Skill(s): Productive skills -speaking and writing

An incredibly useful and adaptable scaffold for talk and writing, this works across all curricular areas.

Can also be used as a tool to assess learning of concepts (e.g. see above, learners are supported with the language to show their understanding of magnetic forces).

Learners should be able to select from options in each column to create sentences which are grammatically correct.

Can be easily differentiated.

Many of these strategies will support most learners, regardless of whether they are EAL.

For each strategy you will find a description and some examples.

Many of the strategies have short, succinct videos on how to use the strategies and their benefits, we highly advise watching if you can.

These can be filtered by age, stage, or curricular focus.

It's a great place to get ideas and models of graphic organisers.

Skills: All skills, Can be used as a talking or writing frame, or a way to assess listening or reading. It is often used in standardised assessments to assess concepts/ comprehension.

Cloze sentences (fill the missing gap activities) support in scaffolding language and reinforcing key concepts/subject specific vocab.

Provides a context for key language and an exemplar of sentence structure.

Great way of combining content and language learning effectively and provides an opportunity to implement subject specific vocabulary meaningfully. 

They can be open (no options) or closed (list of options provided.

You can change the missing word to suit a specific language focus – this can be adapted depending on what the focus is e.g. all the order words could be taken out, all the connectives, etc.

There is a lot of dense, topical vocabulary here, but the visuals help contextualise.

They also reinforce concepts for non-EAL learners.

All learners in the class found this a useful reference.

The teacher noticed an increased engagement and began to use visual instructions for most tasks as a result.

Skill(s): all skills, speaking and writing frame, listening and reading to demonstrate comprehension of text by organising, categorising/labelling.

Graphic organisers are also sometimes known as key visuals. They are not simply images, they are ways of presenting information visually. There are many different types of graphic organisers. Some of the main ones are:

•Table, chart, grid, matrix

•Venn diagram

•Bar chart, pie chart, pictogram

•Pyramid, ladder

•Cycle, flow chart, timeline

•Concept map, web (star), KWHL chart (what I know, what I want to know, how I am going to find out, what I have learned)

Examples of activities

Graphic organisers are useful for learners at a range of different levels of English language proficiency. For example, for learners who are New to English, they can help them to understand the context of the lesson and thereby build on their prior knowledge of the topic. For EAL learners who are at the Competent or Fluent stages they can help them to clarify or organise their thoughts on a topic before concentrating on the academic language they will need to speak or write about it.

Graphic organisers provide a means whereby learners can organise their ideas, before going on to express their thoughts in speech or writing. They can provide EAL learners with curriculum content in an accessible format and they can be used to support the development of academic language.

Used as a basis for collaborative tasks, they can allow learners to practise target language in a meaningful context.

Skill(s): Listening to input/instructions

Teachers can put live subtitles on PowerPoint, so that when presenting key information or instructions to the class/small group, PowerPoint will translate into a chosen language.

It's useful to have an earphone/headset with mic attached, so you can walk about the room and reduce impact of background noise.

Limitations: Must be literate in L1, can only do one language at a time, doesn’t have all languages.

Please note, all the features of this work best when opened via 365, rather than the individual apps.

Skill(s): All

Translanguaging is the term used to describe practices that allow and encourage EAL learners to use their full linguistic repertoire in order to empower them and help them to realise their full potential. This means encouraging them to speak, write and/or translate to and from their first language or any language they speak and English, to support their learning.

Encouraging translanguaging involves fostering positive attitudes towards multilingualism and encouraging EAL learners to be proud of all their language skills. Allowing learners to choose which language to use at any time is a key feature of translanguaging

Skill(s): All skills

Using visuals works because EAL learners are given the context of what is being taught in the classroom. They clarify meaning between teacher and learner, between learner and teacher and between learner and learner. They are also useful to:

• Demonstrate learners’ thought processes

• Provide a record which can be revisited

• Help learners clarify their thinking

• Be used to summarise information and support learners in reporting back

*Text here can mean written or oral text.

Activities can be really useful at highlighting language features like modal verbs, time adverbs, prepositions, articles etc (gap-fill)

Or for showing understanding: (labelling diagram, flow chart, completing table) 

Other activities include, sequencing, predicting, grouping, categorising, storyboarding, acting out, summarising, Venn Diagrams...

Skill(s): Listening and Talking

Active listening engages learners in a purposeful, meaningful task while listening to a text.

Active listening tasks can be easily differentiated to support EAL learners to access more challenging, extended texts.

Some ideas for Actrive Listening:

• listen for key vocabulary and tick (this could be a simple list or game of bingo)

• gap-fill or cloze activity

• sequencing ideas or pictures

• using graphic organisers (e.g. flow chart/Venn diagram/timeline) to summarise