students whose English is an additional language and/or dialect
EAL/D stands for English as an Additional Language or Dialect, referring to students who do not speak English as their first language and are still attaining English proficiency. As speaking, listening, reading and writing are key to success across all areas of the curriculum, it is important that these students receive direct linguistic support from the classroom teacher. It can take up to ten years for new arrival EAL/D students to attain native English proficiency. Therefore, teachers must be able to identify the students’ level of English proficiency and provide the appropriate level of support for their needs. Hence why ACARA have developed the EAL/D Learning Progression as a supporting resource for the Australian Curriculum (Hertzberg 2012).
The eal/d Learning progression
The document is designed to support classroom teachers as they use the Australian Curriculum to develop teaching and learning episodes for EAL/D students across all stage levels (ACARA 2013). The resource aims to assist teachers to broadly position their EAL/D students upon an English language learning progression and monitor their linguistic development. The progression is presented in sections according to four phases of development: (Phase 1) Beginning English (Phase 2) Emergent English (Phase 3) Developing English (Phase 4) Consolidating English (ACARA 2013). These phases are categorised further according to the age and stage level of the students (foundation to year two, and years three to six). Each section is divided into a grid based on the four key areas of language and literacy: (1) Listening (2) Speaking (3) Reading / Viewing (4) Writing. These sections include broad descriptions of the outcomes to be achieved at each phase of English language development. EAL/D students of any age are positioned in one of the four progression phases for each of the key areas of language and literacy (ACARA 2013).
Attaining Background Information (adapted from Hertzberg 2012)
Once teachers have identified the EAL/D students in their class, it is essential to gain information regarding their background, life experiences, interests and learner profiles to cater for their individual needs. The following factors are particularly important:
- Knowledge about first language competency: Proficiency in a student’s first language is an indicator and aide to learning additional languages such as English. Teacher’s must understand the students’ first language competency and maintain this level of ability. Students who are competent users of their first language find it easier to transfer concepts of language and grammar to the second language.
- Knowledge about religious practices: Religious events and practices are important to know due to restrictions they may place on excursion dates due to religious events, as well as school function planning due to dietary requirements.
- Teacher knowledge about first languages: Understanding the students’ first language in regard to print style (roman, greek, Arabic, Asian) , print direction and grammar will increase the efficiency of teaching English as some conflicting concepts can simply be explained.
- Immigration experiences: EAL/D students may be migrants or refugees. Migrant students are those whose parents or family members chose to move to Australia and have met necessary legal requirements. Refugee students are those whose parents or families fled their home countries due to extreme circumstances. Refugees in particular, may have experienced, or know family members who have experienced, trauma due to war and poverty. Therefore, the teacher must be aware of any signs of mental and emotional illness that may result from such experiences, and seek to sympathise and support these students.
- Level of education: Some EAL/D students will have no former education or interrupted schooling. The teacher must be aware of such circumstances and plan accordingly.
Strategies for supporting EAL/D students (adapted from Hertzberg 2012)
Now that the teacher has attained background information about the students, they need strategies and activities to be able to support their linguistic needs. The following list provides a number of useful tools and methods for this purpose:
- Cultural inclusivity: acknowledging the diverse backgrounds of all students and incorporating the unique knowledge, skills, experiences and values that all students bring to the classroom, all year round.
- Collaborative learning: Pair or small group work that encourages students to interact for authentic purposes. Such activities shift the focus away form explicit learning skills that may embarrass EAL/D students, and onto rich learning goals that promote comprehensible language input, opportunities for recasting and extended language output.
- Building up the field: It is important that activities are built on prior knowledge and familiar topics so that EAL/D students can focus on developing language and literacy skills rather than content. For example, developing ideas and understanding the topic-area before writing, allows them to focus on quality writing, rather than what to write about.
- The Scaffolding Cycle: A cycle moving from full teacher scaffolding to independent work. Full scaffolding involves teacher explanations and modelling of language where the focus is on input. Partial scaffolding involves teacher and peer guided activities with a focus on recycling language form the previous stage. Minimal scaffolding refers to independent work with a focus on recasting the target language to enable long-term language uptake.
- Classroom Talk: Focus on increasing student language output during whole class discussions by allowing multiple students to answer questions. Use the ‘think-pair-share’ technique and ask students to report back on what they discussed, leading to opportunities for language recast and repair.
- Phonology: Teaching the sound system of English when reading including CVC words, blends, syllables, rhythm and rhyme by using engaging, authentic, rich and repetitive texts.
- Reading to Learn: This strategy involves ‘getting ready for the text’ (explaining the field of texts, activating prior knowledge, making predictions), ‘getting into the text’ (modelled reading, think-alouds during reading, questioning students during reading), ‘coming back to the text’ (making personal connections, cloze passages, venn diagrams, flow charts, mind maps, text reconstructions), and ‘going beyond the text’ (class dramas, music, creating animations, text innovation, readers theatre, debating, visual arts).
- Teaching text types: Each text type has a specific structure and grammatical features that need to be explicitly taught to EAL/D students. They need to know how to use language for different purposes (genres) and for different audiences (register).
- Teaching the difference between written and spoken language: The writing of EAL/D students often looks like spoken English written down. Teach them strategies to write about abstract concepts that do not share context with the reader.
- Planning for writing / the writing cycle: (refer to diagram below)
for more information:
ACARA resources for EAL/D students
http://www.acara.edu.au/curriculum/student_diversity/eald_teacher_resource.html
Primary English Teacher’s Association of Austalia website
http://www.petaa.edu.au/imis_Prod/w
Scaffolding via Assoc Prof Pauline Gibbons
http://www.ameprc.mq.edu.au/docs/prospect_journal/volume_20_no_1/20_1_1_Hammond.pdf
Hertzberg, M 2012, Teaching English Language Learners in Mainstream Classes, Primary English Teaching Association Australia, Sydney.