KNOWING ME KNOWING YOU
PROJECT LAUNCH
Aylesford Priory
Friday 9th January 2009
SUPPORTING EAL LEARNERS
IN THE CLASSROOM
How the KMKY project and the
use of ICT can enhance learning
Marion Aglony and Tracy Crute
Specialist Teachers - Bilingual and Minority Ethnic
Achievement
Ashford LCSPs and Maidstone & Malling LCSPs
marion.aglony@kent.gov.uk tracy.crute@kent.gov.uk
AIMS
Raising achievement
Equality of opportunity
Removing barriers
Improving access to the curriculum
Sharing cultures
Preparing pupils for life in a diverse society
Promoting Community Cohesion
In the classroom
Use of visuals to support understanding and
language acquisition.
Key words are displayed and explained.
Listening and speaking underpin reading and writing.
The use of first language supports learning.
EAL learners draw on prior knowledge.
EAL learners placed in high ability groups with good
language models.
New language planned for alongside content.
Collaborative activities provide a rich environment for
language modelling, acquisition and practice –
particularly of academic language.
Inclusive practice
Removing barriers to learning.
Valuing the variety of cultures and languages within the school
community and wider community.
Providing equality of opportunity.
Celebrating similarities and differences.
Building strong links with parents and community groups of all
backgrounds.
Reflecting diversity through the curriculum.
Promoting understanding of self and others.
Providing opportunities across the curriculum to challenge
prejudice,discrimination and stereotyping.
Promoting shared values.
LEARNING LANGUAGE
Language is learned through meaningful
activities in a contextualised situation supported
by visual cues.
A supportive environment
“Learning a new language is a creative, risk-taking
process that inevitably involves making errors. The
environment, therefore, should be supportive and
stress free.”
“Learners need encouragement to make meaning in
the new language; to feel that others genuinely want
to know what they have to say; to feel that they
have important knowledge and insights to
communicate and to have recurring experiences of
successful communication.”
„Aiming High: Understanding the Educational Needs of Minority Ethnic Pupils in
Mainly White Schools” p7. DfES May 2004
EVERY CHILD MATTERS
“No pupil should be expected to leave
behind their language or culture when
they cross over the school threshold.”
STRATEGIES
Opportunities to use first language.
Pupils can use their first language to work
collaboratively in small groups in a safe, stress
free environment.
Key words in first languages can be shared,
practised and learnt by all children.
Newly arrived EAL learners
“It is important to remember that new arrivals add to the
richness of the school‟s ethos, culture and curriculum and to
recognise and value the positive contribution that newly arrived
children can make.”
“New arrivals need to be able to see themselves, their
languages, culture and identity reflected not only in the
classrooms but also in the wider school and through an inclusive
curriculum.”
“Children support each other‟s learning and development, as
well as their own, through working together in pairs and
groups…planned speaking and listening opportunities alongside
collaborative learning opportunities will support and accelerate
the acquisition of English.”
„New Arrivals Excellence Programme‟ DCSF September 2007
STRATEGIES
Planned opportunities for speaking and listening. (Best practice
would be to place EAL learners in high ability groups with
children who provide good English language models).
Video conferencing as well as publishing and editing work will
provide meaningful opportunities for pupils to be grouped with
speakers of their first and second languages.
Listening and speaking skills underpin reading and writing –
video conferencing is a perfect tool for developing this feature
of good practice.
STRATEGIES
Modelling and scaffolding target language.
Video conferencing is a great tool. Target
language will be shared, modelled and
practised in a visual context with the back up of
typed text at the bottom of the screen. Also
sections of the conference can be replayed to
further aid comprehension.
STRATEGIES
Learning language through context.
This ICT project facilitates a themed approach
– food, art, dance, my locality, special days.
New vocabulary will be learned in context.
Shared experiences are created using film,
DVDs, video clips, audio clips and cameras to
view and record.
Identity and belonging
“Language is part of a person‟s sense of identity and
closely linked to their personal, academic, social and
emotional development….It is essential that schools
show respect for pupils‟ home and community
languages and for the narratives and culture in which
the languages are embedded.”
“It is important that all pupils should feel that they
belong…belonging involves shared stories and
symbols…a sense that one is able and encouraged to
participate and contribute.”
„Aiming High: Understanding the Educational Needs of Minority Ethnic Pupils in
Mainly White Schools p4, p6. DfES May 2004
STRATEGIES
Bring the child‟s culture into the classroom.
The children will be sharing aspects of their culture
and language with children from a variety of other
cultures. This learning will draw on their previous
experiences and prior knowledge.
KMKY will encompass the diversity of experience that
children have, whether the school has significant
numbers of EAL learners, only one or two isolated
EAL learners or no bilingual children at all.
Community Cohesion
“As a starting point, schools build community cohesion by
promoting equality of opportunity and inclusion for different
groups of pupils within a school.
But alongside this focus on equalities and a strong respect for
diversity, they also have a role in promoting shared values and
encouraging their pupils to actively engage with others to
understand what they all hold in common….”
“For some schools where the pupils population is less diverse or
predominantly of one socio-economic, ethnic, religious or non-
religious background, more will need to be done to provide
opportunities for interaction between children and young people
from different backgrounds.”
„Guidance on the duty to promote community cohesion‟ p7 DCSF September 2007
Permeation : themes across the
curriculum
Shared humanity : similarity, sameness and
universality.
Difference and diversity : contrasting stories and
interpretations.
Interdependence : borrowing, mingling and mutual
influence.
Identity and belonging
Race, ethnicity and justice.
„Aiming High : Understanding the Educational Needs of Minority Ethnic
Pupils in Mainly White Schools‟ p20-21 DfES May 2004
STRATEGIES
Cross-curricular work linked to the global curriculum, helping to
prepare children for life in a diverse society and promote
community cohesion.
Common themes such as food and stories will be open to all
children and exclude no-one. This will promote an understanding of
similarities between cultures – something common to all.
Children in schools where there are no bilingual learners will have
the opportunity to get to know children who are from a minority
ethnic background, through the KMKY project work between
schools.
This will help to promote greater interaction and increase
understanding between people from different backgrounds.
STRATEGIES
Facilitating access to the curriculum.
Pupils will have the chance to work in specific curriculum areas and be
able to revisit their work afterwards.
Visual cues, use of first languages and topics reflecting children‟s cultures
enable greater access to the curriculum.
The ICT facilities which underpin the KMKY project – video conferencing,
publishing and editing work, filming, access to microsites – will help to
ensure that the curriculum reflects all children‟s cultures, with examples of
success and achievement drawn from a global perspective and not only
the west.
STRATEGIES
Support learning with visuals.
ICT can provide visual media to back up learning –
digital images, video, DVD, web – cams, cameras.
Pupils will see and share their work, as well as their
languages.
Working together : home-school
relations
“Schools that are most successful in working with new arrivals
are those that foster a high level of parental
participation…schools can encourage parental involvement by:
Making all parents feel that they are welcome and have a
positive role to play in the life of the school.
Demonstrating that parent‟s linguistic, cultural and religious
backgrounds are valued and respected.
Promoting family learning projects.
Inviting parents/carers to use their skills to contribute to the
work of the school, eg. In Black History Month, in assemblies, at
International evenings and multicultural weeks.
„New Arrivals Excellence Programme Guidance‟ DCSF September 2007
STRATEGIES
Build bridges between parents and the school.
Parents can be involved in the project by providing
recipes, helping with food-based activities, telling
stories, lending artefacts, providing key words and
phrases in first languages, assisting with dance and
songs, etc.
Parents can be invited into school to see the
presentations, films and displays that their children
have made.
KNOWING ME KNOWING YOU
This project promotes good practice for supporting EAL
learners in the classroom.
It supports the aim of raising the achievement of EAL
learners and children from a minority ethnic
background.
It addresses the duty to promote community cohesion
and facilitates greater interaction and consequently
better understanding between people from different
backgrounds.
AND FINALLY…
Sir Jim Rose, senior government education advisor, in
his recent report places computer-based learning at the
centre of his review. He suggests that:
„Children are so computer literate at such a young age
that ICT skills usually taught in secondary schools
should be taught in primary schools.‟
The Times 8th December 2008.