With the ever-increasing diversity of school communities
across the country, provision for learners with English as an
additional language is of relevance to the great majority of UK
schools. Teaching primary languages gives us a wonderful
opportunity to celebrate the home languages of the children and
staff in our schools. It gives children the chance to share their
knowledge of other languages in the context of learning a new
language and also gives status to language learning per se.
Being able to speak other languages should be
seen as a bonus, rather than as a hindrance to learning English.
For those children learning English as an Additional Language, the
value of acknowledging and celebrating their first language(s)
cannot be underestimated.
Anecdotal evidence from teachers suggests that
EAL learners are often amongst the more able children in the
primary language classroom, and bring to the classroom a wealth of
experience and knowledge about language and language learning.
Research (Gregory, 2000 and Kenner, 2004) has
also shown that EAL learners achieve better results across the
curriculum if they are encouraged to use their first language(s) in
their learning.
Questions
- What knowledge and
skills do children who have English as an additional language bring
to the primary languages classroom? How can we extend these
skills?
- “It will confuse
children learning EAL if they have to learn another language on top
of this” – do you agree with this? Why / why not?
- How does your school
value the diverse languages and cultures of your school community?
What role can primary languages play in this?