Connecting With EAL Students by @twneslscience

Name: Tony Pace
Twitter name: @twneslscience
Sector: Secondary
Subject taught (if applicable):
Position: Classroom teacher
What is your advice about? Connecting with EAL students

1: Don’t be afraid of their first language. Look it up on Wikipedia, figure out the basic grammar, use Google Translate to work with vocab lists.

2: Immigrants often use a hobby like LoL as a private world that makes sense. Their communication skills can improve 10-fold when they know all the relevant nouns.

3: Be aware of dynamics in groups of students that share a first language. Falling-outs are way more devastating when you really can’t express yourself to anyone else.

4: Flashcards or flashcard apps are the best way to move forward in a language. Help support your students to get working with them.

5: When looking for resources, remember the forest of different acronyms for EAL, like EFL, ESL, TEFL, ELL, etc. They’re all synonyms, more or less.


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