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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.

General care

  • Is everyone in the family well?
  • Do you understand the rules about going outside?
  • Are you going outside every day?
  • Are you meeting up with friends and family?
  • Is there someone who can help you if you need anything?
  • Are you worried about anything?
  • Have you got enough food and/or medicine?
  • Do you know how to contact the emergency services?

Accessing school work

  • Is your child working at home?
  • Is this easy?
  • Does ____ have access to a computer or similar device?
  • Does ____ have access to WiFi?
  • Do you have access to email?
  • Does ____ have a quiet space to work?
  • Does ____ have their school books at home?
  • Do you have paper and pens at home?
  • Do you have any story books at home?
  • Is ____ working every day on school work?
  • Do you know how to contact your school?

We’ve created an easily downloadable list of these questions to ask parents when calling home, which you can download by clicking on the button below.

Further learning - Blog

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Created: Tue 11th Jun 2024

By Miranda Howell

English is a language which has developed over 15 hundred years and has adopted words from over 350 languages. As a result, English has a rich tapestry of vocabulary and spelling patterns which can confuse learners. Having a brief background knowledge of the historical influences on the English language can support our teaching to both first language learners and EAL learners, especially around decoding words when reading. 

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Created: Tue 19th Jun 2018

Marking and feedback is a crucial part of any teacher’s workload, and is essential for EAL learners. The importance of good-quality marking and feedback has been evidenced by many academic professionals, notably William & Black (1998) and, more recently, William (2018) and Hattie (2012). Hattie discusses the idea of rigorous approaches to marking and feedback, stating that through assessing learners, teachers themselves learn about their own impact: “As a professional, it is critical to know they impact.

Created: Wed 13th Nov 2024

In English, there are 44 speech sounds. Creating speech sounds is a more complex process than you might think! It requires the coordination of different muscles and structures. The lips, tongue, teeth and other parts of our mouth all play an important role. Where learners have difficulties creating certain sounds, their fluency, ability to be understood and confidence in speaking aloud can all be affected.