Made by Mike Gershon –

[email protected]

The EAL Toolkit:

English as an Additional Language

Sources:
www.naldic.org.uk
http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/primary/publications/inclusion/bi_children/
Access and Engagement series (DfES 2002) http://www.naldic.org.uk/docs/resources/KeyDocs.cfm
Jim Cummins, Language, Power and Pedagogy (Multilingual Matters, Clevedon, 2000)
Neil Mercer, Words and minds: how we use language to think together (Routledge, Abingdon, 2000)
My head
Other people’s heads
Buddy Up Picture Rules Dictionary Images

Sentence Starters Talk to support staff Role Models Pre-Teach Vocabulary

Open Questions Rehearsal Concrete Starters Discussion Toolkit

Whiteboards Questioning Support the Teacher Thinking Time

Model Success Criteria Listening Frame Key Words

Pre-Highlight First Language Purpose Allocate Roles

Plan in 1st Language Match/Grid Writing Frame Plenary Prime

Present Genre Modelling Vocabulary and Meaning Barrier Games

Belonging Language Types Types of Talk Thinking Together

What’s the Point Prior Knowledge Linguistic Diversity Compare and Contrast

Analogies Idioms Recasting Vocabulary Sequence

Starting Points Listening Assistance Drama Diagrams

Word Relationships Model Writing Word Taxonomy Darts

Back to start
Buddy Up

If a pupil is learning English as an

additional language, you could ‘buddy’
them with a strong speaker and listener.

This could be part of an induction

programme, for specific activities such as
group work or extended writing, or as an
on-going strategy.

The buddy-ing could be made explicit to

students or left ambiguous, a decision
probably best left to the teacher’s
discretion.
Back to start
Picture Rules

An EAL students’ entry into the

Picture 1 classroom could be eased by
providing them with the class rules
set out in picture form.
Picture 5 Picture 2
Equally, if you have rules displayed
in your classroom then supplement
them with diagrams/pictures.

If proving successful in individual

Picture 4 Picture 3 classrooms, the strategy could be
extended to whole school rules.
Back to start Dictionary

A Provide foreign-language
dictionaries in your classroom (if
your department can afford them!)
and encourage students to use

to
them.

A simple starter could be for the

whole class to look-up and translate
key words.

Native speakers could then teach

Z
correct pronunciations to each
other (English and other languages).
Back to start Images

Supplement writing on
PowerPoint, IWBs,
worksheets etc. with
images.

Google images provides a

quick and easy means to
find suitable pictures.
Back to start Sentence Starters
Provide sentence starters (also a
good way to get everybody down to
writing).

e.g.

One side of the

One side of the argument is...
argument is…
Another side of the argument is...

Therefore my conclusion is...

In addition, sentence starters can be

used to model academic language.
Back to start Talk to support staff

Find out what works with

particular students.

Discuss future planning and

how the support staff can
work most effectively in your
lessons.

Ask them to identify students’

strengths and weaknesses in
learning EAL.
Back to start Role Models

Use group work to

help EAL students hear
positive English
language models.

This may also be

helpful to the student
in internalising the
‘hidden’ rules of
language inside and
outside the classroom.
Back to start Pre-teach Vocabulary

- Change If there is additional support in

school, it can be useful to pre-teach
key vocabulary.
- Cause This is particularly true if students

-
are working or reading from
Source textbooks, either individually or as a
class.

- Analysis Additional support may also be able

to provide extra visual aids, or assist
- Bias in reading text in advance with
students.
Back to start Open Questions

Open questions have many

benefits.

One may be the opportunity for EAL

students to verbalise their
reasoning.

This gives the teacher a chance to

analyse how they are using
language in the subject – i.e. Are
there certain (subject) conventions
which they are circumventing?

(of course, this may turn out to be a

good thing!)
Back to start Rehearsal

Prime EAL students that you

Prime will come to them for

answers.

Ask them in the interim to

orally rehearse these with a
Rehearse (helpful) peer.

This technique may be

usefully applied to all
Share students.
Back to start Concrete Starters

Use concrete rather than

abstract starters. This may
allow EAL students greater
access to the beginning of the
lesson.

e.g. Matching words,

matching words to pictures or
grouping similar words.
Back to start Whiteboards

Mini-whiteboards
offer a good link
between talk and
writing.

Students are able to

First Second ‘sketch’ and play with
their written answers
Attempt Attempt thanks to the
impermanence.

Errors can be wiped

away!
Back to start Questioning

?
Differentiating questioning
helps to engage students
throughout the classroom.

In planning you could develop

questions with your EAL
students in mind.

Or, develop a set of question

stems you can adapt for
students learning EAL.
Back to start Support the Teacher

If appropriate, ask
classroom support
to run the starter
activity whilst you
work with a pupils
learning EAL.

Or, ask a student (or

2-3) to plan and
deliver a starter
each week whilst
you work with the
pupils.
Back to start Thinking Time

Build thinking time into the

lesson – “30 seconds silent
thinking from now.”
30
Seconds This allows all students to
reflect on questions and
Silent content.
Thinking
Students learning EAL may
further benefit from the
extended time for processing.
Back to start
Model Speaking
and Listening
Model speaking and listening
exchanges.

Modelling Observation This could be done with another

adult or with a student.

A particularly powerful way might

be if the class sit in a circle and you
model with a partner in the middle
Improved (like a Goldfish Bowl).
Performance

Showcase the importance of active

listening.
Back to start Speaking and Listening
Success Criteria

• You must… Make the

success criteria
1 for successful
speaking and
• You should… listening explicit.

2 Supplement this
with posters on
the classroom
• Your could try to… walls reiterating
3 in writing and
pictures.
Back to start Listening Frame

Provide a listening frame

students whereby it is
Topic 1 Topic 2 Topic 3 clear what areas you
would like them to make
notes on.

This could be extended

by précising the
subsequent talk/clip and
asking students to
prepare a suitable
listening frame.
Back to start Listening for
Key Words
Set explicit listening tasks
around key words – either for
River Lake
the whole class or individual
Map
students.

For example –

make a tally chart of the

number of times the teacher
uses certain words

A bingo chart of key words to

cross off during a talk or clip
Back to start Pre-Highlight

Run-off an extra
copy of texts or
handouts with
key-words or
passages already
highlighted
Back to start First Language

1 st

Language 1 st

Sprache
Pupils can be encouraged to
use their first language where
appropriate, particularly if
there is a support teacher or
students with whom they can
talk and then translate.
Back to start Make talk
purposeful

Ensure that the talk built into

Purpose lessons is purposeful.

This could be through a tight

structure with roles, targets
such as solving a particular
problem or using it as a
Intention rehearsal for written
arguments.
Back to start Allocate Roles

Allocate specific roles in

group work.

This ensures students know

exactly what is expected of
them and provides them with
a concept to ‘perform’ to (i.e.
Question setter, challenger,
note-taker)
Back to start Plan in first language

Think Encourage students

to talk or write in
their first language
Plan in First when attempting to
Language answer a question or
planning their
response.
Attempt in
English
Back to start Matching or
Grid Activities

Provide matching or grid type

activities for students.

Give some model answers to

show what is expected.

Set the difficulty so that some

investigation and collaborative
work is required.
Back to start Writing Frame
Provide students with a list of words
Starting and phrases appropriate for use in
the writing task set.
Words
e.g.

Descriptive Write a news report on the water

Words cycle

Good evening viewers

Key Precipitation
In the mountains...
Terminology Clouds
The sun shining on the sea...
Back to start Plenary Prime

At the lesson
Plenary start tell pupils
you will come
Lesson to them in the
plenary. This
gives time to
Prime plan a
response.
Back to start Presentation Tips

Explicitly model and

explain how to
present to the rest
of the class.

Include basics such

Tip 1 Tip 2 Tip 3 as standing up,
facing the audience,
speaking at the right
speed and volume.
Back to start Genre Modelling
Provide students with a detailed model
or scaffold of the particular ‘school
genre’ you are working on.

This could be the essay, story writing,

report, experimental procedure etc.

Two ideas are;

i) Use student work from previous years

as a model. Highlight the genre
structure within.

ii) Provide a detailed ‘structure-

framework’ for the students that breaks
down the genre into constituent
elements. This could be supplemented
with sentence starters/content cues for
each section.
Back to start Vocabulary and
Meaning
This strategy is in two parts.

Part Part 1 – Give students a list of

key words in English and ask

One them to translate into their

first language using a
dictionary.

Part 2 – Give students a table

Part of meanings of (some of) the

initial English words. Ask
students to complete the table
Two by correctly matching the
words to the meanings.
Back to start Belonging
Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human
needs points to safety and belonging as
prerequisites for learning and development.

EAL learners may be further from these

because of the communication gap.

Strategies to give EAL learners a sense of

safety and belonging in the classroom may
include (amongst many):

- Bilingual dictionaries
- Letting the student know in advance if you
are going to ask them a ‘public’ question.
- Reacting positively to mistakes (including
your own) and using them to further
learning.

http://powerwillmotivation.com/images/abraham_maslow_quote_hierarchy_of_needs.jpg
 Back to start Different Types
of Language
Jim Cummins identified three different types of
language relevant to learners.

Communicative Language – or, conversational

fluency. Develops first, in face-to-face settings.

Cognitive Language – develops through

investigating, exploring ideas and solving
problems.

Academic Language – passive voice, ideas and

concepts as agents, vocabulary with Greek or Latin
roots, metaphor, personification and
nominalization.

The latter two are required for educational

success. The model could provide a framework for
tasks or structuring of work.
DFES document from
which this is adapted: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fM4KdFOicGcC&dq=cummins
+language+power+and+pedagogy&printsec=frontcover&source=bn
http://nationalstrategies.stand Cummins’ book on &hl=en&ei=i7vBS-CKG5-y0gTHxaidCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=
ards.dcsf.gov.uk/primary/publi result&resnum=4&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false
cations/inclusion/bi_children/ Google Books:
 Back to start Types of Talk

Neil Mercer identified three types of talk in his

2000 book, ‘Words and Minds’;
- Exploratory Talk
- Disputational Talk
- Cumulative Talk

These could be used to structure specific

speaking and listening activities.
Making students aware of the ‘rules’ of the
type of talk being used may assist EAL
students in thinking the processes and
purposes at work.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?
id=uNtkuYihpM8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=words+an
d+minds&source=bl&ots=VlSd17RAhR&sig=gisZSCdF
Copy and paste into your browser to
j07eVdzh-
eK_3CixEtw&hl=en&ei=4tDBS9nNOoii0gSq_vikCQ&s view Mercer’s book on Google Books.
a=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBU
Back to start Thinking Together
Neil Mercer, along with a number of others, have
researched using talk as a means of ‘thinking
together’.

Children are explicitly taught about exploratory

talk (see last slide) in order to facilitate its use in
the classroom.

EAL learners may benefit from the focus on

speaking and listening, the non-competitive
nature of the talk, frequent modelling by teachers
and peers, explication of formal and informal
reasoning and merging of different types of
language (see slide 34)

The website below links to a number of

resources they have produced for teachers.

http://thinkingtogether.educ.cam.ac.uk/resources/
Back to start Discussion Toolkit

There are many different ways to

structure discussion in the classroom.

I have collected a number together in

my ‘Discussion Toolkit’. This is available
to download free at -

http://www.tes.co.uk/resourcesHome.a
spx?navcode=70

Different discussion activities can be

used to assist EAL learners in speaking
and listening.
Back to start What’s the point?

Purpose When planning, consider what the main

purpose of using language will be for
students in the lesson.

This may be used to:

- Help structure (and link) tasks more

clearly,

- Communicate explicit
expectations/goals to students

Goal - Provide accurate and graduated

scaffolding for students.
Back to start Prior Knowledge
As in general, so with EAL students.

Eliciting prior knowledge is useful for the

teacher and student.

The intended learning is contextualized

(even if within the terms ‘this appears to
be something completely new’).

Some ways to establish prior knowledge:

- KWL grids
- Quick sharing of ideas (could use
snowballing)
- A picture with question – “How might
this connect to…”
Back to start Linguistic Diversity
‘Research has established that affording
bilingual children the opportunity to continue to
use their first language alongside English in
school for as long as possible, and to use it in
the context of cognitively demanding tasks,
will support both the academic achievement of
the child and the development of an additional
language’

Taken from

‘Unit 2 – Creating the learning culture’

of the DCSF document –

Excellence and Enjoyment: Learning and

teaching for bilingual children in the
primary years

One way to encourage this is by explicitly

celebrating linguistic diversity.
Back to start Compare and Contrast

Encourage EAL students to compare

and contrast their first language
with English.

This could be facilitated by:

- providing grids or frames,

- asking them to look for patterns

or surprises,

- giving answers in English and

their first language, then looking
at them together.
Back to start Analogies

Analogies reason that information can be

transferred from a source to a secondary
source.

For example, a car is like a cat because it has

a body and is bought by humans.

Using analogies assists EAL students by

connecting information. It offers an
alternative to logical reasoning that aids
understanding of words and concepts.
Back to start Idioms

Idioms may prove difficult for

non-native speakers as they rely
on historical/cultural as well as
It’s It’s linguistic knowledge.

raining raining Take care to explain idioms when

using them (or ask students to
cats and pestles explain).

dogs and Using idioms as a tool to explore

mortars language may be fruitful…

‘It’s raining cats and dogs’

contrasts with ‘It’s raining pestles
and mortars’ in Urdu.
Back to start Recasting
Students may remain in their comfort zone
when developing EAL.

A way to avoid this is recasting.

If a student gives an answer or statement that

is grammatically incorrect, praise them for the
content of their answer and then recast it to
them as the prefix to a follow-up question.

e.g,

‘We play football yesterday’

‘Super answering of the question. When you

were playing football yesterday, what
happened in the game?’
Back to start

Vocabulary Sequence
Here is a model of how to teach new
Vocabulary (taken from DFES guide):

• Model it in context
• Use it in questions
• Prompt for it and elicit it
• Repeat it
• Draw attention to it and use it in other contexts
• Display it
• Provide opportunities for children to practise it
• Give specific positive feedback about its use
• Encourage children to reflect on the way they
use it
Back to start

Barrier Games
A speaking and listening strategy requiring
students to give and receive instructions
across a physical barrier.

For example, two students sit at a desk with a

wooden board or folder upright in between.

Pupil A must instruct the Pupil B how to do

something (i.e. replicate a drawing that Pupil
A can see but Pupil B cannot).

This structure can be used in varying

ways according to the aspects of language you
wish students to attend to or think about.
Back to start

Starting Points
Ensure starters are culturally familiar
to all students. This will help engage
and motivate EAL learners from
the beginning.

Example;

Starting to study Henry VIII: an image

of Henry could be replaced with a
variety of pictures of kings and
leaders. This is subsequently
connected to Henry.
Back to start

Listening Assistance
Listening can be assisted in a number of
ways. When setting up tasks in which
Purposeful Interesting, students are to listen, try to ensure the talk
Face to Supported
and Useful and
Face by Actions is:
Immediate Relevant

- Face to face
- Supported by actions
- Purposeful and immediate
- Interesting, useful and relevant.

You could share these criteria with students

prior to the activity and ask how they are
going to ensure their talk facilitates the
listening by doing them.
Back to start

Drama
Using drama lets students practice
speaking and listening in a variety of roles
and situations.

Follow-up work can include;

Follow-Up Work - analysing the effect of role/circumstance
on language
- investigating the impact of purpose or
motive
Practice Through - examining how behaviour and language
Drama
interact
Back to start
Diagrams

Simple and effective.

Diagrams put verbal or

written propositions
another way.
Back to start

Word Relationships

Draw attention to the relationships

between words. Examples could be:

- Homophones (a relationship of
similarity and difference)
- Roots e.g. muscle, muscular,
- Suffixes e.g. –ing, -ed, -er, -ism (prefixes
too)
Back to start

Model Writing
Set a question and then model a
written answer. Draw out how
construction takes place. Include
elements such as –

- Rewriting at sentence level

- Rewriting at word level
- Making meaning precise

This could be developed by providing a

written answer and asking students to
rewrite, talking through the rationale
for what they have done after.
Back to start

Word Taxonomy

Delineate key words for students by placing them in a

taxonomy. E.g.

1 Naming words: cell, cytoplasm, hydrogen

2 Process words: diffusion, digestion, reflection

3 Concept words: electromagnetism, energy, particles

(taken from Access and Engagement in Science, DfES, 2002 -

http://www.naldic.org.uk/docs/resources/documents/0610-2002
Science.pdf
Back to start

DARTs
DARTs are directed activities related to texts. Examples
include –

– sequencing;
– prioritising;
– matching pictures to text;
– matching phrases to definitions;
– matching examples of cause and effect;
– filling in gaps in text;
– the use of true/false statements;
– matching concepts to examples;
– sorting to determine which information is not
needed for a piece of work;
– grouping information together to identify
similarities and differences between
key words and phrases.

Taken from Access and Engagement in RE, DfES, 2002,

http://www.naldic.org.uk/docs/resources/documents/sec_re_
eal_access_engagRE.pdf