Subject Literacy in Culturally Diverse Secondary Schools

Supporting EAL Learners

Esther Daborn, Sally Zacharias, Hazel Crichton

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781350073623
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350073944
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación secundaria

This book supports teachers of all subject specialisms to consolidate their existing knowledge of language and shows them how to develop skills to use language to build subject knowledge at secondary level. Tasks guide the reader to think about the language we use for different purposes, and how we use it to describe, explain and learn about our world. This paves an accessible way for subject-related language to become more visible and enables readers to use accessible terminology to confidently talk about it, as well as modelling it and guiding the development of its use with all learners, including those with English as an Additional Language (EAL).

Starting from basic educational principles, the book asks readers to consider the processes of learning and why every good teacher needs knowledge about language to support this, addressing a range of questions including:
Who are the EAL learners?
What are the processes of language development?
How is language used to present and discuss knowledge in my subject?
Why does every good teacher need knowledge about language to support subject literacy?

The authors provide examples, discovery tasks, reflections and templates for activities, to help the reader identify the tools they need to set up a framework for scaffolding pupils' language development. With a progression plan, directed tasks, and formative feedback, this framework provides a template for classroom practice and further professional development.

1

Where Do We Start with Supporting Subject Literacies in the Classroom?

Chapter Outline

Starting points: Existing understandings of language and literacies

What language resources and social strategies do we develop from early years?

How does the teacher use social meanings in school settings?

How do literacy skills develop at Primary school?

An example of language in the construction of knowledge at different stages of a lesson

Drawing together ideas for supporting subject literacies in the classroom

Teaching resources

• What language resources are available in the classroom to build on?

• How do we use it in everyday and classroom contexts to construct knowledge?

• How can we start to apply this knowledge to support EAL learners in the classroom?

Starting points: Existing understandings of language and literacies

As we saw in the Introduction, language plays an important role in learning. All of us have an intuitive language knowledge that develops as we accumulate social funds of knowledge, along with cognitive schemas to build on. The approach we take in this book is that learning is a creative process of knowledge building in an interactive context. At the same time we have an intercultural awareness of the cultural coding of our language habits and our assumptions in how we use them.

Not all learners are equally familiar with how the English language works. So for this chapter, intuitive language knowledge is our starting point. It will be knowledge that teachers and learners who have been through the UK Primary system will have built up. We will see how existing knowledge lays a foundation for a way of talking about language and our habits of using language for a particular context and communication purpose. We look at different kinds of language knowledge to explore

• what language and literacies you can expect learners to bring from Primary school,

• how teachers use language in everyday and classroom contexts and

• how we use it to represent subject knowledge to learners.

This understanding will help the teacher make the role of language in different classroom processes visible to all learners, particularly those new to the UK education system or those more used to visual and oral communication than the written word. Looking at how we use it in everyday and classroom contexts for the construction of knowledge provides a starting point for subject literacies that we can build on as we move through the book. This general overview will set the scene for understanding the challenges facing EAL learners and a more detailed exploration of aspects of subject literacy that can be applied to classroom practice to support them.

What language resources and social strategies do we develop from early years?

We will start from the beginning. If you cast your mind back to what you know about child language development, at birth the first kind of language a child hears from the mother is often referred to as ‘motherese’, where tone of voice, body language, gesture and visual images play a large part. When we start naming things in our environment like ‘Mummy’, ‘drink’, we start to adopt social habits like learning to say ‘Hi’ and ‘Bye’, ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’.

As we construct our knowledge of the world, and talk about our knowledge and experience, we continue this socializing practice as we learn how to beg, borrow or steal each other’s toys. In this natural process the words tend to come first and the grammar is gradually added to give further meaning to the individual words (more detail in the Teaching Resources for this chapter (page 28)). A child subconsciously notices and copies the patterns in the language she hears so that she can work out the rules (Halliday 1975, Wells 1985). Taking advantage of as much ‘exposure’ or ‘input’ as possible, the child is busy practising and playing around with language. She then tests her interpretation of the rules by using them in the next communication. She will get feedback, generally in the form of an encouraging response to show whether she is right or wrong. If there is a problem, most adults will repeat the language in a more correct form and even extend the conversation if possible; for example, ‘Daddy go’ might get the response ‘Yes, Daddy is going’ to draw attention to the right form of the verb. It takes nearly two years from birth to communicating in meaningful language with both words and grammar.

Gradually the number of words and patterns available to the child increases and the child becomes able to receive and respond to more complex patterns and meanings.

How we use language in our everyday lives shapes our identity and our relationships with others. We select different forms of language or register styles to communicate depending on context.

As we do this, we build mental images of how to manage conversation tasks successfully: how to greet family, friends and teachers. Do you remember working out how to persuade your parents to buy you a new pair of trainers?

EAL learners will have a similar system for managing personal relations in their language. So you are an ‘interpreter’ who can link together your language choices with those of the EAL learner.

Talking about these ways of using language allows us to ask the EAL learner, ‘What about you?’ ‘How do you do these things in your culture?’ Raising classroom awareness of how we use everyday language for social purposes is one step towards creating a supportive classroom culture for EAL learners trying to get their social bearings. This approach is significant to the growth of the learners’ language, and general social and cognitive well-being. We can share our understandings, and any misunderstandings can be repaired.

How does the teacher use social meanings in school settings?

In this section we turn our attention to school settings to explore three aspects of how teachers use language with social meanings. The first is to establish a professional role in the classroom, the second is to manage relations with colleagues in the workplace and the third is managing standard and non-standard language forms in the classroom.

Establishing a professional role in the classroom

As teachers we make language choices about how to present ourselves in the classroom. Subject tutors often mention that one of the most complex aspects of becoming a teacher is the requiremen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• How to Use This Book
• Glossary of Terms
• Introduction: Starting Points for the Book
• 1 Where Do We Start with Supporting Subject Literacies in the Classroom?
• 2 What Resources Does the EAL Learner Bring to the Classroom?
• 3 How Is Language Used to Present and Discuss Knowledge in My Subject?
• 4 How Can I Support EAL Learners to Engage with New Knowledge in Challenging Texts?
• 5 What Are the Key Principles for Adapting Pedagogical Tasks and Tests to Suit the EAL Learner?
• 6 What Constitutes ‘Useful Feedback’ to Support EAL Learner Subject Literacy Development?
• 7 How Can I Monitor Emerging Subject Literacy and Plan Progression?
• References
• Index
• Copyright