EMA Online Newsletter June 2009 Keynote speech by Professor Pauline Gibbons at NALDIC Conference ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------For colleagues who were unable to make the NALDIC conference in November 2008, NALDIC has now made available online an excellent article from NALDIC Quarterly 6.2 by Pauline Gibbons, based on her inspiring keynote address to the conference. In this article she re-affirms the need for specialist EAL teachers and outlines what this might look like in the classroom. The full NALDIC Quarterly is sent to members and is available electronically on the members' area of the site, but selected articles, including this one, can be found at http://www.naldic.org.uk/docs/resources/naldic_quarterly.cfm Currently the article is the first on the web site list. Pauline Gibbons is Associate Professor of Language and Literacy at the University of Technology in Sydney. Her contribution is extensive and erudite. For those readers who may not be able to read the address in its entirety, inspiration can be derived from Pauline Collins‟ concluding sections which are reproduced here with some editing for brevity. „Here are four ways of thinking that I believe create opportunities for EAL learners to engage in learning and what I call the challenge zone. So four ways of thinking that I think will help students: First of all, teachers think about their learners as the people they can become, not as the people they are at the moment, not as the people with limited English, but as the people they can become with support. This emphasis on students‟ learning potential rather than on their current abilities and therefore the consequent raising of expectations of what is possible, is especially important, I think, for EAL learners whose cognitive and conceptual understanding often outstrips what they are able to show in English. … Treating learners as the people they can become I think is very important. Secondly, teachers are less focused on covering content and more focused on uncovering the subject. … Now I think that most teachers feel they‟re under pressure to cover a certain amount of work with their students and I think this is actually unavoidable in the senior years of school. In fact, certainly in Australia, it‟s very difficult to do anything else. But a shift of focus towards uncovering the subject means that teachers make explicit to learners those things that I‟ve just been talking about. And it‟s the things they learn when you‟re uncovering the subject, that, ultimately, are the enduring tools that children make use of in the later years of school. Thirdly: the teachers are reflective practitioners. They think critically about their own practices and avoid the temptation to locate under-achievement in the students themselves or in their home backgrounds. How many times have you heard people say: “Well, you know, of course they are going to fail, because look at their homes, they don‟t have any books in the home.” Maybe people don‟t say that in England, but they do in many places. So rather than blaming the students and blaming their home background, if you are reflective and you reflect on what kind
of opportunities are being given to students, that seems to be a much more productive way of looking at it. And, finally: teachers see a culturally diverse classroom as a resource not a problem. The last twenty or so years have been characterised by mass movements of migrants and refugees across the world resulting in a wider cultural mix than we‟ve ever had before in schools. So it becomes ever more important to be able to navigate difference and to talk across cultures. Classrooms where there is multi-cultural diversity mirror the broader society, and the kinds of collaborative learning I‟ve been describing … creates opportunities for all students to look beyond cultural difference to a recognition of what they share and to take this understanding into the world beyond the school. I think teachers who see their classrooms as a resource are doing a great service, not just to the EAL children, but to everybody else in the class as well. To sum up, I think when students are treated as capable learners, when they are actively engaged in the kinds of challenging tasks I have been describing, and in literacy learning, when they are given opportunities to use knowledge in meaningful ways with others, they not only achieve at high levels, but also … they expand their academic and personal identities and, most importantly, they extend their own beliefs of what is possible for them.‟ The full text of Pauline Gibbons address can be download directly as a pdf file at http://www.naldic.org.uk/docs/members/documents/NQ6.2.3.pdf Consultation on EAL Workforce Development Strategy ----------------------------------------------------------------David Mallows, Associate Director, Development NRDC at the Institute of Education at the University of London has written to inform us of this consultation. „We are in the process of developing a workforce strategy for EAL in schools. Following a period of intensive research, and with guidance from numerous experts in the field of EAL, four key priorities for the strategy have been identified. We are now entering into a 12 week consultation to gather views on these four key priorities. We invite participation from across the sector and value your contribution regardless of job role, school type, size of organisation or number of EAL learners. Go to www.teachingeal.org.uk to give your views on the priorities and to register on the forthcoming face to face events to be held this June in York and London. Once the consultation has closed we will analyse responses and share the findings via www.teachingEAL.org.uk. The strategy will then be further refined and the next version plus a detailed implementation plan will be made available and consulted on later in the year. The final strategy and implementation plan will be published in March 2010.‟ AFRUCA Conference on Safeguarding African Children at Risk -------------------------------------------------------------------------AFRUCA promotes the rights and welfare of African children in The UK. A conference organised by AFRUCA is being held on Monday 22nd June at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, 65 Fleet Street London EC4Y 1HT between 09:00 and 15:30 hrs. Its aims are to: Examine the issue of child abuse, neglect and poverty and the link with anti social behaviour among young people; Enable discussion and information exchange on the exclusion of Black/African children from schools and the long term implications for children, parents and the community; Deliberate on the twin issues of knife/gun crime and gang culture and the link with child abuse among African youths;
Examine the growing problem of teenage pregnancy among African girls in London and strategies to address it; Examine the impact of domestic violence on African children and families; Identify strategies to enhance greater understanding and joint working between African parents and practitioners to better safeguard African children in London. Full details of the keynote speakers and the conference seminars can be found in the conference brochure which may bd downloaded from EMA Online at http://www.emaonline.org.uk/index.cfm?p=resources,show_res&rid=496&item=pd The conference fee is advertised at 100 GB Pounds. Further details may be requested from Justin Bahunga, Policy & Training Officer, AFRUCA -Head Office Telephone 0844 660 8607 Email justin@afruca.org website: www.afruca.org Latest census figures ------------------------Information has recently been released by the DCSF concerning the number of Ethnic Minority and EAL learners in schools following the Annual School Census in January 2009. In primary schools the percentage of pupils (of compulsory school age and above) who were classified as minority ethnic origin has increased from 23.3 per cent in 2008 to 24.5 per cent in 2009. A similar trend is apparent in state funded secondary schools with 19.5 per cent of pupils classified as minority ethnic origin in 2008, this increased to 20.6 per cent in 2009. These changes may be due in part to an improvement in the completeness of the data held by schools – there has been a decrease in the percentage of pupils who were unclassified by ethnic group in both primary and secondary schools. Those pupils who have been classified according to their ethnic group and are other than White British are defined as being of minority ethnic origin. In January 2009 the percentage of pupils (of compulsory school age and above) whose first language is known or believed to be other than English was 15.2 per cent in primary schools and 11.1 per cent in state funded secondary schools. These figures represent an increase from 14.3 per cent in primary schools and 10.6 per cent in state funded secondary schools a year earlier. New school census statistics show more EAL learners identified as gifted and talented in primary schools May 2009 This shows that 15% of learners in primary schools are bilingual (491,340), 11% in secondary schools (362,600) and 10% in special schools (8920). This brings the total number of EAL learners in schools to 862,860 or 12.8% of the whole school population. The new release also shows a growing percentage of bilingual pupils being identified as gifted and talented. This has risen from only 6.7% in primary schools in 2007 to 9.2% in 2009. Although the percentage of bilingual learners identified as gifted and talented in secondary schools has risen from 8.8% to 10.8% this still lags well behind the 14.8% of first language English students identified. The full tables can be accessed from http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000843/index.shtml
Vanishing languages -----------------------Perhaps this is a first for the EMA Online newsletter but Nicola Davies from NALDIC has written to praise the film, 'The Linguists' , made by two professors of linguistics looking for some of the languages which are disappearing Like modern-day explorers, the two academics featured in The Linguists travel to forgotten places around the globe to unearth rare treasures-in this case, endangered languages. On a shoestring budget, professors David Harrison and Gregory Anderson navigate difficult terrain, searching for speakers of these forgotten and mostly hidden languages. While more than 7,000 different languages are currently spoken around the world, many are rapidly disappearing. Language diversity is shrinking as colonialism and economic unrest destroy traditional tribal tongues. When young people abandon their ancestral language, the passive suppression of their culture begins, and soon those languages will cease to exist. You can view clips of the movie at http://www.babelgum.com/thelinguists. Underachievement by white disadvantaged pupils -----------------------------------------------------------Previous editions of this newsletter have mentioned the growing awareness of underachievement by specific groups of white pupils. The issue has been particularly highlighted by Karamat Iqbal working with Birmingham local authority and his report was recently published by them. It is now available on line at http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/files_uploaded/uploaded_resources/19852/Underachievement OfWhitedisadvantagedPupilsInBirmingham.pdf The conclusions in his report are particularly telling. He describes extremely high levels of underachievement among white pupils eligible for free school meals, the lack of any targeted action or strategy to remedy this, the absence of any categorisation in school performance data to pinpoint those white pupils who are underachieving and the lack of any effective lobby for their cause. Karamat makes ten recommendations particularly arguing for a national strategy, the celebration of white ethnicity (but avoiding racism), dissemination of good practice, continuing professional development and collaboration between local authorities. Primary Colours ------------------EMA Online readers are invited to look at the resources available from Primary Colours which includes free on line lesson plans. The latest newsletter from Primary Colours may be viewed at http://primarycolours.createsend.com/T/ViewEmail/r/F46CC2F40C81CDF2/EC48B17C2A260F57C 9C291422E3DE149 which as well as featuring the latest resources and lesson ideas offers a discount code. Featured in the newsletter this month is the issue of human rights and how children may be helped to understand this concept. Primary Colours have produced some background materials on the Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. World Language Books --------------------------The current discount code for any EMA Online reader wishing to purchase from World Language Books is promowlb20976. Resources may be found at http://www.worldlanguagebooks.com/
Taking EMA Online Forward --------------------------------The web site portal EMA Online is now six years old. During that time web technologies have moved forward very rapidly and our portal site is now somewhat dated. It is a testimony to its initial creators that it has worked so well for so long and just a few days ago the 4000th person to subscribe registered on the site and numbers are still growing regularly every month. The site was originally funded by a grant from the then Department for Education and Science but since that money was used it is the good will and professional commitment by Birmingham City Council that has enabled it to continue through hosting the site and supporting its maintenance. Notwithstanding the difficult economic climate, Birmingham has been able to sustain this funding for one further year for which we are very grateful. A discussion to find a strategy for the future has now been started and newsletter subscribers will have an opportunity to contribute through an on line consultation or survey which we hope to run before the end of the summer term. To improve the appearance of the portal, make the front page more flexible and to make the content much easier to search means that the site must at some stage migrate to a portal that does not require bespoke programming in order meet these requirements. A source of revenue is also needed such that innovations can be tried. Ideally this needs to come from the way the site is used. EMA Online will not seek to restrict access to its shared content through introduction of charges but we will explore ways in which the site might add functions that could involve money. This does not mean flickering Flash-powered advertising. We will look to see if perhaps a revamped EMA Online could support accredited and mentored continuous professional development and be a channel for our scattered virtual community to learn. In such a worthwhile context, perhaps even some advertising might then be appropriate. If any reader has experience or contact with providers of continuous professional development who might be interested in the possibility of channelling opportunities through a revamped portal with us, please invite them to make contact us via ema@bgfl.org As the census figures reported earlier underline, black and ethnic minority achievement is now a mainstream concern in every educational community. EMA Online seeks to continue to be of service. Special thanks for help with content for this month‟s newsletter are due to NALDIC and the London University Institute of Education. Please send contributions for the July 2009 newsletter to ema@bgfl.org or use the feedback option on the website. Doug Masterton EMA Online web site manager