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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
If you have the opportunity to use a bilingual support partner to help families who have learners working from home, it may be useful to prepare a list of questions for this staff member to ask. Bilingual support is extremely useful when making contact with parents who speak little or no English.
When we attempt to facilitate effective communication or collaborative learning between pairs or groups, we must acknowledge that our pupils are not only exchanging information; they are also constructing their sense of self and how they ‘relate to the social world’ (Norton 1997: 410). They are negotiating their role within the group or pair. Researchers have noted that there are certain patterns of behaviour between learners and some patterns have been proven to foster more effective learning.
‘Stories and storytelling are fundamental to the human experience.’ Nunan (2012).