Definition of EAL student

[Ana mesa]

Dear all, could someone please define what EAL is please? To me, it is the child whose language at home is other but English. Sometimes I have been approached by colleagues questioning this and I have doubted, I have to admit! I am surrounded by colleagues who strongly believe EAL student is a child who cannot speak/read or write properly in English...
In my current school we do not have new arrivals nor beginners, instead, our 58.2% population that has been identified as EAL are advanced learners whose home language is not English. Sometimes I wonder if there is any other way of identifying an EAL child but for their language at home. Does First language count as such?
Thank you very much for your Help!!
Ana Mesa-Masa

[Angelika Baxter Ethnic Minority Achievement Adviser EMTAS SIEY SCF]

Hi Ana,

You are certainly not alone! It's when the pupils is able to converse
fluently in English that the 'early stages' of EAL may be outgrown - and
it is at this point that the real hard work of EAL needs to take off in
terms of gaining access to more academic language/activities within the
curriculum. Sadly, some subject teachers/class teachers (and, dare I
add, some senior managers~) do seem to find it hard to engage with this
concept

Why not visit the NALDIC website - www.naldic.org.uk .

You should find lots of useful materials there to help you bring the
point across.

Angelika

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[Cern Deosil]

It is a child for whom English is an additional language to their first language. They may be capable of speaking English and, indeed writing in English. But, as English is not their first language, it is an additional language. About 60% of our school population fit the category of EAL students, but only about 10% are obviously in need of support/EAL provision. That doesn't mean the remaining 50% are without the need of some form of additional support as advnaced learners. What w're developing in our school is the notion that contextual support provided by the subject specialists and delivered to ALL students in the class, will actually benefit ALL students in the class. We had a look at the students who were in our D and E grade boundaries and discovered they were predominantly advanced EAL learners. By presenting that information to management and suggesting we might be able to make a significant impact on our 'A' to 'C' statistics, we managed to get management quite excited and enthusiastic about rolling out a programme to introduce advanced EAL teaching strategies througout the curriculum. You might find similar statistics to help reinforce your case. :)

Mike

---

From: Ana mesa <ames...@hotmail.com>
To: "eal-bi...@googlegroups.com" <eal-bi...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 7 February 2012, 19:16

Subject: [EAL-Bilingual;1434] Definition of EAL student

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[Frank Monaghan]

Hi Ana,

I agree with Angelika (especially the bit about visiting the NALDIC website, and even more so if it persuades you to join us!)

Seriously though, the important point is that there is a continuum of needs and they change over time.

Jim Cummins helpfully introduced the concepts of BICS (basic interpersonal communication skills) to describe the early stages of learning English (usually about two years) when children gain superficial fluency and are able to have everyday conversations in class, e.g. To give 'common sense' descriptions of events and processes, and CALP (cognitive academic language proficiency) to describe the more advanced language (especially written forms) that are required for exam success in specialist subject areas (typically this takes five to eight years to acquire).

Research by my colleague at the OU, Lynn Cameron, into both primary and secondary EAL students' writing established that advanced learners of EAL still have particular and distinctive neds from their monolingual English-speaking peers both at the (technical) vocabulary and grammatical levels.

Whilst good practice for EAL students may be good practice for all, good practice for the monolingual may well not be sufficient for EAL learners!

As Angelika suggests, check out the NALDIC website and if you visit the publications page you will find lots of resources around spcific topics and the NALDIC book on English as an Additional Language (edited by Constant Leung and Angela Creese) contains lots of case studies around various issues and subject specialisms.

Best wishes,

Frank

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[Ana mesa]

Thanks to everyone for your contributions!! 

However, when a child is born in the UK but their home language is different from English, would he/ she be considered EAL? Most of our students claim to have English as first language but their home language is otherwise, they are born in the UK but they speak / listen to , and some of them write, another language with their family members, would you consider them EAL Learners?

Cheers!!

Sent from my iPhone

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[e-mail anne.nelson23]

Ana, 

Some very interesting replies to your initial query but in short, I'd say a most definite 'yes' to your last question.

Anne Nelson

School based Co-ordinator

Emtas

Leicestershire

[CATHARINE DRIVER]

The Department of education definition (still currentI think)  might be of relevance. 

A pupil’s first language is defined as any language other than English that a child was exposed to during early development and continues to be exposed to in the home or community. If a child was exposed to more than one language (which may include English) during early development, a language other than English should be recorded, irrespective of the child’s proficiency in English.

If any learner fits this description,  they have EAL even if they say English is their 'best' language. Many UK born bilinguals do not speak much English until they start school aged 4 or 5. This means that by the end of primary school 6 years later they may only just be achieving CALP. Then as the language demands of the curriculum expand rapidly from year 7 onwards, they struggle to keep up and often remain slightly below expected levels throughout secondary. Lyn Cameron, cited by Frank, also found that UK born bilinguals with 10 years of education, still had significant gaps in their academic vocabulary. This is a strong argument for those of us working in Secondary schools to continue to offer support and training to mainstream subject teachers to plan for advanced bilingual learners in all lessons. The students may be getting Cs, but what about the A s and A*s? 

Catharine

 

Catharine Driver
EAL Consultant and Trainer
07801 268 125
http://www.ealconsulting.co.uk/

---

From: Ana mesa <ames...@hotmail.com>
To: "eal-bi...@googlegroups.com" <eal-bi...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 7 February 2012, 19:16
Subject: [EAL-Bilingual;1434] Definition of EAL student

[Jones, Ann-Elizabeth]

Very handy to have these definitions in one place, thank you Catharine.

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[Frank Monaghan]

Anyone who has a language other than English in their home repertoire may be an 'EAL' learner; the point is do they have distinctive needs as a result. That's not always easy to assess and why we need specialists who can make the judgment call! 

I do recommend Lynne Cameron's work on this if you need to provide evidence to your senior management team of the reality of the situation of advanced EAL learners' needs and why it makes a differnce to educational outcomes for bilingual learners that they are met appropriately.

Frank

[Jones, Ann-Elizabeth]

Personally, I wouldn`t. My own children are what is called simultaneous
bilinguals, speaking Welsh at home with me (and at Welsh school one day
a week), while using English at home with their dad and receiving most
of their education in English. They speak, read and write English to the
same level of proficiency as other native users.

So I reckon they, along with many other bilingual children, are
bilingual, but not EAL.

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[mailto:eal-bi...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ana mesa

Sent from my iPhone

Mike

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[Phyllis Bridge]

Hi Mike,

 

I completely agree with you and this is my target for my school as well.  In order to achieve that, I have introduced two alternative En qualifications at KS4 (ESOL and IGCSE EAL) based on the data analysis; I have delivdered whole staff inset on two occasions which were well received; I belong to the "Literacy across the curriculum" committee and promote literacy strategies across the subject areas; and I am familiar with the CPD modules for Advanced EAL learners and shall deliver topics recommended from them.  I just wonder if you have any more practical advice to further develop this.

 

Phyllis

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[Cern Deosil]

Hi Phyllis,

 

We're just beginning to develop our Advanced learners approach. But so far we've encouraged the use of speaking frames, opportunities for students to repsond in first language, for exam classes- a focus on the contextually appropriate use of language in responding to exam questions (useful for English first language students too) including modelling, use of writing frames and topic/unit specific vocabularly/definition sheets with space for trfanslation. Our inset session (we've only had one so far, but have been promised more in the future) encouraged departments to try to develop a range of those resources for their next unit of work so they might trial the process and report back with a review of the trial. We have a shared area of the school computer network where we have provided templates and exemplar materials for staff to use, and have also provided the DFES National Strategy PDF documents for KS3 (for example, science http://teachfind.com/national-strategies/access-and-engagement-science-teaching-pupils-whom-english-additional-language?current_search=Access%20and%20engagement%20in ) as additional food for thought.

 

We're still working on it all though. :)

 

Mike

From: Phyllis Bridge <phyllis...@gmail.com>
To: eal-bi...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, 8 February 2012, 11:10
Subject: Re: [EAL-Bilingual;1457] Definition of EAL student

Hi Mike,

 

I completely agree with you and this is my target for my school as well.  In order to achieve that, I have introduced two alternative En qualifications at KS4 (ESOL and IGCSE EAL) based on the data analysis; I have delivdered whole staff inset on two occasions which were well received; I belong to the "Literacy across the curriculum" committee and promote literacy strategies across the subject areas; and I am familiar with the CPD modules for Advanced EAL learners and shall deliver topics recommended from them.  I just wonder if you have any more practical advice to further develop this.

 

Phyllis

On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 7:28 PM, Cern Deosil <cernd...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

It is a child for whom English is an additional language to their first language. They may be capable of speaking English and, indeed writing in English. But, as English is not their first language, it is an additional language. About 60% of our school population fit the category of EAL students, but only about 10% are obviously in need of support/EAL provision. That doesn't mean the remaining 50% are without the need of some form of additional support as advnaced learners. What w're developing in our school is the notion that contextual support provided by the subject specialists and delivered to ALL students in the class, will actually benefit ALL students in the class. We had a look at the students who were in our D and E grade boundaries and discovered they were predominantly advanced EAL learners. By presenting that information to management and suggesting we might be able to make a significant impact on our 'A' to 'C' statistics, we managed to get management quite excited and enthusiastic about rolling out a programme to introduce advanced EAL teaching strategies througout the curriculum. You might find similar statistics to help reinforce your case. :)

Mike

[CHRIS PIM]

Hampshire EMTAS has been running a successful advanced bilingual learner programme for the last couple of years with local secondary schools. So much so that we are thinking about rolling something similar out to local primaries. This has taken a collaborative approach and on occasions a full partnership teaching model.

We have developed some interesting packs of materials, strategies, approaches and have been involved in training teachers as well.

Chris Pim

---

From: Cern Deosil <cernd...@yahoo.co.uk>
To: "eal-bi...@googlegroups.com" <eal-bi...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 8 February 2012, 12:19
Subject: Re: [EAL-Bilingual;1461] Definition of EAL student

[Phyllis Bridge]

Hi Mike,

 

Thanks for your prompt reply.  They are certainly good ideas and I particularly like the centralised PDF/resources/templates in order to encourage staff to use them.  During the first session of our whole school inset, I have distributed copies of Access and Engagements to the teaching of EAL pupils documents to 8 departments and got them to set SMART targets for their depts.  I think to follow it up and to ensure that work is being done is a mammoth task but I shall crack on.  I may also try to search for some good practice among staff and showcase it in order to get the ball rolling. 

 

Phyllis

[Phyllis Bridge]

Hi Chris,

 

It's good to know.  Is it possible for you to share with us some examples?

 

Phyllis

[Sue Alldred]

It's been great reading all the responses to Ana's email.  Lots of interesting issues raised, not least that A-E Jones, quite rightly it seems, described her children as 'simultaneous bilinguals' rather than 'EAL'.   

 

I work in a large inner-city primary school, where 97% of children can be judged to be learners of EAL, although maybe 70% (something to follow up, for statistics!) are British-born.  For a variety of reasons, I would categorise them as subtractive rather than simlutaneous bilinguals.

 

In my role as EAL co-ordinator, I have worked in partnership with class teachers to promote an ethos and teaching and learning strategies which suit EAL learners - and all pupils in the class.  I have also established the term CNE (Children New to English) to identify the cohort within EAL made up of our many new arrivals who have little or no English.  These children receive support for basic language and grammar (and eg fine motor skills development for those pupils new to education) in three sessions per week where they are withdrawn from literacy lessons (KS2) and wherever the timetable allows (KS1).

 

Although all provision is constantly monitored and reviewed, this support has so far been provided (in KS2) until children attain NC L2 in speaking and listening - when, with high quality Wave 1 teaching, they benefit more from being in class. (We are in the process of converting from a junior to a primary schoool - hence the KS2 focus). Data-tracking of KS2 pupils has shown that the limited withdrawal model, in the majoirty of cases, at least does not detract from accelerated progress (typically 5-9 APS in a year).

 

Having said this, given awareness of the BICS/CALP model, we also track the progress, plateaux or otherwise of pupils once they no longer have the withdrawal group support.  Early indications show no particular pattern, other than that some of the children who plateau have other identified issues -  which are picked up by our pastoral team.

 

As a school, we are now entering a phase where we focus on speaking and listening.  I am working with the senior management team to include home/first languages in this remit, and to raise the awareness of staff that the majority of our British-born EAL pupils have limited vocabulary in key areas.  For instance, how (at Y5) can they get top marks for an instructional (recipe) text if they don't know the words 'whisk, foam, froth, sprinkle or drizzle'?

 

I would welcome any tips from people who have already been on this journey.

 

Regards,

Sue Alldred

 

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