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Academia Británica Cuscatleca (ABC) in El Salvador joined the Learning Village in April 2015. However, they weren't fully active across Upper Primary until Communication Across Cultures came to their school in February this year to give an inset on EAL.
Since then, they have used the Learning Village to support learners with accessing some of the basics of English as well as the curriculum content needed to help them to be successful in their lessons.
Although we can't put names to these results, you can see a snapshot of the top learner's progress over the last 30 days, here:
The Head of Village and EAL Coordinator at ABC, Jonathan Marquez, works in small groups with his learners to pre-teach and gap fill the necessary English language required for learners based on what is currently happening or about to happen in the curriculum and the weekly learner progress report he receives from the Learning village.
ABC is fast approaching the top scores on the Learning Village leaderboard!
Thanks for sharing these photos ABC and keep up the good work!
With thanks to Academia Británica Cuscatleca the children and their parents for providing permission to publish these photos.
When we attempt to facilitate effective communication or collaborative learning between pairs or groups, we must acknowledge that our pupils are not only exchanging information; they are also constructing their sense of self and how they ‘relate to the social world’ (Norton 1997: 410). They are negotiating their role within the group or pair. Researchers have noted that there are certain patterns of behaviour between learners and some patterns have been proven to foster more effective learning.
Attending a recent woodwind ensemble concert made me think about language use in the classroom - quite an unusual connection, right? ‘How so?’ you might ask. Perhaps it was because the musicians each had a different heritage, played a different instrument, and spoke another language. Yet, they all tuned their instruments together at the start and communicated in English before creating something beautifully fluid for the audience to immerse themselves in.
The traditional way to start a lesson with Secondary school learners is with a 'do now!' activity. It works. You get a focused start to the lesson, with students calmly settling into an activity as soon as they enter the room. Moving on – and introducing the ‘learning intention’ – however, can be a little more challenging. This is especially true for EAL learners, particularly if the lesson is a tricky or more academic one, such as a writing lesson, that may have negative connotations for some pupils.