. Open to K-12 teachers of all subjects.

Location: Online TEAMS Meeting

Time: 3:30-5:00pm

Dates: October 4, 2022

December 6, 2022

February 1, 2023

May 9, 2023

Sign up here: https://forms.office.com/r/pmTth6ye0k

Welcome back to the start of the 22-23 school year!

We are thrilled to have you with us as a teacher, parent, or student.
Starting the Year Right
We are all learning many new names at this time of year. Take the time to learn our to pronounce people's names correctly. Begin by asking them to say their name, listen carefully and repeat it until you know it. Teachers, model the correct pronunciation until all students can say the name correctly.

Below is a great series of infographics to share with others about some dos and do nots of pronouncing names.

For teachers, here are some activities around names that you may find useful.

an acrostic poem of their name

an artistic presentation of their name
What's in a Name? Project What's in a Name Template
Name Story

Reminders

3:15pm May 10, 2022- Picture Book Inquiry Group on TEAMS

3:15 pm May 12, 2022-SIOP Lead Meeting on TEAMS

3:00-5:00 May 16, 2022-in-person MyEd Refresher-Room 311 at the School Board Office

3:15pm May 30, 2022-Equity for ELLs on TEAMs

Ideas

May is the 20th anniversary of Canada celebrating Asian History Month. Danielle Stokes shared these great resources from the National Film Board that highlight the Chinese-Canadian Experience. Please remember to preview everything before sharing with students.

The Chinese-Canadian Experience (Ages 6+) https://www.nfb.ca/playlist/chinese-canadian-experience-ages-6/?utm_campaign=730222_NFB_Education_-_2022-05-06_-_Asian_Heritage_Month&utm_medium=email&utm_source=NFB+Education-All_Users

The Chinese-Canadian Experience (Ages 14+) https://www.nfb.ca/playlist/chinese-canadian-experience/?utm_campaign=730222_NFB_Education_-_2022-05-06_-_Asian_Heritage_Month&utm_medium=email&utm_source=NFB+Education-All_Users

A Taste of SIOP

Interaction

Who speaks more in a classroom: a teacher or the students? Who gets the most benefit out of speaking?

To increase student engagement as well as student interaction, Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP Model (5th Edition) (SIOP Series) , Echevarria, Vogt, and Short recommend four things teachers can do to better structure student interactions:

Provide frequent opportunities for interaction and discussion between teachers and student and among students, which encourage elaborated responses about lesson concepts.

Arrange grouping configurations that support language and content objectives of the lesson

Afford sufficient wait time for student responses consistently provided

Present ample opportunities for students to clarify key concepts in home language as needed with aide, peer, or home-language text

Reminders

April 11, 2022 at 3:15- Equity for ELLs-See TEAMS Invite

April 12, 2022 at 3:15- SIOP Lead Meeting-See TEAMS invite.

May 5, 2022 at 1pm- ELL Elementary Meeting-See email

Ideas

Tas and the Gilmore school community are exploring books around Ramadan. One book is Love Ramadan We are doing the books about Hassan and Aneesa,

Here's a Youtube link for the first book "Love Ramadan" by Yasmeen Rahim and illustrated by Omar Burgess (Read aloud: https://youtu.be/lDby8qaOPJU The story's main characters Hassan and Aneesa, siblings learn about Ramadan. The book is a good step to discussing acts of kindness students can do. Some teachers are also doing Ramadan Art (lanterns or Islamic shapes).

The next lesson they will do is "Hassan and Aneesa Celebrate Eid." (Read aloud: https://youtu.be/Y1txbejRA7Q)

Bite Sized Pro-D

Tan Huyhn recently wrote an article Changing the Narrative around Immigrant Families for the Middleweb blog. He talks about his own mom and how she might be perceived by educators. However, they would be wrong. Take five minutes to read this article challenging the stereotypes that still persist of our parental communities.

Resources:

The Vancouver Island Counselling Centre for Immigrants and Refugees (VICCIR) goal is to provide mental health counselling to immigrants and refugees. They offer their services on a sliding fee scale and have trained interpreters as required. Since the pandemic, they have moved to almost entirely online and offer support through out BC. Check out their website here: https://www.viccir.org/

We hope you all had time for rest and respite during this Spring Break. We are in the home stretch of this year!

Reminders

March 29, 2022 at 3:15- Picture Book Inquiry Group-See TEAMS Invite.

April 11, 2022 at 3:15- Equity for ELLs-See TEAMS Invite

April 12, 2022 at 3:15- SIOP Lead Meeting-See TEAMS invite.

Ideas

During annual assessments, we may hear students bemoaning that they are receiving ELL support. It is a good time to remind them of the power of being multi-lingual. Valentina Gonzalez ( https://www.valentinaesl.com/) has an excellent poster highlighting some of the advantages.

Comprehensible input is one of the 8 features of the SIOP model. Making content accessible to all students can be challenging and we have a variety of strategies that teachers use. One aspect to remember is to give students multiple opportunities to use the skill they are learning on different topics. Instead of focusing on several graphic organizers, try just using one, for example. The goal of using that one organizer is for students to be able to do it independently with confidence.

Reminders

Equity for ELLs-on TEAMS on February 28, 2002 at 3:15pm

MyEd AIP Mentor Training at DRLC on March 1, 12:30pm

Picture Book Inquiry Group-on Teams on March 1, 2022 at 3:15pm

MyED Training Sessions on March 7-10 9-11:30am. Please see TEAMS for details and links.

Student Spotlight

Batu San (12) and Raha Fani Pakel (11) were studying the novel Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman in the Expanding English Strategies class at Burnaby North Secondary. On their final project, their teacher, Ms. Stokes, asked them to reflect on their learning from the book. Batu identified how the author uses indirect characterization effectively and Raha made connections between herself and the situations the characters are in. Both demonstrated powerful critical thinking skills!

Seedfolks is available as a 20 copy set from the DRLC.

Teaching Ideas

Did you know that BookCreator is an app from Microsoft Office O365? BookCreator is an excellent tool for digital storytelling. You can choose templates like picture book or comic book. You can write texts of all lengths and languages. You can also add images for engagement and visual supports and even record someone reading the book for audio support. You can find this amazing program under your apps on Office 0365.

Resources

Linda Peteherych, LINC instructor and Literacy Lead, created this beautiful poster for helping MLLs with letter-sounds. A black and white version as well as different sizes are available on Teams as PDFs. Thank you Linda for sharing with our community!

A Taste of SIOP

Vocabulary Development:

When planning your own lessons or supporting a colleague, consider focusing on only 3-5 Tier 3 vocabulary words at one time. Choose the words that have the most impact on the topic. By focusing on only a few at a time, it allows students to deepen their understanding of the words and makes it more likely that they will retain the words.

Some strategies that can help with this include the use of images or diagrams, providing non-examples and using the word across multiple contexts.

We acknowledge the challenges happening for you right now. Please reach out if we can help in any way.
Reminders:
January 18, 3:15: SIOP Lead (secondary) meeting on Teams

January 20, 3:15pm: Equity for ELLs on Teams

January 25, 3:15 pm: Picture Book Inquiry Group on Teams
Teaching Ideas:
Quizlet is a vocabulary website. You can make vocabulary lists, add definitions, and add pictures. Furthermore, you can make the lists in multiple languages or teach your students to do it. Finally, the website has audio capabilities so students can hear the correct pronunciation of the word and definition. If you make a class (either as co-teacher of a unit or small group) you can track students' progress. There are a number of activities that students can do independently as well.

Kahoot is another game-education site. You can make questions in multiple forms and kids can do together or independently.

Wordwall is another site that allows teachers to make worksheets into video games. The free version allows five games at a time.

Additionally, please check out the One note on ELL Teams for virtual resources that was collaboratively made by ELL teachers in 2020.
DRLC Spotlight
The District Resource Library Catalogue has many resources including those for MLLs. Recently DRLC Librarian Carol Lynka shared some great books on the environment for intermediate beginning ELs. They have strong academic vocabulary and visual scaffolds. Furthermore, the writing is age and level appropriate. You can order them to your school through your library catalogue. Two examples are pictured below.

December 2-BAA Work Group-English Strategies for Social Studies

December 9-Elementary ELL in-service Meeting

December 9-Equity for ELLs Meeting #3

Animated Shorts are a great activity for students because they tell a story that is accessible to most learners. I've used them to teach K-12 and students always find them engaging. Some of the activities you could do is a story map, act out, tableau, or summary. AI've created a playlist on YouTube. Some of my favorites are Hair Love, Feast, and One Small Step. Email Michelle if you would like a set of graphic organizers to go along with some of the videos. The playlist can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYtxV-SNUxZA7W_EjT3NDoU4TQJ88lr5h

Another great idea comes from Sachiko Omoto at Inman Elementary. JAL Foundation is running the 17th World Children's Haiku Contest. Poetry can be a great way to teach syllables, imagery without as much concern for grammatical structures. Deadlines for submissions is in February 2022. Information is at: http://www.jal-foundation.or.jp/en/haiku/contest2022/

Last year at Brentwood Park Elementary, ELL teacher Tas Ismail was using some of the lessons we created for the students studying from home ( ELL Teams). She brainstormed wit h her students different holidays and they noticed that there weren't books in their library for all the holidays they celebrated. The students asked Tas if they could make their own. Students were given the option to write in English or their heritage language and some students did both with help from their families. Student books are a great way to validate student voice, identity, and language as well as engaging for new writers.

Providing Age Appropriate and Educational Background for Students

While ELL students may not have the academic language to complete grade appropriate work, they often do have the academic knowledge in their home language. Students with interrupted schooling often have life experience that may give them background knowledge of content way beyond their years. Therefore, while we need to adapt the English language, we don't change the content of the learning. Assignments where all students can access higher order thinking, despite English level is necessary.

When planning consider:

· Student's first language literacy skills

· Student's second language literacy proficiency

· Student's reading level

· Cultural and age appropriateness of the information

· Reading level of the content material

Then, you can make adaptations such as:

· Mini-lessons to provide background knowledge that is missing

· Texts adapted to teach high level content at low readability levels

· Mini-lessons to teach important vocabulary

· heritage language texts

Reminders:

File Reviews-please check when your school's is scheduled

Equity for ELLs #2: November 18th

Reading Recommendations:

Thank you to Danielle Stokes at Burnaby North for sharing this article about the necessity of having students actively use the vocabulary they are learning. It is great for sharing out with colleagues as well: https://seidlitzblog.org/2021/11/05/active-and-passive-vocabulary-what-can-teachers-do/

ELL Ideas

Do you have a die? Then you have all the tools for a fun, engaging review activity for a whole class or a small group. On the board, write 1-6 and then next to it, whatever concept you are reviewing.
Academic Vocabulary Relating to Math?
1-add

2-sum

3-divide

4. multiply

5-subtract

6-Pass to another student
Question forms?
1-Who

2-What

3-When

4-Where

5-Is/Are

6-Do/Does
Natural Disaster?
1-earthquakes

2-tornadoes

3-hurricanes

4-forest fires

5-tsunamis

6-student choice

There is no end to the alterations you can do. You can have students in groups, partners, or solo. They can speak, or read or write.

SIOP Tips

Another great way for all teachers to support students is to write content AND language objectives and read them together every class. They can be written for units, or individual lessons and are an effective way to utilize the Tier II vocabulary we talked about last week. They also give students a clear idea of the purpose and goal of their learning.

After teachers decide what they are going to teach, they can consider just two questions:

"1. What language will students need to know and use to accomplish this content objectives?

2. How can I move my students' English language knowledge forward in this lesson?" (Echevarría, Jana, et al. Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners : The SIOP Model. Boston, Pearson, 2017.)

Teachers can consider academic vocabulary, language skills and functions, language structures or grammar, or language learning strategies.

Then, post it somewhere visible to all students: We will (content objective) by (language objective).

Examples:
We will identify the character's personality by retelling the actions she takes in the story. We will determine characteristics of different igneous and sedimentary rocks by writing comparative sentences. We will identify specific landforms on a map of Canada by presenting an oral report about one landform and its influence on economic development. https://www.shelteredlanguageresources.com/blog/language-objectives

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Content and language objectives are often recommended as a learning strategy for MLLs but are excellent for all students. Additionally, they are helpful for teachers to make their lessons specific. General Tips: Display in the same place every lesson Review at beginning and end of learning time Use academic vocabulary and annotate Make age-appropriate Be inclusive (all students can do) Be specific.

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Blog: EAL Children and the Early Years Sector - The Best Start?

In this blog, Professor Claudine Bowyer-Crane and Dr Silke Fricke look at the achievement gap for EAL pupils in early years, exploring the reality behind the misleading data and what this means for policy.

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The Bell Foundation - Changing lives and overcoming exclusion through language education

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The Bell Foundation is a charity which aims to overcome exclusion through language education by working with partners on innovation, research, training and practical interventions.

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The Development Matters guidance is supporting schools to implement September's ...

The revised Development Matters non-statutory guidance has been produced to ...

How will you ensure that Pupil Premium and other vulnerable pupils get the ...

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The Development Matters guidance is supporting schools to implement September's ... The revised Development Matters non-statutory guidance has been produced to ... How will you ensure that Pupil Premium and other vulnerable pupils get the ...

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Your No.1 EAL blog resource for teaching tips and ideas to help you support your MFL, ESOL and EAL learners.

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Substitution tables are an effective tool for scaffolding EAL (English as an Additional Language) learners. Substitution tables are a visual tool that helps students to understand the structure and patterns of language. They are particularly useful for teaching...

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Teacher Guidance for EAL and New-to-English Learners

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Free Advice, Guidance and Downloads for EAL English as an Additional Language Learners | Learning Village - Blended EAL vocabulary, language structure and reading programme for new to English and low level literacy learners

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The Top 5 Things to Think About When Approaching EAL

Continue reading "The EAL Made Easy Approach"

L Tarantini-Amor

Oy vey! Where do I begin? I'm a born and bred New Yorker transplanted to small-town Essex. I became a teacher by accident. I stayed out of stubborn determination. I succeeded because I used my painful journey of being a foreigner to help kids who were or felt different.

Continue reading "And you're writing a blog because....."

Like many of us, I am home isolated with my family. While keeping safe, well and intensely appreciative of our key workers is top priority, this is also an opportunity to review my library of resources and refresh my knowledge. I have gathered together basic and advanced reads to help you come out of this a better professional. You will find the Amazon links on this page.

Disclaimer: I am an Amazon Associate so I may get a few pennies if you decide to get one of these books through the links included here. Rest assured that these books represent the best I've read and fundamentally changed, informed or helped my practice as an EAL /Languages professional. I believe the authors should be promoted for their outstanding and seminal works.

Enjoy!

Continue reading "Isolation Reads: EAL Theory and Practice"

My Masters Dissertation - A short plain-language summary of my findings

Please feel free to access my full MA dissertation and bibliography. See the download button at the end of this article.

Why I did this study

Heading a Speech and Language Resource Base at a large, multilingual London school, I noticed the high number of EAL children who were on the NHS caseload for Speech and Language Impairment (SLI). Looking through case notes, I noticed the lack of contextualised background gathered on those pupils. I felt an investigation into the methods used to diagnose and norm would be useful to my setting.

I asked, what role should the L1 play in the assessment of SLI in bilingual children? What problems can arise when assessing SLI in the absence of complete ethno-linguistic information about the L1 use of the bilingual child and family?

Continue reading "Differences versus Disorders: A Case Study of Speech and Language Impaired Bilingual Students"

Your job is not to diagnose, but it is to flag up problems. Of course, knowing what is a problem is more difficult with a pupil learning English as an Additional Language. Here is a brief overview of considerations when suspecting Speech and Language Needs in an EAL pupil.

Continue reading "Delay versus Divergence: EAL & Speech and Language Needs"

There are a multitude of bilingual resources out there from translated welcome packs and English-language learning lessons to assessment criteria. What do you need? More importantly, where do you find it?

Continue reading "Top 25 EAL Resource Sites - EAL Made Easy's Best Picks"

Student E and the Mystery of Semilingualism

Student E was present during my first interview lesson when I wanted to work in London schools. He had his head on the desk, in the small, hot EAL classroom and seemed generally unwell. I remember stopping the lesson and saying, 'I might not get the job, but something is not right with this child. Should he go to medical?' Perhaps it was prophetic. I did get the job, but something wasn't right with this student.

Continue reading "Practical Case Studies Series #2 - SEN or Semilingual EAL?"
Main Principles
What are the three most important principles in context-embedded planning for EAL pupils across curriculum subjects?

Continue reading "What is context-embedded planning? EAL and Germination"

Student N: The slow processor?

Student N was a casual admission, i.e., mid-year, and came to our secondary school directly into Year 9. She seemed happy, socially confident and willing to learn, but was extremely slow to acquire English. In the group of students who were all new admissions, she was making the slowest progress out of all of them.

Continue reading "Practical Case Study Series #1 - SEN or EAL?"

Oral work before written work - always! It is in oral work that language is tried, tested and acquired. Students should always work in pairs or groups for building complex answers. Read on for 15 more strategies!
Continue reading "Top 16 General Strategies for Working with Bilingual Learners"

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The Top 5 Things to Think About When Approaching EAL Continue reading "The EAL Made Easy Approach" Oy vey! Where do I begin? I'm a born and bred New Yorker transplanted to small-town Essex. I became a teacher by accident. I stayed out of stubborn determination.

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To help you reflect on your own knowledge and confidence, and for us to monitor the effectiveness of this module, please fill in this short survey. You only need to do this once.
Introduction
Bilingualism is the term used for when a person functions in more than one language in their daily lives. They have access to more than one language at home and at school. However, it does not mean that they are equal in terms of a specified level of fluency in two or more languages. In the last census (2011), it showed that around 5% of the population in Scotland over the age of three spoke another language other than English in the home. Scottish Government's Pupil Census data for 2016 shows that there were over 39,000 pupils in school with English as an additional language. In 2017, this figure has increased to over 41,000 which equates to 6% of the total number of pupils in Scotland. You can find the most up to date information at this link:
http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/dspupcensus
Bilingual learners come from a range of backgrounds. Developing more than one language is not considered to be detrimental to a child's language learning. This is a common misconception. The first language that the child learns is the best foundation for learning additional languages.

Having more than one language has cognitive benefits which can impact on the achievement and attainment of bilingual learners. They have greater awareness of how language operates which can help with literacy skills, decoding and learning other languages. They have an awareness of the importance of context and audience in language use.
Activity 1:
Read the first section of "Learning in 2+ Languages" for more background on bilingualism and the range of benefits.
modlang5-learning-in-two-plus-languages
It is important to recognise the benefit and value of the home language - the language that is mostly used in the home. A person's competence in English does not reflect overall academic competence. Support to develop language for academic purposes needs to be planned.
Activity 2:
Read this extract from Deryn Hall's book "Assessing the Needs of Bilingual Pupils: Living in Two Languages" which summarises what the research tells us about bilingual children. Click on the link below.
Deryn Hall Extract
Language use can be described in two ways:

the ability to use language for social purposes; and

the ability to use language for academic purposes.

It is important to note that a person could have competence in language for social purposes but this does not mean they will have understanding at a deeper conceptual level. Language for social purposes can be developed in two years or less but language for academic purposes can take from five to eleven years to develop.
Activity 3:
Watch this video where Cummins is asked to explain the social and academic purposes of language in terms of BICS and CALP theory.
Transcript - Jim Cummins explains BICS and CALP Activity 4:
Watch this clip of young people talking about bilingualism and consider how they value their languages and culture.
Activity 4 Transcription Activity 5:
Watch this clip of young people using their first language (Polish) for learning and observe how they use their languages to complete a simple task.
Activity 6: Myth Busting
Despite research evidence and feedback from bilingual young people themselves, there are still many misconceptions surrounding bilingualism that practitioners and professionals may be concerned about. Since most practitioners in Scotland are monolingual and do not have personal experience of bilingualism to draw on, these concerns can be a worry.

The Bilingualism Matters website has lots of useful information to address these issues. Read more on the links below.
http://www.bilingualism-matters.ppls.ed.ac.uk/parents-questions/frequently-asked-questions/ http://www.bilingualism-matters.ppls.ed.ac.uk/parents-questions/ http://www.bilingualism-matters.ppls.ed.ac.uk/resources/information-leaflets/ Activity 7:
To help practitioners understand their bilingual learners, a language profile tool may be helpful. There are many versions of this tool that have been adapted to reflect different circumstances, but there are key areas of information that it covers such as what the first language is and what literacy skills they have in the first language.

Here are some examples of language profiles. Try completing a profile for one of your learners. You will probably need to speak to the learner to do this properly.
Blank Language Profile
Source: www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/assets/attach/22109/Guidance%20-eal%20and%20sen.pdf

Here is an adapted version of the profile above which you can type into, along with two examples of completed profiles.
EAL Pupil Profile adapted from MKEMASS EAL Pupil Profile adapted from MKEMASS eg 1 EAL Pupil Profile adapted from MKEMASS eg 2
This language profile comes from Deryn Hall's book:
D Hall Language Profile
The NALDIC website has examples of Pupil Portraits. These are much more detailed descriptions of EAL learners and their needs.
https://www.naldic.org.uk/eal-teaching-and-learning/outline-guidance/pupil-portraits/ Reflective questions
Thinking about all the things you have found out through the activities in this module, reflect on the bilingual children/learners you work with. You may wish to post in the discussion forum your response to the questions below.

1. From what you have learned, have you gained any further insight into your learners? If so in what way?

2. How much do you know about the bilingual children in your class? Do you think you need to find out more? You may wish to use the language profile activity for other learners you work with. If you have a pupil you know a lot about, try writing a pupil portrait similar to the NALDIC ones in the link for Activity 7.

3. How could you use your learning to improve your practice and/or setting? What would your first priority be?

Consolidation exercise Final Activity - End of Module Review
References:

Hall, D, (2001) Assessing the Needs of Bilingual Pupils: Living in Two Languages, David Fulton Publishers

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To help you reflect on your own knowledge and confidence, and for us to monitor the effectiveness of this module, please fill in this short survey. You only need to do this once. Introduction Bilingualism is the term used for when a person functions in more than one language in their daily lives.

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