Knowledge:
Skills:
Understanding:
9a. Is there an EAL working party that empowers a range of staff, including school leaders and encourages all stakeholders (including parents) to work as a team?
9b. Is there a shared vision for EAL?
9c. Are there manageable short- and long-term goals set for developing provision for EAL?
9d. Will the EAL working party develop formal guidelines, e.g. an EAL development plan, EAL handbook and updated policy?
Preparation:
Use the EAL Framework (Activity 9.2) and possibly the whole-school reflection.
(Time guide: 5-10 minutes)
Share the quote about Third Culture Kids.
Share an example:
A mother from Denmark, a father from Syria and a child who has grown up in England. Circumstances like these occur for many reasons, for example, when a parent has been in the army, parents moving due to another line of work or, a family of mixed nationalities moving to avoid conflict.
Ask participants to reflect on the questions (Activity 9.1).
Benefits versus challenges
Read out the benefits and challenges of being a TKC (Pollock & Van Reken, 2001). The slide is designed to give a comparison. It includes extracts from TCK.
Trainer to pre-read pages 77-119. Pollock & Van Reken for reference purposes and provide examples (see below for some ideas):
Verses: Confused loyalties (where do their values are their values lying? What aspects of their religion change, of at all? What social status do they hold as a women or man and how to they differ?)
Verses: A painful view of reality (often the vision on TV is not a story, its a living nightmare for some who have seen or experienced such similar circumstances).
Verses: Ignorance of own culture (a fascinating knowledge of other places but not maybe, their sense of humour from their own culture, or language skills)
Verses : Lack of true cultural balance (What belongs to them? Are they always choosing what is acceptable in their current environment… Always looking at others to fit in – flip flopping between cultures).
Verses: Defining the differences (by defining the differences between yourself and another culture you can create an element of ‘I am not like you’ or ‘anti identity’ when you where different clothes or talk about different types of topics).
Verses: More prejudice (those TCK who emphasise their differences in a way that it negative towards the culture they are in – maybe because they reject it for certain reasons e.g. Not wanting to be there).
Verses: The delusion of choice (the opposite is the feeling that it’s not worth living for now because everything is just going to change again so why make the effort?)
Verses: Mistrust of authority (due to delusions of choice they may distrust people and authority).
Verses Arrogance: Perceived (An attempt to share their normal life experiences may just be seen as arrogance).
Practical Skills:
Consider:
What is the definition of international mindedness and how do you achieve international-mindedness in the classroom?
Participants discuss in pairs then provide some feedback.
Look at the definition on the slide and consider how to achieve an international understanding in the classroom.
Participants to choose objectives (not activities) that fit into each age group e.g. 5-7 years old, 7-11 years old, 11-14 years old.
These international education goals can be used to create whole-school objectives, by age groups, that promote international-mindedness.
This may be a one-off activity with the whole school. (Time guide: 60 minutes)
You are coming to the end of the course. However, this is just the beginning of using the new ideas learnt. If the implementation of these ideas is to be successful, some changes will need to occur.
Change is not easy. Here are some areas you’ll need to consider if you want this training to have an impact on the progress of your learners .
Kotter’s eight-step change model can be summarised as follows:
Adapted from Business Balls.
Look at the EAL framework. See notes below for further explanation on the slide.
Participants should complete the EAL framework reflection (Activity 9.2).
Participants should also refer to all their Reflection and Action Points notes.
Share the example on the slide.
(Time guide: 40-55 minutes)
Show how to add ideas to the EAL development plan using this slide (activity 9.3). Start looking at some possible ideas based on your Reflections (see the next slide for a further example).
(Time guide: 20 minutes, including discussion)
Ask participants:
If you were to document what happens with EAL learners in your school and create a handbook of practice, what would be in that handbook?
See Strand 9 of the portal – Language policy template
See ‘Further learning – ideas for a school EAL handbook’.
See ‘Further learning – ideas for a school language policy’.
Activity 9.4
Continue with the school case study. Group presentations can be held during the last session.
Groups should now present their ideas. The trainer should feedback against the following criteria:
Strand 1: Understanding EAL learners in the mainstream
Strand 2: Enhanced admissions including community-building
Strand 3: EAL assessment
Strand 4: Induction-to-English
Strand 5: Planning differentiation for EAL learners in class
Strand 6: Differentiating for EAL learners in class
Strand 7: Focused scaffolding of language
Strand 8: Effective use of language learning strategies
Strand 9: Whole-school EAL development
This is a chance for end-of-session and end-of-course reflection. Participants should use their ongoing reflections to complete their Reflection and Action Points notes.
(Time guide: 5-10 minutes)
Ask the participants:
What will you do differently as a result of what you have learnt on the course?
Ask participants to look at their pre-session activity notes ‘What do you hope to achieve’. Have they achieved their course goals?
Share the final two quotes.
Hand out the course evaluations for completion before leaving the course.