We Care About Your Privacy
By clicking “Accept all”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. View our Privacy Policy.
Everyone is talking about differentiation for EAL in whole class teaching, but how do we actually approach it consistently and effectively?
At Across Cultures we have been developing some systematic ways of approaching this in a structured, yet flexible format. In the downloadable plan you'll see a framework to support EAL teachers with planning for content learning alongside language learning. The plan is based about the theme of sea pollution and provides a writing frame for a persuasive text.
This lesson follow a particular format:
1. Pre teach vocabulary of the text type. There are many games for supporting learners with remembering new vocabulary.
2. Introduce the theme, text type and ensure comprehension of text.
3. Reproduce sections of the text day by day with support of writing frames, the vocabulary learnt and the text.
4. Recreate the entire text without support.
Graphic organisers can be a powerful tool for learners with dyslexia. They enable learners to plan and structure their ideas in a visual and accessible way. Focusing on getting ideas organised before navigating challenges with grammar and spelling can be a positive approach. The visual scaffold reduces working memory strain by keeping ideas clearly organised and structured. This allows more cognitive space for sentence construction and spelling, which might be challenging.
Transitioning successfully between extended home and school learning has been the struggle of every affected school, across the globe, since the onset of the pandemic. None of us could have predicted what was about to happen back in January of 2020 and we still struggle to comprehend the enormous scale of the struggle.
School closures, however your school has approached these, have had a huge impact on learner engagement. Even the most prepared schools have struggled to engage learners to the same extent as when learning in the classroom.
While it can be argued that EAL learners have an entitlement to experience a full and varied curriculum through complete class immersion and no withdrawal, some would argue that learners benefit from being withdrawn for time limited support to help them develop their English language in order to assist them in accessing the curriculum (NALDIC, FAQ Podcast, 2017).
If learners are unable to access the lesson content, they can feel frustrated and a sense of failure. Learners need to feel confident and successful.