Improving outcomes for more advanced bilingual learners aged 8–11

This CPD Module is for mainstream classroom teachers of 8 to 11-year-olds and focuses on whole class, quality first teaching.

1. To introduce more advanced EAL learners2. To develop awareness of a suitable EAL pedagogy3. To consider the importance of developing learners’

speaking and listening across the curriculum to support the language development of EAL learners

4. To consider how exploratory talk supports the development of academic writing

5. To introduce some learning activities and teaching techniques which bridge talk and text

Aims:

Some definitionsBME Stands for Black and Minority Ethnic and describes those from

cultural backgrounds other than the White British majority.EAL Stands for English as an additional language and recognises the

fact that many children in schools in the UK already know one or more languages and are adding English to that repertoire.

Bilingual learners Refers to learners who have access to two (or more) languages, at

home and at school. It does not imply full fluency in both or all of their languages.

Advanced bilingual learner'… pupils who have had all or most of their school education in the UK and whose oral proficiency in English is usually indistinguishable from that of pupils with English as a first language but whose writing may still show distinctive features related to their language background.' (Ofsted)

The Importance of Talk• Talk – of the right quality – promotes the

development of learners’ reasoning, conceptual understanding and reading comprehension.

• Many learners do not get a rich enough experience of spoken language outside school for this development to be assured.

• Children do not just need experience of speaking and listening in school, they need to be expressly taught the relevant functional skills, how to use talk to construct arguments, jointly solve problems and comprehend texts.

Neil Mercer: Talk, Thinking & English Teaching

Who are EAL learners?S arrived at the school at the beginning of Year 5. It is now term two. He is literate in Thai and a first language assessment suggests that his level of literacy is above age-related expectations. He rarely joins in with discussions but is making progress learning the English phonic system.

F arrived at the school in Year 2. She is now in Year 5 and has made rapid progress in English. She is literate in Russian but her writing in English, although generally good, displays grammatical errors.

R is in Year 5. She arrived at the school at the end of Year 4. Before starting at the school, she had spent one year at a school in the Czech Republic. She can read and write a few familiar words in Czech.

A was born in the UK. He started at the school in Foundation Stage. His family speak Mirpuri Punjabi at home. He speaks English fluently with a local accent, but his writing is below age-related expectations. His teacher says he makes lots of ‘silly’ mistakes in his writing.

In your school

Do the descriptions remind you of EAL learners in your school?

Using Cummins’ Framework Generalising Repeating Classifying Describing Identifying Following instructions Understanding/

expressing cause and effect

Defining Naming

• Hypothesising• Narrating• Comparing• Inferring• Evaluating• Analysing• Sequencing• Copying• Understanding rules• Making an analogy

Cognitively Demanding

Cognitively Undemanding

USE: • Key visuals: pictures, diagrams, graphic organisers,

film, real objects, concrete apparatus, a variety of learning scaffolds

• Activate prior learning

• Start with familiar environments

• Use first language as a bridge to new learning

Embedding activities in context

Cummins Quadrant

B C

A D

Cognitively demanding

Cognitively undemanding

Context embedded

Context reduced

Talk fuels the brain

Neuroscience suggests:

• The primary years are when the brain rapidly builds cells, makes new connections, develops the capacity for learning, memory, emotional response and language.

• Talk is necessary for building the brain as a physical organism – it fuels these processes and expands the power of the brain.

A talk continuum

Informal Formal

Playground talk

Speaking to teacher

Structured talk supported by talk

frames

Presenting feedback to the

classA formal spoken

presentation

Text 1 (spoken by three ten-year-old learners, with accompanying action)

This … no, it doesn’t go … it doesn’t move … try that … yes, it does … a bit …

That won’t … won’t work …, it’s not metal … these are the best … going really fast.

Basic interpersonal communication skills

Text 2 (spoken by one learner about the action, after the event)

We tried a pin … a pencil sharpener … some iron filings and a piece of plastic … the magnet didn’t attract the pin.

Basic interpersonal communication skills

Text 3 (written by the same learner)Our experiment was to find out what a magnet attracted. We discovered that a magnet attracts some kinds of metal. It attracted the iron filings but not the pin.

Text 4 (taken from a children’s encyclopaedia)A magnet … is able to pick up, or attract, a piece of steel or iron because its magnetic field flows into the magnet, turning it into a temporary magnet. Magnetic attraction occurs only between ferrous materials.

Pauline Gibbons 2008

Cognitive academic language

Challenge of academic language

There was no rain for a very long time. The farmers had planted crops like maize and wheat and corn, but because it didn’t rain, all the crops died. Because there were no crops, there was nothing for the children to eat and they became very hungry. Because they didn’t have enough to eat, many of them died, especially the children and old people.

The extended drought caused the crops to fail, resulting in a widespread famine and many deaths, especially among the children and elderly.

Pauline Gibbons 2008

'When children learn language they are not simply engaging in one type of learning among many, rather, they are learning the foundations of learning itself'(Michael Halliday 1993)

Using the writing sequenceReading

Becoming familiar with the genre/text type

Before WritingOral rehearsal

Sentence starters for discussion of content; cultural knowledge;

vocabulary collections ( words and sentence level) key visuals

Ideas separated from transcribing through: talk opportunities including first language; visual prompts. Draw on first-hand experience; drama and

role play.

Modelling and explicit teaching of written language. Include new

grammatical structures and vocabulary in context. Use vocabulary

collections.

Scaffolding through oral rehearsal and exploratory talk; writing frames and

sentence starters.

Modelled writingTeacher demonstration

Supported WritingTeacher scribing, guided

writing

EAL Support

Where are the typical EAL errors?

Tom and mom set off to go town. Tom saw poster about new game.'Mom please can I have any game?' Tom asked.'Yes,' argued mom. Tom and mom stand and waited for door to open. They waited and waited.

Year 4 writing sample

Identified EAL errors?

Tom and ∧mom set off to go∧∧ town. Tom saw ∧poster about ∧new game.'Mom please can I have any game?' Tom asked.'Yes,' argued ∧mom. Tom and ∧mom stand and waited for ∧door to open. They waited and waited.

Year 4 writing sample

That’s a bit better, but …

Tom and his mom, Emily, set off to go to the town. Tom saw a poster about a new game.'Mom please can I have this game?' Tom asked.'Yes,' replied his mom. Tom and his mom stood and waited for the door to open. They waited and waited.

Year 4 Writing Sample

… from vocabulary collectionsOne Saturday morning Tom and his mom set off to go to the town. As they wandered down the main street, Tom saw a poster about a new game on a high wall above a shop doorway. 'Mom, please can I have this game?' Tom asked excitedly.'Yes,' replied his mom, taking his arm.Tom and his mom stood at the end of the queue and waited for what seemed like hours for the door to open. They waited and waited.

Adding adverbial phrases

Diagnostic writing tool

Handout 1 is a useful document to use when diagnosing the next steps in writing for EAL learners.

Examples of activitiesDictogloss (Wajnryb, 1990)• First the teacher reads, at normal or near normal speed, a text which may

be related to any curriculum area. During this first hearing the learners listen without writing anything down.

• During subsequent readings by the teacher (once or twice more) the learners each write down as much as they can.

• In pairs, the learners discuss what they have managed to get down on paper and try to make a shared version of the text which is as complete as possible.

• Each pair then joins with another pair to form a group of four and again continue to pool their information.

• They should not be encouraged to use their own words as the aim is for the group to arrive at as accurate a copy of the original text as possible.

• Finally, the learners compare their reconstructed text with the original, discussing any differences.

Substitution Table – A focus on sentence structure

Examples of activities

You The passwordIt

canmustshould can’t mustn’tshouldn’t

have eight letters.

tell anyone your password.

type your name in the box.

be easy for you to remember.

play for too long.

choose your own password.

have any numbers in it.

Change an instruction text to a recount.Maria made a cheese and tomato sandwich. These are the instructions she

followed. Can you write a recount which tells us exactly what she did?Instruction Text: How to make the perfect cheese and tomato sandwich.• First wash your hands. Make sure you give them a thorough wash.• Then cut two slices of bread with a knife.• Next spread butter or margarine on the slices of bread. • Grate some cheese with a fine grater.• Put a generous amount of grated cheese on one slice of bread. • Cut a tomato into thin slices with a sharp knife. Be careful when you are using

the knife.• Put the slices of tomato on top of the cheese and sprinkle with a little salt.• Put the other slice of bread on top of the layer of tomato.• Cut the sandwich into two triangles. Now enjoy eating your delicious sandwich.

Examples of activitiesTransforming one genre to another

Improving textsText level: descriptive, expressive language to create mood Improve the text by combining some of the sentences and including some adverbials that have been collected during the reading phase.

The Old House I followed the path. The path was muddy. The path went through the trees. The trees were hanging over the path. Suddenly I saw the house. The house was old. The moon was shining. The house was dark. I walked towards the house. It had big windows. The windows looked like huge eyes. I thought that they were watching me. I approached the house. My hands trembled. They were ice cold.

Examples of activities

Talk is the centre of our learning

‘Language and thought are intimately related, and the extent and manner of children’s cognitive development depend to a considerable degree on the forms and contexts of language which they have encountered and used.’

‘ Such findings remind us that while talk is essential for the intellectual and

social development of all children, for some of them the talk which they engage in at school is nothing less than a lifeline’

Towards Dialogic Teaching: Rethinking Classroom Talk. Robin Alexander

‘Good teaching can make a world of difference to children’s futures’

Mercer & Littleton (2007)

'High Challenge – High Support Classrooms'

Pauline Gibbons (2008)

ReferencesAlexander, R (2006) Towards Dialogic Teaching: rethinking

classroom talk ISBN 0 - 9546943 - 6 - 4Beck, I L, McKeown, M G and Kucan, L (2002) Bringing Words to

Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction. The Guilford PressGibbons, P (2008) Challenging Pedagogies: More than Just

Good PracticeHalliday, MAK (1993) Towards a language based theory of

learning. Linguistics in Education 5, 93-116, 1993.Mercer, N (1995) The Guided Construction of Knowledge: Talk

Among Teachers and LearnersMercer, N and Littleton, K (2007) Dialogue and the Development

of Children’s Thinking: A Sociocultural Approach. London: Routledge