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Teresa has worked at St John’s C of E for over 2 years. She differentiates for all ability levels but, up to now, she has never had to consider the needs of a child new to English in her class. Teresa admitted to initially feeling a little anxious, however, after seeking advice, referring to the new arrivals procedures at the school, working closely with her teaching assistant, Rumena Aktar, and giving a lot of careful thought to her planning, Teresa put the following in place:
Before arrival:
On reflection, Teresa explained she felt she was using similar skills to when she taught English as an Additional Language in France. Teresa feels that Elaine has felt welcomed and involved. She doesn't feel that Elaine is isolated and feels she is always included and successful.
As a proud year 3 teacher, she is excited to see how much Elaine has learnt and the rate of progress although slightly worried she about constantly challenging her with higher order thinking skills alongside learning the language!
Note that the new arrival’s name has been changed for confidentiality purposes.
We all know that there can be resistance to writing in the EAL classroom. To break this barrier, we need to consider the reasons for this, which are often due to a lack of scaffolding and under-confident learners. Working through a process of reading a model text, deconstructing it and then reconstructing your own text by following a scaffold, leads to more satisfactory outcomes.
Cross Cultural Understanding for New to English Students – The First Steps (Part 2)
Supporting the learning of the new language is by no means the only aspect of helping a new arrival to feel ‘at home’ in their new country. However, as it can be one of the most stressful aspects of their life change and therefore a carefully tailored plan to accommodate for their language learning needs is essential. There are a wealth of resources available for supporting teachers in helping children in their first steps of learning English.