Advice for parents and teachers
If you are a teacher or the parent of a child who is learning
English as a second language, there are many things you can do
to make learning easier and more fun. Exposing children to
the language they are learning as often as possible, as well as
making sure others are aware of their needs and culture
How you can help your children learn
- Foster literacy development by reading books and telling
stories to children in home language
- Work with your children with home writing materials stored in
one accessible location
- Draw pictures, write stories and make lists with your
children
- Write letters to grandparents and other family members still in
native country
- Provide print-rich environment in home language and English as
much as possible
- Provide experiences of reading and writing for different
purposes
- Talk with your children about work, values, religion and daily
activities
- Make learning experiences out of everyday activities (sorting
mail, sorting socks, shopping with lists etc.)
- Widen your children’s world through learning experiences in the
community (touching animals at the children’s zoo, crunching
leaves, taking the bus etc.)
- Take your children to community events and activities designed
for families
- Ask your children to tell you what they are learning in the
classroom
Advice for schools and teachers
Strategies for supporting pupils
- Draw upon prior knowledge and cultural experiences.
- Be aware of expertise in first language and get child to help
with pronunciation of words and phonetic breakdown.
- Ask the child to teach some words to the class.
- Teach and model correct language structures and functions and
encourage child to use them.
- Clarify, simplify, rephrase, repeat, revisit and
reinforce.
- Support vocabulary development. For example, word mats, banks,
webs, topic banks, dictionaries, thesaurus, visuals, key
vocabulary, classroom posters in dual languages.
- Build in planned opportunities for purposeful talk. For
example, talk partners (first language and others), encourage and
extend responses by asking probing and open ended questions and
request use of taught language structures.
- Allow thinking time and check understanding.
- Use a variety of teaching aids, for example, key visuals,
props, models, pictures, posters, dual language texts, culturally
appropriate resources (e.g. no pigs, no cows etc), gesture,
demonstration, drama and role play.
- Use scaffolds to guide thought and response. For example,
prompts, cues, sentence starters, storyboards, writing frames, text
and graphics.
- Label classroom displays with dual or triple language
captions.
- Collaborative activities and peers support.
All classrooms should have the following:
- Examples of first or dual language materials - classroom
labels and signs in English and other languages appropriate to your
class
- Guidelines for talk, or version of display to support listening
and speaking objectives and activities.
- Vocabulary boards in zones — maths, science and literacy.
- In zones — examples of sentence starters and language
structures.
- A 'spotlight on' board for specifically focussed language or
vocabulary. For example, topic based, idioms, similies, metaphors
etc.
- EAL strategies for supporting pupils (see above).
- World map showing where children in class are from and
languages spoken.
- School rules in other languages, if possible.
- Reading materials and dictionaries in other languages, as
appropriate.
- Displayed materials to reflect cultures in
