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Family studying in mother tongue
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Author: Caroline Scott, author and director

We are all faced with very different learning situations at the moment and home learning has become the current norm. The challenges it poses are significant. Parents often have limited time available to support learners, limited understanding of where to start, sometimes a lack of technological know-how in accessing online classrooms - or even a lack of access to an online environment altogether. These issues are exacerbated amongst parents with limited understanding of the school language. Whilst some parents are well ahead, their language-learning counterparts are facing the huge task of supporting a child who is learning in a language they aren't confident in speaking themselves.

The importance of the mother tongue

There is a large body of research showing that the use of mother tongue benefits second language development. Learners are more likely to be successful in English (or any language) if they use what they know in their mother tongue to help them with their new language (Cummins, 2000). 

"In the process of learning English, children's primary cultural and linguistic identities should not be submerged, nor should the process of learning a new language and culture be a one-way journey away from family and community."
Gibbons, 2015.

The impact of using mother tongue to discuss learning at home

Working from home provides a wonderful opportunity for parents to support the development of a learner's home language. The chance for learners to discuss learning in their home language provide learners with:

  • additional confidence in their school work, in both languages
  • additional vocabulary in both languages​
  • valuable time spent thinking and working in their home language, using this as a support for articulating themselves in English
  • support in reading in their home language (perhaps on curriculum topics)

​Our Parent Information Card, which gives parents some key questions they can ask in their home language, can be downloaded by clicking on the button below.

References:

Cummins, J (2000) Language, Power and Pedagogy Bilingual Children in the Crossfire.​ Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

​Gibbons, P. (2015) Scaffolding Learning: Teaching Second Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom. Portsmouth: Heinemann.

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Further learning - Blog

What games work well in the language learning class?

Created: Tue 23rd May 2017

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.

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Created: Sun 16th Feb 2014

It’s hard to even start to highlight the challenges of teaching EAL students in such a short article but there are a few key areas to consider:

Including learners of all cultures into the classroom environment and the school

Bilingual world

My experience of bilingual schools

Created: Sun 15th Apr 2018

The popularity of bilingual schools is increasing. This can be seen, for example, in the growing number of French schools in London, where the students follow a bilingual programme.

In many countries there is an emphasis on learning two languages (The Linguist, 2017). In Scotland in 2011 the government pledged to follow the European model of 1+2 languages. Every child would learn two languages in addition to their mother tongue, to celebrate linguistic and cultural diversity and thus facilitate the inclusion of other languages within the school.

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