Strategies to support English Language Learners in the classroom

Strategies to support English Language Learners in the classroom is a session for Classroom Teachers from PETAA's 2021 Leading with Literacy Conference: Powerful Practices for all Learners, and is presented by Dr Gill Pennington. 

About the presenter: Dr Gill Pennington has worked as a primary school EAL/D teacher and consultant within the ACT and more recently as an EAL/D consultant in south-western Sydney. She has taught at the University of Sydney, where she completed her PhD in 2018, researching Storytelling in a Multilingual Community. Gill is currently working as a freelance EAL/D consultant and research assistant; she recently worked with the NSW Department of Education on a research project into EAL/D effective school practices.

You can now register to view the entire PETAA 2021 conference on-demand! Get your pass.

  • Consider the nature of literate talk and its potential for building students’ knowledge of curriculum concepts.
  • Look at the explicit teaching of language through a sequence of lessons and activities. 
  • Understand ways in which lessons and tasks can be differentiated to meet the needs of a diverse group of learners. 

In this session, Gill Pennington offers strategies to support English language learners in the classroom!

She starts us off by looking at the “L” in EAL/D - language. What is language? In short, it is a system system that relates sounds or signs with meanings. “In my book, meaning is central to everything.”

Language is of course comprised of linguistic elements, but it is also a reflection of culture, Gill says. Learning language is how we learn about culture, through terminology and jargon and slang. Culture, then, is represented through language, and language helps us represent our identity. It’s important that we allow students to share how they use their language and what it represents to them; what way of life and expertise it holds. 

 

In the research of Halliday & Mathieson (An Introduction to Functional Grammar), they determined 3 ways of looking at language as a resource for making meaning. Gill says these basic concepts are worth revisiting often:

  1. field (what is being communicated)
  2. tenor (audience and purpose)
  3. mode (whether language is spoken or written) 

Talk is critical to language development and to learning. EAL/D learners need opportunities to produce and use language in many different contexts and situations. Producing language pushes the learner to produce more comprehensible, coherent, grammatical language. 

And it’s critical for all students- not just EAL/D learners. Through talking, learners can explore and clarify concepts, question, hypothesise, and respond to the ideas of others.

Teaching and learning should be a constant and iterative process. It starts by modelling explicitly how language works, then sharing and collaborating, scaffolding (this should be designed but contingent on the learners you are scaffolding for), and then handing over knowledge so the learning can stand alone. 

Gill recommends PETAA's text (highly commended in the 2021 Educational Publishing Awards Australia) An EAL/D Handbook, by Helen Harper and Susan Feez, with sections from Gill and many others, as a resource to dive deeper into these concepts. She shares classroom strategies that make words and ideas visible, structured around those key ideas of language and meaning making.

“It’s really important that all learners, and especially English language learners, have opportunities to develop their vocabulary”, she says. She shares activities designed to support this development, and encourage reading in a more literate fashion: explicitly showing students how text makes meaning. 

 

Next, Gill discusses differentiation. “When you differentiate for your EAL/D learners, often it’s as simple as being given more time to think/process. A task doesn’t have to be done by lunch."

"They can use their home language if it’s helpful to them - you don’t need to understand it.”

Gill’s final tips for supporting EAL/D Students:

  • Create opportunities for practice and feedback. 
  • Break tasks into smaller sections. 
  • Provide models to support ongoing learners. 
  • Show interest in your students’ culture, language and view of the world. “We all grow a bit taller” when someone takes interest in us. 
  • Read to your class every day. "The beauty of well-written prose read well is second to none" and it gives opportunities to learn and recognise language.

Gill also shared some of these tips, and others perfect for early career teachers, in a PETAA member webinar: Top tips for supporting EAL/D students in mainstream classrooms. 

Feel like you've missed out? Get your on demand access pass to view every PETAA 2021 conference session!