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Learners with speech and language difficulties may find it difficult to remember words or think or the word they want to use when they are talking.
Tip or Idea: Think of a category such as ‘animals’ or ‘things in a kitchen’ and then see how many words you can name. Each time you think of a word place a Lego piece on top of another and see how tall a tower you can build!
Learning Village resource: Use our Teaching Vocabulary pack to engage learners at a range of ability levels whilst learning new words. Try acting out our flashcards in a fun game, solve a crossword or even write your own sentences. Our model can be adapted for any vocabulary you like!
In Science, EAL learners need to understand scientific language, both written and oral, as well as to work with the command verbs such as; discuss, explain, evaluate etc… (Mertin, 2014). This means the language required for Science is academic and challenging and, as a result, it can become extremely difficult for learners to access the subject content. This begs the questions; How do we make the lessons comprehensible to EAL learners and provide what Krashen (1998) terms as ‘comprehensible input’?
“Scaffolding is the process a teacher uses to model or demonstrate how to solve a problem (in the case of language learning, to support learners with using the language needed to articulate themselves). After modelling, they step back, offering support as needed.”
Scott, 2019
Linguists including Derewianka (2001), Droga and Humphrey (2003), Knapp and Watkins (2005), and Gibbons (2009) suggest that scaffolding writing is critical in helping English as an additional language (EAL) learners become effective writers.