Strategies to support EAL/D students learning:
- Identify the student’s level language proficiency using the EAL/D learning progression.
- These include Beginning English, Emerging English, Developing English and Consolidating English.
- You can access the EAL/D Learning Progression through the link provided: http://www.acara.edu.au/verve/_resources/eald_resource_-_eald_learning_progression.pdf.
- Utilise the student’s cultural understanding.
- Provide opportunities for students in the class to share their cultural and linguistic knowledge and personal experiences.
- Allow students to use their first language to make sense of Standard Australian English.
- Provide opportunities for students with same language backgrounds to explain concepts in their home language.
- Build shared knowledge
- Use role-play and create scenarios to build understanding of concepts that the student may be unfamiliar with e.g. a bank or purchasing scenario
- Utilise excursions and hands-on experiences
- Use visual information, gestures and real-life objects to help students make connections.
- Provide opportunities for EAL/D students to draw before writing e.g. draw a picture of mum and then write and learn English term ‘mother’.
- Be explicit with procedures and expectations in the learning environment
- Teach the sounds of English and ways they are pronounced e.g. show lip and tongue positions.
- Explicitly teach the use and difference of lower and upper-case letters.
- Use text structure proformas and templates for specific text types.
- Provide clear instructions
- Teach skimming and scanning skills
- Develop intonation skills (the rise and fall of speech).
- Explain tense and using it in sentences
- Encourage class discussions
- Teach vocabulary as a whole-class instruction