ENGLISH AS
AN ADDITIONAL
LANGUAGE
Welcome to
today's workshop
WHAT IS EAL?
EAL- English as an Additional Language
The Australian Curriculum provides a large insight and helpful advice
concerning EAL learners and what actions and procedures need to be in
place when you are the teacher of EAL learners. This includes:
o advise about areas of the curriculum that EAL students may find challenging
and why
o assist classroom teachers to identify where their EAL students are broadly
positioned on a progression of English language learning
o help teachers understand students' cultural and linguistic diversity, and
the ways this understanding can be used in the classroom
o provide examples of teaching strategies supportive of EAL students
o direct teachers to additional relevant and useful support for teaching EAL
Stude
o Punctuation
o Text structures
o Phrase verbs
o Gestures and body language
o Colour in text
o phonemes (sounds)
o Morphemic
o Different languages
• logographic languages e.g.- Chinese
• Syllabic languages- Korean
• Different alphabetic scripts- Russian
These are all issues that EAL students struggle with and j on as teachers
need to be aware of these particularly within the English Content
Descriptors
(ACARA, 2014)
SOCIO-CULTURA ?
*'=
KNOWLEDGE
As teachers it is critical that when we have EAL students in our
classroom we research and understand their culture, respecting this
culture and understanding that this child's home life and upbringing
can be different from our Australian culture.
In other cultures there are different ways in which they live. For example:
•Vietnam- the males particularly the oldest male is the head of
the house and the most imponant member
-They are superstitious particularly with funerals, marriages and
moving to a
new house
-the mother takes care of the children, cooxing and cleaning.
•Parents choose who their child will marry
AN
Ll D
is known as Language 1, the dominate
language spoken by an individual person.
This is the most used language spoken therefore it is
used and understood the most.
L2 is the non-dominate language spoken by an
individual.
This is the language least spoken, for some students
this may be English. These students are known as o
EAL students
COMMUNICATIVE
The C o m m u n i c a t i v e Activity:
Children are to work in pairs o n the carpet.
Every student is to have a clipboard with a ‘tent’ picture (landscape)
on it with coloured pencils for each pair.
Students are not to show each other their pictures until the end.
Teacher to explain to student's t h a t t o draw the picture they need to
listen to what each other say.
Each pair get a set of instructions on what to draw, students take it in
t u r n t o s a y instruction.
Student A- Draw a tree behind the tent.
Draw an csky near the entrance of the tent.
Draw a fire in the bottom right hand corner.
Student R- d r a w a picnic bench on the right side of the tent.
Draw two people sitting at the picnic bench.
Draw a car on the left of the tent.
Continue through instructions until picture is
finished.
To see how well this activity actually works, you as
teachers are now going to partner up and see how you
go. Think about how this might help EAL students
what might need to be changed to make it more
THEORISTS
Vygotsky
o emphasised the importance of relatiOnships and interactiOns between children
and more knowledgeable peers and adults
o Cognitive understanding grows when influenced by teacher/ parent
o Students nOt seen as learning on their own, learn thrOugh social interactions
through communication.
o Language is a major influence in the development of a students thinking process
o when students are actively involved in their own learning, their ability
to communicate with others strengthens.
Cognitive development therefore grows when language is developed through
learning and teaching
Piaget-
o Explains the importance of an interactive environment that students are able
to explore through their active learning
Chomsky-
o Shows t h a t when students begin to hear the language around them, they a r e a
then able to understand after a time the structure of t h a t language.
o With more influence, h e a ri n g the language spoken more and more s t u d e n t s
able to learn the language within the environment
(Centre for Va r n ingIrinovatiun, 200ti)
$TRATEGIES
When teaching EAL students strategies need to be in
place that benefit the student. Every student will have
different needs and different ways of learning so your
resources as a teacher to help with their learning of
English needs to be individual so that the best outcome
occurs.
There are specialist EAL teachers that are available
for EAL students. These support teachers work with
the classroom teacher to assist EAL students
transitioning to a new culture and language
(Queensland Government, 2014).
As a teacher it is important when
teaching EAL students Use
gestures and facial expressions
INCLUSIVE
ILASSROO
ENVIRONMENT
Generally other students in the class are amazing with helping out the EAL
learners, however as teachers these fOllowing ideas will make for a wonderful
inclusive environment:
O Teach the whole class about 5•our EAL students country and culture and even
some of the basic language
O An environment where the learner feels secure and are prepared to take risks
O Support and value learners' languages and cultures
O Build on knowledge, skills and understandings that students bring to the
learning context
O Use themes and topics that interest the EAL learner
Expose EAL students to Australia culture and society
Have communicative activities that can be understood by EAL student
O Teach the skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing
Have activities that require pair and group work
O provide meaningful learning
contexts Use visual aide whenever
possible Have a word wall with
meanings
CLASSROOM SETUP
For EAL students who are just beginning to learn
English, a classroom that is set up with many visual
clues will only enhance their learning. A classroom
that:
• Everything is clearly labelled with the word and
picture- able to develop what the word is from the picture
(e.g.- blocks, paper, glue etc)
Posters with numbers, shapes, alphabet and objects
displayed all around the room
Quiet corner where EAL (or all students) can go to ha
some quiet, thinking time or to work individually
without distraction
LITERACY ASPECT
O One on one- explicit teaching taking place where the EAL student is provided with
t each er u n d e r s t a n d i n g a n d guidance on mean in g of stor
O Predictable books- encourage children responses, able to see the events of the story
taking place and join in
O Shared Reading- provides scaffolding to develop knowledge on how each page works to
represent story
O Small groups- able to ask questions, predict events and personal contributions without
the whole class fear
O Whole class reading- read books that rhyme, so students can see the sequencing of the
rhyming and join in with the rest of class
O Nursery Rhymes/ songs- so that EAL students learn a song/ nursery rhyme and
the rest of the class are able tO jr›in in and participate with these activities
FOUR PHASES OF
EAL
As teachers with an EAL student it is crucial for them to
acknowledge what level their English language is. These
phases are not age defined, rather the students knowledge of
language. These four language learning phases include:
o B e g i n n i n g English- of students 1*t language they have
limited literacy knowledge.
Limited L i t eracy B a c k g r o u n d (subsection)- hehaviors
of reading, writing and viewing to understand students
that have little or no literacy knowledge in any language.
o E m e r g i n g E n g l i s h - students with growing English
competency of oral language and print literacy.
o Developing English- English print literacy and oral
language developing
o C o n s o l i d at i n g English- academic language is growing
and written and spoken English language is of a sound level
(ACARA. 2011)
ACTIVITIES
W h a t m a k e s a c t i vi t i e s uaeful for E A L s t u d e n t s a n d h o w c a n w e a s t e a c h e r s b e s u r e t h a t
t h e s t u d e n t s are benefitting from them.
Colourful
Pictures
Not too many words
Able to be clarified with a teacher
Can work on their own, pnrtners, small groups or whole class
At the individual child's level
Uaeful activities can include:
-Word/ picture bingo
atching game- word to picture
vided sentence to then draw- e.g. The black cat sat under
the big tree.
' Fill in the gaps atory- have the characters and setting etc
blanked out for the EAL student to then
- Flash cards
• Rhyming words activity
• Multiple choice activities
ACTIVITY H
Alphabetic Bingo- teacher can say a word and
Students put counter on the firGt letter of that
word. This activity can be used for EAL
h
students early on in their English learning,
however it could also be used in prep/ grade 1
with the whole class. This activity helps EAL
students with sound to letter recognition.
rf Alphabetic Flashcards- teacher can use
these as letter/ picture to word knowledge.
Hh ?v Show students card and ask what the
picture is and what letter that is. Can
modify flash cards to just letter, then ask
students what letter it is and a word that
then Starts with this letter.
ONLINE ACTIVITI
For online activities make sure you EAL student has
knowledge on how to word computers to be able to do the
activities or teach th em the skills necessary to work the
programs.
These follOwing programs are great for EAL students:
And programs that Teachers need to register for:
Although these websites are great resources and teaching
tools for EAL students, each teacher needs to thoroughly go
through the website and choose what activities they want
their EAL students to complete. Some activities may or
may not be relevant for the unit of work in which your class
is studying or some activities might not be beneficial for the
individual student.
LETTERLAND
P$OGRAM
This program in an Internationally used program specific for ESL or
EAL students.
Letterland ESLThis program teaches EAL students knowledge of
Program
shapes and sounds of the English language. It also teaches basic
English vocabulary, listening and speaking skills. This program is
designed to teach specifically English as a additional language.
This program contains the following resources:
ELT Teacher's Guide- It supports an activity and/or a book and
CD approach to teaching, and useful activities that reinforce and
extend vocabulary.
Student Book and CD- brightly coloured pages to
invite
interactivity, with pronunciation models on CD.
p ELT Handwriting Book - useful aid to handwriting practice as
children progress from tracing to independent writing using this
pictogram approach to letter formation.
ELT Workbook- includes pair work activities and games to make
teaching more effective.
IMPORTANT THINGS
TO REMEMBER
- Keep records and know how your EAL child's learning
is developing and what extra measures can be done.
- Introduce new activities that are engaging and help
the individual student- find out what this child is
interested in and base some activities around this.
- Try to know what is going on at home, keep the
parents up to date (if their English ability permits
this).
- Try to learn a few words from your EAL student’s
first language (L1), just to show that you care about
CONCLUSION
As a teacher, every lesson needs to be accommodated for all
your students- the highflyers, those struggling and also your
EAL students.
Our country is rapidly changing and people are coming to live
in Australia from all over the world, there is found to be an
AL student come through your classroom at one time or
a c e r , itiS Critical to know and understand how to teach
ese students so they are able to learn.
T h a n k you so much for listening and I hope you gained
some knowledge on EAL learners today.
