1. Supporting EAL children (Including new arrivals)
October 2016
Louise Aldridge

2. AIMS
To increase understanding around how children learn a new language
To know how to assess new arrivals
To have a range of strategies to support EAL learners (including newly arrived pupils)

3. Who is a pupil with English as an Additional Language?
A child with English as an additional language is one who was exposed to a language other than English during their early years, and continues to be exposed to this language in the home or in the community. It includes the first language heard as well as spoken.
A child who speaks EAL can range from a beginner in learning English to a very fluent speaker of English. These pupils may also be referred to as 'bilingual'. Many children use two or three languages, including English, at home. They may also use a different language in religious contexts.

4. The EAL learner could be one who is:
Born in Britain but who does not start learning English until he/she starts school.
Brought up as bilingual and fluent in English and the mother tongue.
Some may be bi-literate.
Newly arrived in this country but bi-literate with some years of learning English as a foreign language.
Newly arrived, with little knowledge of English, but literate in the mother tongue.
Newly arrived with no previous experience in English and/or with very basic literacy skills in the mother tongue.

5. Potential challenges for new arrivals
Feelings of insecurity or trauma due to prior experiences.
Isolation and lack of friends.
Separation from one or both parents.
Little or previous schooling due to lack of opportunities or instability in the home country.
Different style or emphasis of education.
Children may feel misunderstood and unvalued if they cannot see any of their culture or language in the classroom/school.
Experiencing racism in or out of school.

6. CALPS and BICS
Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) are language skills needed in social situations. It is the day-to-day language needed to interact socially with other people. English language learners (ELLs) employ BIC skills when they are on the playground, in the lunch room,on the school bus, at parties, playing sports and talking on the telephone. Social interactions are usually context embedded. They occur in a meaningful social context. They are not very demanding cognitively. The language required is not specialized. These language skills usually develop within six months to two years after arrival in the U.S.
Problems arise when teachers and administrators think that a child is proficient in a language when they demonstrate good social English.
CALP refers to formal academic learning. This includes listening, speaking, reading, and writing about subject area content material. This level of language learning is essential for students to succeed in school. Students need time and support to become proficient in academic areas. This usually takes from five to seven years. Recent research (Thomas & Collier, 1995) has shown that if a child has no prior schooling or has no support in native language development, it may take seven to ten years for ELLs to catch up to their peers.
Academic language acquisition isn't just the understanding of content area vocabulary. It includes skills such as comparing, classifying, synthesizing, evaluating, and inferring. Academic language tasks are context reduced. Information is read from a textbook or presented by the teacher. As a student gets older the context of academic tasks becomes more and more reduced.
The language also becomes more cognitively demanding. New ideas, concepts and language are presented to the students at the same time.
Jim Cummins also advances the theory that there is a common underlying proficiency (CUP) between two languages. Skills, ideas and concepts students learn in their first language will be transferred to the second language.

7. Early stages of learning English
The ‘silent period’
Many bilingual children go through a 'silent period' when they first enter an unfamiliar setting.
This can last for up to six months or longer.
During this time, children will be watching, actively listening, and exploring their environment to understand new experiences and to develop new meanings.
They will be trying to relate previous knowledge to new contexts. It is important that children should not feel pressurised to speak until they feel confident enough to do so.
It is essential that adults continue to talk to the children, to pick up their non-verbal responses, to support the child's understanding of meaning, and to involve them in activities,
These strategies will help children to internalise the language they hear and to develop a sense of the patterns, meanings and range of language functions in their new, unfamiliar environment.
The early stages of learning English: research This outline of the development of young children's learning of English as an additional language draws on research findings. There will be variations in the rate of development according to environmental, personal and social factors.

8. Echoing
Many children may begin to 'echo' single words and some short phrases used by adults and peers. All attempts at speech should be encouraged and praised.

9. Non verbal gestures
During this time, children may begin to use non-verbal gestures as a response to a question or to indicate a need. Understanding is in advance of spoken language.

10. Positive Contribution
Schools should take account of the cultural, linguistic and academic needs of newly arrived children and recognise the positive contribution they can make to the school.
It is important that new arrivals see their language and culture positively reflected in school.

11. Newbury Park School

12. There will be a development of 'formulaic' language ('chunks' of social speech) e.g. "Mummy come soon." "My turn." Children may begin to join in with story refrains and repetitions and songs.
‘Chunking' will continue, but children will increasingly begin to use one word utterances (frequently nouns) which will perform a range of language functions indicated by tone of voice (e.g. questioning, responding, naming).

13. Children will then begin to generate their own 'telegraphic' sentences, using two or three word utterances. Function words are likely to be omitted, the main concern being the communication of meaning.
Non-verbal gestures will often accompany speech. 'Chunking' will continue during this stage. Children will begin to use extended phrases or simple sentences which contain surface developmental errors in the use of plurals, tenses, personal pronouns, function words and articles. Again the emphasis is on the communication of meaning.

14. Increasingly children will develop more control in their use of functional language. However surface errors in the use of tenses, word endings and plurals will continue for some time until children understand the use of different grammatical structures in the target language, which may be very different from the home language.

15. NALDIC EAL Formative Assessment Descriptors KS2
Level 1 - New to English
Level 2 - Beginning to comprehend and use
routine language
Level 3 - Developing range of social and
classroom language
Level 4 - Extending range of language and
experimenting with learning through
English
Level 5 - Consolidating language use and extending
literacy skills
Level 6 - Becoming competent users of English

16. Welcome!
Background information – get to know the child- build a profile e.g. proficiency in first language, previous schooling etc.
Importance and role of the first language
Visual timetable
Communication fans
Language skills book – how can a topic be linked to the curriculum?
Buddy
Relevant resources to support talk and writing; visuals, key language, timeline, thesaurus, first 100/200 words etc.
Picture dictionary
Bilingual dictionary

18. Visuals
Visuals provide context and access for EAL learners who need to make sense of new information and new language in order to learn. This enables the language demands of an activity to be reduced without reducing the cognitive demand.
Types of activities using visuals
Taking photographs
Producing and interpreting graphic organisers: story maps, flow charts, cycles, Venn diagrams, Carroll diagrams, tree diagrams, matrices, timelines, graphs
Drawing and interpreting diagrams
Sequencing activities using images, or images with text
Matching activities using pictures, words, text or a combination of these
Grouping activities using pictures, words, phrases, or statements - and naming the groups 

19. Resources
Provide pupils with a bilingual dictionary and dual language story books. Provide pupils with an indexed ‘word book’ for noting down key words and definitions (or translations if the child knows the word in their first language). Definitions could be written in English or in the first language, or the child could draw a picture to remind them of the meaning of the word)

20. Vocabulary Pre-teach where possible
Allow pupils to preview vocabulary at home and discuss with parents in the language they speak best.

21. Sentence starters and frames

22. Support in class linked to curriculum
Speaking and listening
Active listening!
Don’t do for them what they can do for themselves!
Build independence/confidence: retell instructions, describe what they are doing etc.
Provide opportunities for them to use the language they know – oral rehearsal
Extend dialogue – promote and encourage extension of ideas using the language they know e.g. prediction, outcome, feelings, thoughts etc.

23. Reading Home reading – pictures, simple repetitive language
Dual language books
Develop decoding/sight vocabulary strategies
Interaction with the text:
Underline a word they can’t read
Circle a word they don’t understand
Vocabulary book: select words from reading/writing activity to learn (as above)
Colour code focus area e.g. highlight nouns green, adjectives red

24. Writing
Super sentences; actions, visuals. Actions to demark beginning and end of an idea.
Oral rehearsal – show sentence structure. How many words?
Spelling – what do you already know about that word bcoz (tick correct letters)
Visuals with key words/language labelled
Vocabulary book – keep on table to support writing

25. Maths
Proficiency may only be limited by language – pre-teach, prior knowledge, visuals/labels
Opportunities to talk about what they are doing – strategies and solutions
Modelling of the appropriate language – functions and structures

26. Wave 2
Racing to English – activities can be revisited to build language acquisition.
Link the themes to the curriculum e.g. body
parts
Games
Role play
Pre teaching of vocabulary

27. Preparation What are the language demands of the task?
What do they need to know and to access and engage in the task?

28. Language functions
Language functions refer to the purposes in which we use language to communicate. We use language for a variety of formal and informal purposes, and specific grammatical structures and vocabulary are often used with each language function. Some examples of language functions include:
Compare and contrast
Persuasion
Asking questions
Expressing likes and dislikes
Cause and effect
Summarizing
Sequencing
Predicting
Agreeing/disagreeing
Greeting people/introductions

29. Language functions
Explicitly teach the vocabulary and phrases associated with each language function. For example, when teaching the language function of compare/contrast teachers may teach the following vocabulary: both, similar, also, different, in contrast, similarly, etc.
It is important that as students become familiar with the vocabulary associated with each language function that more advanced functional vocabulary is introduced to students. An excellent resource for teachers to identify advanced vocabulary is thesaurus.com ordictionary.com. 

30. Language functions and related language structures
Evaluating yourself
Seeking assistance
Asking permission/requests
Apologising
Agreeing/Disagreeing
Explaining
Classifying
Prediction / Hypothesis
Generalising
Observation
Comparing/Contrasting
Commanding
Inquiry
Denial
Wishing Hoping
Preference
Expressing position
Obligation
Refusal
Suggestions/Critical feedback
Warning of consequences
Deduction
Sequence
Inference

31. How can EAL provision be reflected in the planning
Plan for opportunities to teach language functions as well as vocabulary.
Highlight the language focus in the weekly planning.

32. websites http://www.communication4all.co.uk/
Resources to support inclusion
Language of the month resources
Teaching, learning resources and guidance
Online shop