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How can you take your EAL department forward to play a part in a whole school development strategy? Over the years, I have found that this can be a real challenge. A plan for a whole-school approach to EAL can have a significant impact, and not only benefits the EAL learners, but the whole school population.
Blair and Bourne (1998) researched some successful schools and identified some common themes with regard to EAL:
Schools all have different organisational structures, which means that roles and responsibilities can fall onto a variety of different people. It is important to remember that the task of EAL development does not rest on the shoulders of one person alone. Provision for EAL learners is larger than one person’s role. Therefore, your development plan needs to be owned and shared by the staff and leadership team. It needs to instigate a change in culture.
Kotter (1996) argues that there are ‘8 Steps to change’ that can be followed to make progress. These fall into the following three areas:
1. Create a sense of urgency
2. Build a guiding coalition
3. Form a strategic vision
4. Enlist a volunteer group
5. Enable action by removing barriers
6. Plan for short-term wins
7. Sustain acceleration
8. Institute change
Scott (2012) discusses how to set whole-school targets by first considering which things you want to change, review or add. By creating a list of things that need to be taken into account, you are able to identify your main priorities and list them as SMART targets (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed). These targets can be numbered in priority order, for example, from 1-3, with one being the first priority and three being the lowest priority (Scott, 2012). The final stage is to consider how these targets will be achieved, deciding what needs to be done and who is going to be responsible for this (Scott, 2012).
Finally, it is extremely important that everyone is on board with the changes and that there is a shared understanding of the plan for all stakeholders.
If you want to learn more about how change can be implemented in your school or to access a structure for whole school development, join the Across Cultures EAL Framework for Schools course. More details can be found here.
References:
Blair, M. and Bourne, J. (1998) Making the difference: teaching and learning in successful multi-ethnic schools, DfEE
Kotter, J. (1996) Leading Change, Harvard Business School Press
Morrison McGill, R (2015), Teacher Toolkit: Helping you survive your first five years, London, Bloomsbury Education
Scott, C (2012), Teaching English as an Additional Language, 5-11: A Whole School Resource File, London, Routledge
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!
Sometimes our students who have English as an additional language seem to be having more difficulty than expected developing their language, and accessing the rest of the curriculum. Most teachers have become more aware of the signs of dyslexia (and other specific learning differences), but the overlap with the language learning process makes it much more complex to identify EAL learners who also have a SpLD.
Academia Británica Cuscatleca (ABC) in El Salvador joined the Learning Village in April 2015. However, they weren't fully active across Upper Primary until Communication Across Cultures came to their school in February this year to give an inset on EAL.
Since then, they have used the Learning Village to support learners with accessing some of the basics of English as well as the curriculum content needed to help them to be successful in their lessons.