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Being able to understand and use a range of adjectives can help learners to communicate successfully. Adjectives are essential for adding information or interest to their spoken or written language. They also enable learners to differentiate between items.
Tip or Idea: Play ‘I spy…’ but with an adjective twist! Select an item in the classroom and choose an adjective to describe it E.g. “I spy with my little eye something fluffy!” Learners take it in turns to see if they can guess the item. If they need more support, you can add an additional adjective “I spy with my little eye something fluffy and blue”. For more confident learners try a less common adjective to challenge them.
Free resource to help you with this activity: Use our Adjective Flashcards to support learners to be the leader and choose their own item for an ‘I spy’ game.
An additional adult can be very effective in supporting teachers with EAL learners in the classroom. An additional adult may be a teaching assistant, learning support assistant or just a regular volunteer. They can significantly enhance support for learner motivation, confidence and self-esteem (Wilson et al, 2003). If you are a classroom teacher, you may be observed on how best to deploy your additional adults against your school standards.
Studying mathematics in an English-medium school presents learners of English as an Additional Language (EAL) with a double cognitive whammy as they grapple with learning English and maths at the same time. Understanding maths is more than just knowing how to add and subtract; it also requires learners to use language to make sense of what they are studying, so that they can apply their maths knowledge in real life (Ramirez, 2020; Winsor, 2007). All learners need to be able to discuss their mathematical thinking in order to clarify and embed their understanding of new concepts.
Brewster, Ellis and Girard (2012) discuss the idea of playing Bingo or Dominoes as games for connecting various curriculum areas. Brewster (2012) explains that playing games like these can be a support for learning target vocabulary, for example, playing a Dominoes game before or after reading where learners can either match the words or the pictures together as they listen is an excellent way to learn the target language. You may be studying the human skeleton vocabulary in the game and making connections to the class book e.g.