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Turner, M. (2015). The collaborative role of EAL teachers in Australian schools from the perspective of EAL teacher education. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 38(2), 95-103.

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Robinson, P. J. (2005). Teaching key vocabulary in geography and science classrooms: An analysis of teachers’ practice with particular reference to EAL pupils’ learning. Language and Education, 19(5), 428-445.

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A leading cause of the growing achievement gap between EAL and non-EAL students is the assumption by mainstream (non-EAL) educational practitioners that EAL learners will incidentally acquire English proficiency in parallel with the teaching of subject specific knowledge. However, without explicit and systematic scaffolding given to the kinds of specific vocabulary used in these classrooms, EAL students often find themselves unable to access subject content knowledge, placing them at a significant disadvantage.

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The identified issue is significant for us to understand and investigate because the pedagogical strategies being used by subject teachers are not compatible with the needs of EAL learners. If subject specific vocabulary is not given an explicit focus in classes such as science and geography, EAL students will continue to struggle to effectively participate in these environments, robbing them of the chance to engage and show what they are capable of.

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- 'Incidental learning' only occurs if the student already knows approximately 95% of the words used in text, as such assuming EAL students will pick up language on the fly by engaging with subject content is a fraught strategy.

- Even if language input was comprehensible, research does not support unstructured incidental learning in itself as an optimal strategy for acquiring a second language - conscious processing is necessary for EAL learners to internalise language.

- There is a strong correlation between vocabulary knowledge, language development and school achievement. It is why curriculum documents highlight key vocabulary for subject areas, and yet specific guidance is not given to teachers on how to engage EAL learners with this vocabulary.

- Vocabulary teaching to EAL students must go beyond the meaning of words, and include instruction on the linguistic structure of words. This is so EAL students not only develop a conceptual understanding, but the linguistic understanding of subject content that is required to express themselves (eg. Knowing that vibrate is the base form of vibration so that answers complement the tense of the question).

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Strengths:
- Author supported their argument that subject area teachers rely on incidental teaching by accumulating qualitative data in the forms of interviews and class-room recordings
- Some recommendations are given in response to their argument that teachers are not equipped with effective strategies to implement explicit vocabulary instruction - such as engaging in the conversational co-construction of vocabulary meanings.

Weakness:
- Limited solutions provided for the problems identified. The scarce recommendations they do provide are based solely on the interpretation of classroom observations. Minimal links to other research.
- Minimal reference made to how teachers in subject areas can build linguistic knowledge in their students, or even acquire the linguistic knowledge themselves that would be needed to foster it in students. No mention of how this could be feasibly implemented given the added resource demands this would place on lesson planning for mainstream teachers.

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My feelings on this topic after reading the article lead me to believe that up skilling mainstream teachers is a priority if we are to effectively address the achievement gap between EAL and non-EAL learners in subject areas. The article makes clear that blindly hoping that EAL students will 'incidentally' begin comprehending subject specific vocabulary is not supported by the literature, and thus the implications for teachers is that they must be equipped to provide explicit linguistic instruction. It would appear then that teacher training to meet the demands of an increasingly large EAL population is necessary. Furthermore, schools need to invest in human and material resources that support subject area teachers in this endeavour, lest teachers become overwhelmed by the added requirements of lesson planning and lesson execution.

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The Australian Curriculum encourages an explicit focus on EAL students in mainstream classrooms and strives to provide them with language and cultural support through collaboration between EAL teachers and subject content teachers. However, language and subject content have not been effectively integrated due to the lack of clarity around the role and instructional goals of EAL teachers in the classroom, thereby failing to efficiently scaffold EAL students’ content area English.

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This identified issue is significant for us to understand and investigate because EAL teachers often feel unprepared in terms of the content area knowledge and marginalised in the classrooms, where they have no teaching right of their own, but act principally as language assistants. This is due to a misconception that EAL instruction is strategy-based rather than content-based. This marginalised status is likely to be shared by their EAL students and reinforces the gap between rhetoric about meeting the needs of diverse students.

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In order to better include and support EAL students’ learning in content area classrooms, EAL teachers must firstly develop their confidence in the language 'content' and then explicitly incorporate language development outcomes into their collaboration with content area teachers.

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The author discusses this issue from the perspective of EAL teacher education, analysing data from interviews with four pre-service EAL teachers to support her argument.

These EAL pre-service teachers were concerned about the depth of their English language knowledge and felt that unless they had received explicit linguistic knowledge of SLA and English grammar in their teacher education, they would not be able to begin collaborating with content area teachers. In their attitudes towards collaboration, these pre-service teachers felt uncertain about their roles and the division of teaching.

Reflecting on these data, the author presents a dual focus on content areas and language development and suggest three ways to make EAL and content area teachers equally supportive of each other:

1.     Through the recognition of complementary skill sets (e.g., content area teachers to provide supplementary content that can be used in EAL classes)

2.     Through the use of collaborative team-teaching (e.g., EAL teacher can teach language at some stage)

3.     Through the inclusion of multiple perspectives in planning.

As stated by the author, the number of participants in this small-scale study is not necessarily representative of EAL pre-service teachers but reflects an issue worthy of consideration.

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Wenting - these are just the notes we worked on today in case you ever want to have another look. We started with this:
EAL teachers cannot effectively collaborate with subject content teachers because they lack knowledge of their own expertise.

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As an English language learner and a former linguistics student, I have learnt English grammar explicitly, but also need support in scaffolding and simplifying English for EAL students. In response to collaboration, I agree with the author and believe that EAL teachers should differentiate themselves from MEA in content area classrooms, such as actively teaching language to all students at some point in the curriculum, as improving language proficiency is a learning priority for all students and teachers.

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Trakulphadetkrai, N. V., Courtney, L., Clenton, J., Treffers-Daller, J., & Tsakalaki, A. (2017). The contribution of general language ability, reading comprehension and working memory to mathematics achievement among children with English as additional language (EAL): An exploratory study. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 23(4), 473-487. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2017.1373742

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The language of mathematics combines a strong general vocabulary with a variety of technical terms, and verbal problems are increasingly common in mathematics tests. Learners with English as an additional language are especially challenged by them, because they are still developing what Cummins (2003) calls 'cognitive academic language proficiency', a level of language use that such problems demand. The relationship between EAL learners' vocabularies and levels of reading comprehension and their proficiency at mathematics is relatively unexplored, but important to understand if this barrier is to be lifted.

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The gap between EAL learners and first-language speakers of English is thinner in mathematics classrooms than English ones, but the increased prevalence of verbal problems threatens to widen it. Because of the level of language already required to succeed in mathematics, teachers have extra progress to make with a typical EAL learner, and they need to know how best to close that gap, and in which ways such a learner is likely to need help.

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The two types of learners only differ significantly in their performance at word-based problems; there were no significant differences in general mathematics skills.

L1 speakers of English outperform EAL learners in reading comprehension and general language ability, but not working memory.

Reading comprehension and general language ability were linked with mathematics scores for the whole sample; the former is the largest contributing factor to differences in verbal mathematics proficiency for EAL learners, with the latter mattering more for L1 speakers.

EAL learners are better at decoding vocabulary than L1 speakers, which may come down to their reliance on that strategy to understand written text.

EAL learners with five years' residence performed on par with L1 speakers.

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EAL learners and L1 speakers were found to process verbal mathematics in divergent ways, as they draw on different levels of reading comprehension and general language ability.

Recently arrived students will be in greater need of such support. Striking a balance between EAL learners' preferred methods and areas in which they need improvement will challenge their teachers.

Approaches that improve language ability outside the mathematics classroom, including explicit vocabulary instruction, and strategies to harness reading comprehension within it would have a positive impact on EAL learners' performance at word-based problems.

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Trakulphadetkrai et al.'s findings shed a lot of light on the specifics of an EAL learner's experience in the mathematics classroom and point a way forward for teachers in the field. Those teachers must pay closer attention to the aspects of English with which Lx speakers struggle and how they use it to approach word-based problems and tailor their assistance accordingly, whether that involves bolstering their CALP or building on their reading comprehension.

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Why we can't get EAL and Content together?

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Why we can't get EAL and Content together?

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time
funding
not willing
lack of skills and knowledge in both language, literacy, and content

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Ali... you might find these papers helpful

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Ali... you might find these papers helpful

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Rejecting abyssal thinking in the language and education of racialized bilinguals A manifesto

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Decolonizing ESOL Negotiating Linguistic Power in U S Public School Classrooms

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Might find this interesting also...

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Flores 2020 From academic language to language architecture Challenging raciolinguistic ideologies in research and practice