IntroductionOur day together is going to be a mainly practical one. Since, as professionals, it is as important to know why we choose a strategy as well as how to implement it, this booklet presents extracts from the research which supports the practice. It also provides training resources you can use with colleagues. I have prepared a dedicated webpage which contains everything you encounter on the day.

Success with pupils for whom English is an Additional Language is very closely linked to the development of effective and self-aware talk between adults and children, between the children themselves and between adults in the classroom. This is the kind of talk described as ‘sustained shared thinking’ in the EPPE Foundation research, and for older pupils as dialogic talk by Robin Alexander. It is also vital that everyone in your school understands the principles and develops the practices for effective support of EAL learners. I have therefore tried in this handbook to provide you with material in a form which you can present to your colleagues in staff meetings etc.

There is an emphasis in the classroom practice presented on the day on providing visual representations of complex ideas: e.g. key visuals, graphic organisers. I have therefore used the same techniques to clarify educational theories and practices.

Each of the sessions we cover today could easily fill a day or more. I hope, however, that I will be able for you the best tools for further development. For those of you who have the inclination (and the time!) to read more please go to the linked websites. Also I am always happy to answer any other questions that you have via email.

I am grateful to all my colleagues in the UK and in other English speaking countries, who work with me in developing and sharing effective EAL practice. There has always been among us a strong element of mutual support and sharing of ideas over the years, especially since the practice sometimes goes against so called “common sense” . Our work has also been strengthened by partnerships between practitioners and researchers. Recently, many of the practices which felt intuitively right, have now been confirmed by sound research. Without this mutual support the development of my ideas would have severely curtailed. I hope, that as a result of attending the course, you will want to join our supportive network.

I will continue to add to, update and revise this booklet online so please return regularly to<www.collaborativelearning.org/osiris.html> My email address is <stuart.scott@collaborativelearning.org> Please contact me anytime withquestions or comments.

1

Are there pupils in your class who “have EAL”? Described like this it sounds a bit painful – like impetigo or athletes foot. Something that needs to be cured? Something that requires an expert to deal with? Certainly when I started working with pupils new to English in the 70’s in London, I was given a broom cupboard (still containing some brooms and mops and a bucket!) and a timetable where pupils were supposed to come to me in twos and threes for me to pour my English into them. In the rest of their classes they were sitting often isolated from other pupils “listening in” to the curriculum language of their teachers, and the lively bubble of London English buzzing around most of their classrooms.

Up to that time I had mainly worked with adults; teaching English to university students in other European countries and organising the teaching of Chinese, Arabic and Japanese in the U.S. to students who wanted to acquire these languages rapidly. I knew that to learn a language intensely in isolation was very painful and required enormous commitment and dedication plus being able to tolerate ridiculous repetition of little bits of language out of context. I had learnt my Spanish this way and can still remember having to say “My father has put the monkey in the well” over and over again to improve my Spanish pronunciation.

I knew that the pupils visiting my broom cupboard were not going to thrive with a watered down version of adult language learning. They were picking up their conversational English in the playground. Or to be accurate, only some of them were, because some wanted to make friends and find space and opportunity to interact. Others remained silent and alone and learned enough swear words to build barriers around themselves. Those pupils who already had some knowledge of the culture of school made good progress in lessons where they could engage with the learning. For instance a group of Kosovan pupils knew their Shakespeare well and turned out to be brilliant at hot seating. As the teacher in the school designated as “EAL expert” I had a straightforward task. I had to discover exactly how each EAL pupil could best achieve, and I knew that they were all going to present different backgrounds, strengths and weaknesses. I also had to persuade every other teacher in the school to be prepared to help me, because I was not going to be able to succeed alone. I was out of the broom cupboard in a week, but I am still working on the straightforward task.

How about theory and research? Most of the long term research on EAL has not been carried out in this country – most of our research involving minorities has been short term and/or politically motivated. So many thanks to our colleagues in other English speaking countries! In brief the research shows that provided children are able to learn in an EAL friendly, language conscious environment they can catch up with children born of English parents. In fact there are lots of indications that being bilingual helps you to think better: you can hold the ideas in one language up as a mirror in front of the ideas in the other. The research also shows that if you can learn some of the time in your first language and use it for thinking then your progress in English is more rapid.

So here is the off the peg advice. First, ways to create the EAL friendly classroom! Read to your pupils regularly; make the sessions short, but keep them frequent. They need to listen to good role models. You might want to use colleagues to help you and if you have the chance of a colleague working with you regularly set up formal and not so formal dialogues again to provide models of language in action. Try dictagloss. Increase the opportunities for talk between pupils; not in big time lumps, but little and often, five minutes here and ten minutes there. What you need to do is coax pupils to grow their conversational English into ‘curriculum’ English. Try to set up opportunities for pupils to share what they know already, or if that proves difficult to begin with, set up activities where pupils learn something short and memorable, and then have to soon afterwards pass the knowledge on ‘in their own words’ rephrasing and changing vocabulary. Barrier activities, where half a group has one half of the information and the other half has the other half, means they have to exchange with each other to gain a complete picture. Set up problem solving mysteries where all the clues are spread around

the class and pupils need to share information to find the solution. Wherever there are words for an idea, try to match them with some kind of visual version. Charts, matrices, Venn diagrams, tree diagrams can all be used as visual, tactile representations of ideas and are extremely helpful in focussing talk around the topic you want to be discussed. Think of ways of introducing abstract ideas in solid tangible ways. Try to devise ways for pupils to revisit their learning in a variety of different play like ways. Also devise activities where pupils can step back and study the language they are learning; language rich activities about language. You can find lots of real examples (there is no room for them in this off the peg article) on the Collaborative Learning website and the linked sites for the English classroom and maybe more importantly for the maths, science and every other classroom.

Our education system values writing above everything else, and the rush to writing is more than likely to put a strain on the English language development of EAL pupils. Since the journey from conversational English, through spoken curriculum English is always too hasty, EAL pupils will reveal in their writing, evidence of the influence of their first language and an over-generalisation of language making rules. They just have not had the time to sort out all the exceptions. This evidence does not completely disappear even when they are deemed to be fluent.These influences are difficult to detect when you are not aware of the first language(s) a pupil speaks. The marking and response to their writing needs to be very sensitive to this. You have to distinguish English in development from mistakes that do need to be addressed in your teaching. The most effective way to do this is to share and discuss your pupil’s writing with colleagues regularly. If you need more guidance on this I will need to write another longer piece than this one!

This brings me to whole school issues. You can with effort produce an EAL friendly classroom, but if this class-room is not in an EAL friendly school then a lot of your effort is in vain. EAL pupils need advocates. They need EAL friendly lessons in every subject right through the day. Senior managers need to understand that learning English while you are learning in English is not a quick fix that can be dealt with by one post of responsibility. It requires a whole school commitment to improving the way in which pupils work with other pupils. The way in which teachers talk to each other and talk to their teaching assistants, can affect the way in which pupils behave with each other. I recently worked in a school where the pupils speaking Polish worked with only the other Pol-ish speaking pupils. Other pupils stayed in fixed friendship groups which they would only leave reluctantly under protest. Once the staff agreed to improve the ways they themselves worked together, the pupils became more willing to move out of friendship groups adopt a school policy that everyone would work with everyone else at some point in a week. This move towards community cohesion improved the English progress of the EAL pupils. How you approach these issues will depend on how you are regarded in your school. You may need to be a devious advocate or maybe a commanding one. But be an advocate!

EAL pupils need an environment rich in talk . Many of us will argue that such an environment is good for all learners, especially those of us that believe that learning is created through dialogue and not banked by quietly and obediently gathering the wisdom of the old. However, it is important to remember that in this country rhetoric was never one of the three R’s. Our culture of education, unlike that of mainland Europe, does not rate dialogue highly. The most recent political interference in literacy and standards has reduced the quality and quantity of classroom talk, and it can be argued that English classrooms were more EAL friendly in the 90s before the Oracy Project was closed down and LINC banned and subsequently distributed by samizdat.

This short list of tips can only begin to move you from “off the peg” to “made to measure” for your pupils. However, all my colleagues, who work with me supporting EAL pupils, are very good at supporting each other and very happy to share their work with you. You can access all the research and dialogue about EAL through our professional association NALDIC (National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum): www.naldic.org.uk You can find teaching materials and links to EMA (Ethnic Minority Achievment) Teams on the Collaborative Learning Project site: www.collaborativelearning.org

I wrote this article for NATE “Classroom” in 2011 and revised it in 2013

2

“EAL Friendly, Language Conscious” published in Teachit Online November 2010

What is an EAL friendly English lesson? Essentially it is where children who are aligning themselves with the social, cultural and linguistic habits of the English ‘English’ classroom can find ways to engage and enjoy the process. Acquiring English is only part of it. It will be a classroom where there are good social relations between the children, lots of visual clues and plenty of opportunity to revisit the same learning again and again.

For example here is a lesson where half the class are holding role cards. They have become characters from Frankenstein. The rest of the class are interviewing them using a question grid, but they can only answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ and can only reveal their identity if their answer is ‘Yes’. The interviewers are trying to identify four characters in a row on their grid. This lesson is EAL friendly because it provides a structure for regular and repetitive question and answer. Even a child very new to English can make sense of what is happening and listen to lots of questioning. It is also a lesson that improves social relations between all the children. And of course it introduces the main characters in the story.

This resource and many others can be found on the literature pages of the Collaborative Learning website: www.collaborativelearning.org/literaturefiction.pdfYou can find activities for every subject and phase, since ten to fifteen minutes of EAL friendly activity needs to occur in every lesson not just in English.

What is language conscious? In one way the Frankenstein resource can be so described, because the kind of language structures that occur can be predicted and probably were planned into the lesson. In the same way in a science lesson, where children are picking up an animal card and an ‘If’ card: ‘If it is camouflaged collect three counters’ the particular structure was built in at the planning stage.

However, there is a more complex approach to ‘language conscious’, and the research that has been done on second language acquisition, provides insights into improving the quality of all teacher/child interaction. Research into classroom talk uncovers the ever-present IRF: initiation, response, feedback – the linguistic marker of the pacy lesson, well suited to classroom control; whereas sustained dialogue with open questions is much rarer and more difficult to achieve. Many teachers do achieve success in teasing out the dialogue and improving reflection intuitively. In their classrooms new meanings are co-constructed and the teachers mediate between the child’s local and personal meanings and the specialised and public language of the subject. This process, looking at micro-discourse, mini interactions between teacher and child, needs to become more explicit and children need to be made more aware of the process. For example teachers can rephrase a child’s response by including more ‘curriculum’ vocabulary and while doing so involve the child in the process by explaining that there are different ways of ‘talking the subject’. In the opposite direction teachers might unravel the complexities of written academic language by providing more accessible expressions closer to personal talk. An example from science, where electrons are made to discuss their behaviour in a personal way: “When a charge comes through everyone jiggles a lot more” can provide a bridge between the personal language and subject language and make concepts more explicit.

What I am arguing here is that by working on improving classroom interactions for EAL learners, teachers will actually improve learning for all their pupils.

Notes: this brief article draws on the talk research of Douglas Barnes, Valerie Coultas, Neil Mercer and Robin Alexander and the second language research of Pauline Gibbons. All the references can be found on the collaborative learning website research and bibliography pages.

3

Know Your Pupil: Pauline Gibbons explains that the only thing EAL pupils have in common is that they are all different!

There is a wide variety of terms for the group of learners that are the focus of this book. In North America, Australia, and the U.K. they are described variously as limited English proficient (LEP); language minority; English as a second language (ESL); English as a new language (ENL); non-English-speaking background (NESB); bilingual; language background other than English (LBOTE); and English as an additional language (EAL). Students who are described in any of these ways are a very diverse group. Some may he highly literate in their mother tongue, others may have little or no literacy in any language. Some may have come from war-torn countries as refugees, others may come from families who have chosen to immigrate to improve their lives economically or to offer their children more life choices. Some may be fluent in the conversational aspects of English, others may have some English literacy but little experience in using spoken English. Some may be newly arrived in the country, others may be second-generation migrants who have not had an opportunity to develop the more complex aspects of literacy. Some may come from families who have had experience of tertiary education, others may be the first in their family to attend high school, or school of any kind. And within these diverse groups there will be diversity too in their social and economic situations and in their expectations of schools.

In this book 1 have used the term EL learners or ELLs because this term focuses on what all the students in an otherwise very diverse linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomic group have in common. For the purposes of this book 1 also borrow from the inclusive description by those who describe them as “students who come to school with a first language other than English and whose opportunities to fully develop English literacy to grade level have not yet been fully realised”. Finally, the use of this term more clearly distinguishes the learners from the learning, programme itself.

But while there is a range of terms in use, most writers in the area agree that unmediated instruction for EL learners is not equitable: indeed treating all students equally, and thus ignoring differing starting points, is virtually guaranteed to produce unequal outcomes at the end of schooling. Among the potentially most educationally disadvantaged students are those for whom English is not their first language but who, having been born in the host country, have not developed literacy skills or high-level language skills in their first language either Other EL learners may end up spending a lot of their school life in lower-track/lower-stream classrooms, and even those who do receive some English language support may have been exited from EL or bilingual programs at a point when they are still not as proficient in academic language as English native speakers at the same grade level. And increasingly, students entering the work force require higher levels of literacy than ever before, well developed communication skills, and the ability to solve problems, think creatively, and make informed decisions. Measured in terms of factors such as secondary school completion rates, participation in advanced classes, and post secondary pursuits, it has been suggested that the million-plus young ELLs in the United States are less successful than their native-English-speaking peers. Similarly in the U.K. and Australia, certain groups of learners traditionally fare less well in the school system.

From “English Learners, Academic Literacy and Thinking” - Pauline Gibbons 2009 This book is not published in the UK.

4

Balancing Provision for EAL learners

When pupils arrive with little or no English, there is a temptation to over

emphasise work in this area and neglect other needs. Intensive

language work is best provided in short bursts at times that do not interrupt learning or contact with

peers. e.g. at registration

The organisation of classrooms can often lead to the same pupils working with a limited number of their peers. In these situations EAL learners can

still be isolated within the mainstream classroom.

Scaffolding the learning is probably the most labour intensive activity around. However, it can

be enjoyable when shared with colleagues especially when it is given priority time in the school. The Collaborative Learning Project resources are designed to help this process.

www.collaborativelearning.org5

ROUT

ES F

OR

EAL

PUPI

LS

Wha

t is

the

curr

ent

Engl

ish a

s an

ad

dition

al la

ngua

ge (EA

L) le

vel o

f pu

pil?

Wha

t ar

e th

e de

velo

pmen

t ne

eds

of t

he p

upil?

Wha

t is

the

cont

ext

of t

he p

upil?

e.

g.:

Leng

th o

f time

lear

ning

Eng

lish

Leve

l of

liter

acy

in L

1Pr

evio

us e

duca

tion

al e

xper

ienc

eCo

gniti

ve a

bilit

ySp

ecial n

eeds

Can

thes

e ne

eds

be m

et b

y pa

rticipat

ion

in

EAL

frie

ndly,

“lang

uage

con

scio

us” mai

nstr

eam

less

ons?

Mon

itor

prog

ress

of

pupi

l in

EAL

and

subj

ect

area

.

Wha

t ex

tra

inte

rven

tion

s will

mee

t th

e ne

eds

of t

he p

upil?

Wha

t is

the

spec

ific

indi

vidu

al o

r gr

oup

EAL

sylla

bus

that

will

mee

t th

e pu

pil’s

de

velo

pmen

t ne

eds?

Wha

t gr

oup/

indi

vidu

al tar

gets

will

be

set

?

Wha

t fo

rmat

ive

and

sum

mat

ive

asse

ssmen

ts o

f pr

ogre

ss in

EAL

will

be

mad

e an

d whe

n?

How m

any

sess

ions

of

whi

ch d

urat

ion

are

need

ed e

ach

wee

k?

Whe

n will

the

se

sess

ions

tak

e plac

e?

Wha

t will

pup

ils m

iss t

o pa

rticipat

e?W

hat

effe

ct

will

thi

s ha

ve o

n pu

pil’s

en

title

men

t an

d fu

ture

pa

rticipat

ion

in

mai

nstr

eam w

ork.

At e

nd o

f th

e pr

ogra

mme

review

pup

il’s

EAL

leve

l and

rea

sses

s ne

eds.

How lo

ng d

oes

inte

rven

tion

nee

d to

last

?

Coul

d th

ey b

e met

if m

ains

trea

m

prov

ision

use

d la

ngua

ge c

onsc

ious

pe

dago

gy?

Use

EMA

or o

ther

ex

perien

ced

staf

f in

mai

nstr

eam s

ubje

ct le

sson

s in p

artn

ersh

ip w

ith s

ubje

ct

teac

hers

to

deve

lop

EAL

frie

ndly, l

angu

age

cons

ciou

s mat

erials a

nd m

etho

dolo

gy.

Mat

chin

g in

dividu

al E

AL p

upil’s

ne

eds

and

scho

ol d

evel

opmen

t.

YES

NO

T EN

TIRE

LY

YES

NO

T EN

TIRE

LY

V

6

7

Robin Alexander points out that talk in the classroom in still in need of attention

The third strand of enquiry links to the first two. Following the ORACLE observational research of Galton and Simon during the 1970s and later studies by Mortimore, Alexander, Bennett, Wragg, Pollard and others, we have built up an increasingly comprehensive picture of classroom life, especially in primary schools." Among the features on the debit side which seem particularly resistant to change are the relative scarcity of talk which really challenges children to think for themselves, and especially the low level of cognitive demand in many classroom questions; the continuing prevalence of questions which remain closed despite our claims to be interested in fostering more open forms of enquiry; the habitual and perhaps unthinking use of bland, all-purpose praise rather than feedback of a kind which diagnoses and informs; the seeming paradox of children working everywhere in groups but rarely as groups; the rarity of autonomous pupil-led discussion and problem-solving; and the tendency of classrooms to be places of risk and ambiguity rather than security and untouched by the 1980s revolutions in curriculum and assessment. Later studies from Newcastle, Cambridge and Reading universities showed that though the introduction of the UK government’s flagship National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies in 1998 and 1999 may have transformed the content and organisation of literacy and numeracy lessons in many English primary schools, they appear to have had much less impact on the deeper layers of classroom talk - especially those habits of questioning and feedback referred to earlier.

Thus, to quote - at some length, but the study merits this - from the investigation by Smith, Hardman, Wall and Mroz into the pedagogical impact of the National Literacy and Numeracy strategies:

The findings suggest that traditional patterns of whole class interaction have not been dramatically transformed by the Strategies ... In the whole class section of literacy and numeracy lessons, teachers spent the majority of their time either explaining or using highly struc-tured question and answer sequences. Far from encouraging and extending pupil contributions to promote high levels of interaction and cog-nitive engagement, most of the questions asked were of a low cognitive level designed to funnel pupils’ response towards a required answer.

Quantifying these tendencies, the authors go on:

Open questions made up 10% of the questioning exchanges and 15% of the sample did not ask any such questions. Probing by the teacher, where the teacher stayed with the same child to ask further questions to encourage sustained and extended dialogue, occurred in just over 11% of the questioning exchanges. Uptake questions occurred in only 4% of the teaching exchanges and 43% of the teachers did not use any such moves. Only rarely were teachers’ questions used to assist pupils to more complete or elaborated ideas. Most of the pupils’ exchanges were very short, with answers lasting on average 5 seconds, and were limited to three words or fewer for 70% of the time .

The recitation script, then, continues to rule, and it is on the deeper layers of teaching and learning talk, and the assumptions by which they are steered, that we most - and most urgently - need to work.

from Robin Alexander: Towards Dialogic Teaching 2008 available directly from Robin’s website <www.robinalexander.org.uk>

8

Why the work of Vgotsky is significant for teaching EAL. It is the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers....the zone of proximal development defines those functions that have not yet matured but are in the process of maturation, functions that will mature tomorrow, but are currently in an embryonic state. These functions could be termed the “buds” or “flowers” of development rather than the “fruits” of development.

If, as Vygotsky suggests, the talk between teacher and students is of major significance in determining the nature and shaping of what will later become students’ inner thinking, then we would expect that differences in teachers’ interactional styles with students and the patterns of classroom talk they set up might influence students’ later intramental functioning differentially. Recent studies by Mercer (2000 and 2002) on the ‘talk curriculum’ show very persuasively that this is in fact the case. Thus educators involved with school-aged second language learners need to consider not only how far the interactions in which students are involved are likely to impact on possibilities for language learning per se, but also how far they are likely to constrain or extend students’ intellectual potential in all areas of the curriculum. If students are to learn to analyse and explain experience, solve problems and develop and challenge ideas, then sociocultural theory would suggest that what is needed is a critical examination of how far the discourse of the classroom, and in particular the interactions between teacher and students, is likely to develop these modes of thinking. We need to discover the ways in which a teacher’s regulation of a classroom can be more than a means of control to become what Mercer refers to as an apprenticeship in thinking (Mercer 2000, 2002).

L S Vgotsky Mind in Society 1978

Pauline Gibbons Bridging Discourses in the ESL Classroom 20069

Cognitively demanding work.

Stretchy activities that make you think hard and

deep.

Undemanding work that canbe undertaken without much

thought.

Abstract. Not relating to

anything learners know about nor can

easily relate to.

Concrete, contextualised

activities.

A B

C D

The Cummins Quadrant

Every teaching activity can be plotted on this quadrant. EAL (and all other learners) need work that follows the

arrows: always concrete and growing more demanding on thinking until they

can make their own leap into the abstract.

10

Teac

her

cont

rol

Student engagement

Standard script/orderly restricted

learning environment

High teacher control, low student

engagement

High teacher control, high student engagement

Orderly enabling learning

environment

Unscripted classrooms

Low teacher control, low student engagement

Negotiated interactive learning environment

Low teacher control, high student engagement

Students are engaged in learning and co-construction of learning

activities with the teacherThe constant struggle to establish the routines that characterise the

default script displaces attention to learning

High

High

Low

Low

Emphasis on maintenance of

default script overshadows

attention to learning The default script operates with minimal effort, and students are engaged in the set tasks with occasional opportunities for unscripted

learning.

Another very effective use of the quadrant key visual to stimulate discussion around teaching styles

11

The Glombots

By 1740 Glombots were bardoodling fludgeristically throughout the scallerbars. Though some were oddlebug, the glotterest couldn’t read or write. Muchupper, being petergustic murds, they seemed unable plesterly to dunk the likely modalbags of their mastions. On the other hand, despite their quite understit astulance for motrpping violence, the glotterest wished to estocate only peaceful changes through moldergustic tropartion and breadalbation. In 1742 the murds squinched the strink in one of the most flugelbar and antimoldergustic dinkums that history has ever seen.

Questions.

1. What were the Glombots doing in 1740 and where were they concentrating their efforts?

2 Were all of the Glombots oddlebug?

3 Why didn’t the Glombots succeed in dunking the modalbags of their mastions?

4 How did the glotterest of the Glombots want to estocate peaceful changes?

5 What happened in 1742?This little task demonstrates that a) you can use your generalised language skills to respond to unfamiliar contexts (this is one that will never be familiar!) b) bilingual learners can demonstrate an effective response to a teaching activity without understanding it. (Bilingual learners are very good at developing phonic skills out of context and barking at

print). You might want to snip off this bit and try the activity out on your colleagues.12

Pupil in command of full range of

strategies to promote own learning.

Sense of membership of

peer group.

A curriculum which relates to pupil’s own experience and gives status to pupil’s own

culture.

An incredible range of teaching strategies to

give access to the whole curriculum and develop

pupil’s language and learning needs.

Involved in group learning activities.

Developing understanding of spoken English.

Beginning to read an English text.

Teaching strategies that build on pupil’s own learning skills.

Informative pictures and pictographs.

Approbation and reward.

Models for feasible practical

tasks.

Right to silence respected.

Space and time to listen.

Evidence of own culture/language.

Benign adults.

Pupil carers.

Sense of acceptance by

peers.

Friendly atmosphere.

MASLOW’S HIERARCY OF NEEDS.

ADDRESSING THE NEEDS OF NEW ARRIVALS.

13

Collier and Thomas - Big Number Crunching and EAL learners

We are grateful to colleagues in other English speaking countries for the research in the achievement of bilingual pupils.

Virginia Collier (language expert) and Wayne Thomas (statistics expert) worked very effectively together and per-suaded the US Federal Government to fund research into identifying the most effective programmes for pupils learning English. over 300.000 pupils are represented here.

The graph demonstrates how much faster these pupils have to go to catch up, and how support for first language and scaffolding within the mainstream leads pupils to go beyond catching up.

More depressingly, it also demonstrates that where pupils who fail to catch up by the age of 12, their chances of educational success become severely limited.

Unfortunately this research has not always been heeded in the US because it is not always politically acceptable.

SettingsBilingual education- curriculum delivered in two languages usually half day each by same teachers

First language support plus integrated language and content.

Integrated language and content.

Programmes involving some or more withdrawal from mainstream curriculum to study language

14

Provide Visual Support

Provide as many visual clues as possible to the meaning of the words that you are using.

Use objects, pictures, diagrams mime, drama etc. to help to make demonstrations, explanations and instructions more comprehensible to EAL learners.

Use artefacts and pictures to allow pupils to make connections between the words they hear and what the word represents.

Make the Most of Key Visuals

Key Visual refers to graphic forms of information such as tables, charts, diagrams, maps, time lines etc. commonly used in many subject areas.

Use Key Visuals as the basis of pupil activities as they provide a powerful way of integrating subject content and language development.

Ask students to summarise oral and written information in the form of Key Visuals, and put graphic information back into words. This can be a very supportive way of enabling EAL pupils to engage with both the concepts and language of a topic.

Create a Supportive Environment

A classroom in which it is OK to make honest mistakes and in which nobody will laugh at you for mis-pronunciation, having an accent grammatical errors or ‘get-ting the wrong end of the stick’ is important to EAL pupils.

Learning language necessarily involves taking risks and ex-perimenting. This process needs genuine encouragement, praise and recognition of success. This needs to come from other pupils as much as from the teacher.

The National Curriculum says:

Teachers develop pupils’ spoken and written English through:

-ensuring that vocabulary work covers both the technical and everyday meaning of key words -explaining clearly how speaking and writing in English are struc-tured -providing a variety of reading material-ensuring that there are effective opportunities for talk and that talk is used to support writing-encouraging pupils to transfer their knowledge, skills and under-standing of one language to another-building on pupils’ experiences of language at home and in the wider community.

Provide Plenty of Opportunities for Listening and Speaking

Bilingual learners need a great deal of experience of hearing English which is potentially comprehensible. In effect this means not a diet of ‘simple’ or meaningless English, but the opportunity to engage in structured discussion activities.

Plan and organise structured discussions in small groups as these provide the possibility for EAL pupils to hear and use topic vocabulary and negotiate the meaning of this vocabulary. This can be done by asking clarifying questions and requesting paraphrasing. This allows EAL pupils to use the natural repetition of discussion to hear the vocabulary a number of times, ‘echo’ the vocabulary and try it out

This use of small groups for speaking and listening is often more helpful than ‘whole class’ discussion it allows for more pupil participation and for more risk taking than the more public forum of the whole class.

Teach the Literacy of Your Subject

Different curriculum subjects involve students in understanding and writing a variety of types of texts.

Help your students to become familiar with the different text types central to your subject. This will enable them to understand the content better and be more independent in their learning.

Plan and carry out reading and doing activities (e.g. reading and filling in a table / completing a diagram / carrying out an experiment). These are very effective particularly when carried out collaboratively in pairs or small groups.

Plan activities which enable pupils to learn how to structure different kinds of written texts (argumentative, evaluative, explanatory etc.) and how to express important concepts such as cause and effect, purpose and pos-sibility.

Encourage Pupils to Use and Refer to their First Language

Conventional wisdom in the past suggested that using your first language (L1) interfered with learning an additional language. However, recent experience and research provides evidence that encouraging pupils to use their first language con be very beneficial for learning.

Give pupils literate in their first language the opportunity to make an initial draft of a writing task in their Ll and then write it in English.

Organise groups so that EAL pupils who share a common Ll with others in the class are able to ‘think through’ a learning task in their Ll.

Provide EAL pupils with bilingual glossaries and dictionaries if these ore available.

Sample Local Authority Advice

15

most local authorities have closed down their support services for EAL pupils but you can find links to those that remain on the Collaborative Learning website.

Questions to ask a school

1. Is your school a place where diversity (values, knowledge, language) is welcomed and valued?

2. Is inequality actively challenged?.

3. Does the curriculum content reflect global diversity?

4. Do you develop teaching materials which reflect diversity and place the learning in familiar contexts? Do you simultaneously meet the language and learning needs of the students.?

5. Are the learning activities motivating because they recognise diversity? Do they also raise self-esteem and promote good social relations?

6. Are students allowed to become responsible for their own learn-ing and thus develop their awareness of their own attitudes, rights and responsibilities?

7. Are students actively encouraged to participate in the learning process? Can they build on their own prior knowledge and interact with other students.?

8.When learning is in the additional language, is it supported by key visuals?

7. Are students actively encouraged to participate in the learning process? Can they build on their own prior knowledge and interact with other students.?

8.When learning is in the additional language, is it supported by key visuals?

9. Are the students’ own languages recognised and supported for social, religious, cultural and academic purposes?

10. Do you help teachers to be good learners by allowing them to plan together and reflect on their practice? Do you emphasise that learning is process and not transmission.

11. Do you build links with families and the communities?

12. Are these principles of good practice endorsed by the whole school community and not just the leaders?.

This a summary of the Auditing/Action planning document available online on the dedicated webpage in Word so you can edit.

16

Clearly it’s important to get the detail right here about the young person’s prior schooling and what post-16 pathways he/she could be encouraged to work towards, with close reference to what would have been available inPoland and his/her aspirations - your young person leav-ing school may not of course be solely to do with ‘standard leaving times’ so much as some particular circumstances.

To my knowledge there’s Lower secondary level schooling in Poland - consisting of three years in gymnasium (gimnazjum), starting at the age of 13 and finishing at 16). Ends with an exam, moving to several alternatives at Upper secondary level [most common is lyceum (16-19) or technical school (16-20). Both end with a maturity examination (matura, roughly equivalent to British A-levels examination) and lead to higher education. There’s also vocational school (16-18/19).]

Do look at the excellent ‘Polish pupils in London’ report (_www.multiverse.ac.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?ContentId=15120_(http://www.multiverse.ac.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?ContentId=15120) ). Not only does it give useful informationabout the school system in Poland, but also about young people’s reactions tothe disruption and loss they experience having to move to the UK.

You may also want to try talking to people with knowledge of the Polish educational system at the Polish Educational Society(_www.polskamacierz.org_(http://www.polskamacierz.org) )

Hello,

I’m wondering it anyone has experience of new arrivals coming into Y11 from e.g. Poland, where they have completed one particular stage of education and left school, only to be told that they need to begin attending school again when they get here? Previously I have recommended that Y11 is an opportunity to develop English skills without the pressure of exams, and students have gone along with that in preparation for college, but we now have ayoung person who is adamant that they’ve already left school and is horrified at the thought of having to go back.

Does anyone know if there is any generally accepted parity between countries, especially EU, about school leaving age?

Eal bilingual forum - help for specific individual problems - sample question and response

17

http://www.collaborativelearning.org/qlpushandpull.pdf

Quicklook at "Push and Pull"Information gaps are an ideal way to introduce material with difficult reading tasks, but with content which we really want to teach. This activity was sourced from an article by James Surowieki in the December 2004 edition of the New Yorker magazine. He was reporting on Gordon Brown's offer to drug companies to buy three hun-dred million doses of a malaria vaccine. The activity is ideal for a citizenship lesson for Year 8 up, although many teachers have adapted similar content for Year 6. The trickiest bit of this activity is sorting the initial pairs and groups, so we have included a card set for thirty participants, which you can always tweak if you are fortunate enough to be teaching fewer. You or your students will also need to find a few pictures to enliven the text sheets. There is plenty of further reading, including the New Yorker article, currently on the net.

Collaborative Reading Materials with an information gap.

There are three different texts with a common question sheet. The principle here is that readers will be unable to complete the questions by simply using the information in their version, but will have to collaborate with otherreaders, asking questions and eliciting information, possibly arguing and negotiating. There is also an opportunity to draw on their own previous knowledge.

We have outlined the following procedure, but you can reorganise things in a variety of ways. You can possibly arrange to pair slower readers with faster ones etc. You could start with threes rather than pairs etc.

The class works first in pairs and partners have copies of the same text. Five pairs have Sheet A, five Sheet B etc. The card activity is a simple way of organising pairs with a bit of extra learning thrown in, and if you want or select pairs you can always deal the cards from the bottom of the pack. Pairs can read the text silently first, and then to each other, and then work together to answer as many questions as they can.

The pairs then split up and move into groups of six where two participants have Sheet A, two Sheet B etc. They can then go on to complete the questions by interrogating each other.

If you are thinking about producing your own information gaps, you may find it easier if you try this method. Find a suitable whole single text containing the information you wish to teach. Formulate a series of questions for the text. Produce three or four texts where the factual and inferential information is shared between them. Some overlapping of information is fine. You can differentiate your texts and include diagrams, pictures etc.

The UK Chancellor announced in November 2004 that the government would buy 300 million doses of an effective malaria vaccine for the developing world. This disease is spread by mosquitos in countries with hot wet climates. Mosquitos pump the dis-ease into the bloodstream when they bite you to drink your blood.

This promise means that drug companies will work hard to develop a vaccine. They have to invest a lot of time and money into research and testing before a drug is ready to be sold. If they think they can't recover the money and then make a profit, they don't do the research.

Some companies have been given money to research malaria, but have not found a vaccine. One company has already developed a vaccine that is 58% successful. There are still years of testing a mil-lions of pounds to be spent before a vaccine is ready to be sold.

The average amount per person spent every year in the USA is $5000; and in Africa $18. Drug companies have to make money for their shareholders. They invest in the development of drugs that will be used regularly by people who can afford them. An example of this would be a drug to relieve arthritis which needed to be taken every day. Drug companies are unwilling to develop a malaria vaccine because few people in Africa can afford the market value.

The UK Labour government has come up with a way to encourage drug com-panies. It has promised to pay the market price for 300 million doses of the vaccine when it is developed. Charities and foundations are also likely to make similar promises.

If this method of funding to help poor countries works, it is likely to be extended. Similar promises could be made for the development of drugs to cure AIDS and tuberculosis. "Pull" funding is not a new concept, but it has not been popular.

Governments have generally tried "push" funding by giving money to universities and drug companies to encourage research. Up to now this method of funding has not produced a vaccine for malaria.

In the 18th century many ships hit rocks and sank because they lost their way. At that time there was no reliable way of finding out their longitude. The British government promised £2000 to the first person to find an accurate way to find longitude while on a ship. A clockmaker won the prize. This is an example of "pull" fund-ing. Gordon Brown MP has just revived this by promising a prize for the first successful vaccine for malaria.

This may take a long time. Most politicians prefer "push" funding. In this case they give money up front to a drug company to develop drugs which may not be profitable. Push funding means politicians get publicity and can give out favours. Big drug companies like push funding too. They can develop cosy arrangements with governments and charities that provide money for research and development.

Gordon Brown's decision means that a vaccine for malaria is more likely to be developed. The market value of the drug will depend on how long the research takes. The social value will be much greater. At the moment hundreds of millions of people catch malaria. Students who are often ill cannot learn well. Ailing workers do not pro-duce so much. Rich companies do not invest their money in countries where infectious diseases are common.

Push and Pull - Question sheet with space for answers.

1.What do you know about Gor-don Brown?

2. Why isn't there an effective vaccine against malaria?

3. When did Gordon Brown make his promise?

7. How does malaria keep African countries poor?

4. Malaria is infectious. What does this mean?

5. How much is spent on health in the US and in Africa?

6. Where do drug companies invest their research money?

8. How does push funding work and why do drug companies like it?

9. Why does it cost a lot of money to develop a vaccine?

10. What was one of the first examples of pull funding?

11. What is a good definition of pull funding?

12. What is the social value of a vaccine? How is it different from its

Text A

Text B

Text C

18

Information gap activity available on the CLP website

Classifying

Decision making

Justifying an opinion

Sequencing

Reasoning

Describing

19

Planning framework for Language Functions

Classifying

Decision making - using evaluation for decision making

Justifying an opinion

Sequencing

Reasoning

Describing

Sorting elements into groups

Describing qualities of rocks. Comparing similarities and differences. Finding matching similarities in visually different rocks.

Explaining why rocks are found in different places

Explaining the processes that change rocks from igneous to metamorphic.

Organising the evidence for and against the movement of tectonic plates.

Deciding from current evidence whether the moon was created by a collision of the Earth with another planet.

Weighing/ranking evidence and evaluating it.

Sorting on a Venn diagram or a matrix

Completing a cycle drawing.

Sifting through a set of reasons and choosing appropriate ones for a situation.

Sorting evidence on a diamond nine chart.

Matching items and descriptions.

Sorting evidence on a diamond nine chart.

20

Planning framework for Language Functions with possible visual organiser and the kind of activity it supports

Classifying

Decision making

Justifying an opinion

Sequencing

Reasoning

Describing

Chalk is a soft rock but granite is hard.

It has grains in it. It is shiny. After the rock comes out of a volcano, wind and water slowly wear it down. Small grains of rock are then carried down to towards the sea......

The fossil record provides evidence that parts of Britain were once near Brazil. There is evidence that plants and animals lived in a tropical climate.

Granite is suitable for building because it wears away slowly.However, it is hard to cut and shape is therefore an expensive building material.

Tectonic plate activity is sometimes dangerous for humanity, but without the richness of new material it produces we would not have evolved.

21

Planning framework for Language Functions and the predictable language forms it generates

Recasting

what were your results?

STUDENTS TEACHER

..when we put it on one pole..em faces the other one it doesn’t stick but when we turned the other one around..it sticks together

Ok can I just clarify something? you’ve got two magnets? they’re in line/when you put .. the two together

yes Misslike that (demonstrating) they attracted each other/they stuck to each other/is that right?

(nods)

when we had em the things the first one like if you put it up in the air like that .. the magnets you can feel...feel the em .. that they’re not pushing?

when you turned the magnet around? you felt that

pushing and if we use the other side we can’t feel pushing

OK so when..... they were facing one way....they/you felt the magnets attract and stick together/when you turn one of the magnets around you felt it...repelling...or pushing away ..

Pauline Gibbons - Bridging Discourses 2006 pp127-8

1.

4.

3.

2.

7.

6.

5.

10.

9.

8.

Mode shifting

STUDENT TEACHER(situation embedded)

TEACHER(formal)

it sticks together

TEACHER(everyday)

like that

you can feel ...that they’re not push-ing.....if we use the other side we can’t feel pushing.

they stuck together

they were attracted to each other

when they were facing one way you felt the magnets attract

and stick together

when you turn one of the magnets around you felt it repelling

or pushing away

Disc

ours

e di

rect

ion

22

A selection of quotations from researchA good primary teacher is not simply the instructor or facilitator of the learning of a large and disparate set of individuals, but rather the creator of a particular quality of intermental environment ... in which students can take active and reflective roles in the development of their own understanding.

(Mercer 2002)

... spoken discourse has an essential role to play in mediating the pupil’s apprenticeship into a discipline, both as a medium in which to respond to and prepare for work on written texts, and ... as an opportunity for’talking their way in’to ways of making sense of new information . . . in forms that, with the assistance provided by the teacher, gradually incorporate the essential features of the dis-course of the particular discipline. (Wells 1992)

The nature of the tasks in which learners are engaged also appears significant in how successful group work is in providing a language learning context. A number of studies have concluded that tasks which involve students in exchanging information (two-way tasks) lead to a higher frequency of interactional modifications and hence are more likely to promote negotiation of meaning than tasks which require only a one-way giving of information. Pica (1987) suggests that a critical factor in these more successful tasks was the fact that participants were exchanging information known only to them. This suggests that students are more likely to restructure their interactions, and work towards mutual comprehension, if the task requires, rather than simply invites them to do so. Pica concludes that talk must be necessary and integral to the task, not simply an accompaniment, and should emphasize collaboration and equality of responsibility. MeGroarty (1993) likewise suggests that individual accountability should be built into group activities, so that the resulting interaction is more likely to lead to genuine collaboration and hence negotiation among participants, such as the kind of collaborative problem-solving language tasks described by Swain (2000).

Well structured peer group talk, then, would seem to be facilitative of language learning on two counts: it has the potential to offer many more and varied opportunities for language use, and it is more likely to produce the kind of social relations to which Pica refers. Studies have also shown that group work does not significantly compromise grammatical accuracy, and there is little difference in this aspect between teacher-fronted and group talk in the classroom (Long and Porter 1985; Porter 1986).

Like Vygotsky, Halliday views learning as social and interactionally based in origin, and hence views language as central to the developmental process. Halliday argues that children’s language learning is not simply one type of learning among many, but the foundations of learning itself. ‘the ontogenesis of language is at the same time the ontogenesis of learning’

. The child learns to construct the system of meanings that represents his own model of social reality. This process takes place inside his own head; it is a cognitive process. But it takes place in contexts of social interaction, and there is no way it can take place except in these contexts. As well as being a cognitive process, the learning of the mother tongue is also an interactive process. It takes the form of the continued exchange of meanings between self and others. The act of meaning is a social act.

(Halliday 1975)

23

Vygotsky’s work offers an additional and particularly significant view on minority children’s learning. The notion of the ZPD reminds us that learning needs to be geared to ESL children’s potential learning, not simply their actual level of development (of English). For ESL students not yet fully in control of the language in which they are learning, this is a timely reminder. Vygotsky (1978) points out that more traditional forms of special education, where the pedagogical orientation is towards the use of concrete, look-and-say methods and where tasks involving more abstract thinking tend to be eliminated from the curriculum, actually deny students any chance of developing what is lacking in their own development. Equally we can assume that this is likely to occur in schools which have low expectations of ESL students’ performance, and which, on the basis of students’ perceived current abilities in English language, present a curriculum heavily weighted towards concrete learning and tasks that are reduced in cognitive demand. Vygotskian theory would suggest that it is precisely because students are less likely to have yet developed the academic registers of the classroom that the school must make every effort to support such development, rather than to opt for teaching a less demanding curriculum.(Gibbons 2006)

Delpit points out that where educational standards are not accorded a high priority for minority students, then, no matter how friendly, egalitarian and caring the environment, classrooms may still operate to oppress students, albeit in a benign and less obvious way. Inexplicitness, whether it is about rules of conduct or forms of writing, often ensures ultimate failure for many students. As she puts it: ‘pretending that gatekeeping points don’t exist is to ensure that many students will not pass through them’ (Delpit 1988).

Some children come to school with more accoutrements of the culture of power already in place -’cultural capital’ as some critical theorists refer to it - some with less. Many liberal educators hold that the primary goal for education is for children to become autonomous, to develop fully while they are in the classroom setting without having arbitrary, outside standards forced upon them. This is a very reasonable goal for people whose children are already participants in the culture of power and who have intemalized its codes. But parents who don’t function within that culture often want something else. It’s not that they disagree with the former aim, it’s just that they want something more. They want to ensure that the school provides their children with discourse patterns, interactional styles, and spoken and written language codes that will allow them success in the larger society.

(Delpit 1988, p. 285)

24