Welcome to a different type of EAL blog! We have been back at school now for two and a half weeks and I have realised that the needs of the EAL students are largely determined by what is going on in the classroom. Sometimes Iam able to carry out what I have planned at the beginning of the week and sometimes this is altered by the immediate needs of the students. ie by the help they require with tasks set in the classroom. This is particularly the case with the Intermediate group. For this reason I have decided to write the blog in retrospect; ie. by covering the work I have done with the children during the previous week. In this way, I hope to give a more accurate account of what your child is covering in the EAL classroom and how you can help them at home.So........
What happened in the EAL classroom last week:
Beginners Group 3VL/4LB
We always read with the children and ask questions to ensure they understand their reading. Please continue to do this with your children at home each evening. It is so essential for their aquisition of English. We also supported them with the necessary vocabulary to begin their report on a specific disability.
On Friday the children were on a trip to Gulbenkian and we were unable to have them for EAL.
Beginners Group 5T
We concentrated on question asking in the present tense using the revised vocabulary areas of jobs and sports. When learning a language it is so easy to avoid asking questions and only answer them. The children need a lot of practise using the "w" question words ie. where, what, when, who and also how. They also need practise in the word order of Do you..... and Does He.......
Beginners Group Year 6
We have been helping the children complete their "Argument" writing disagreeing with the statement "There is nothing wrong with polluting our environment." This week we started looking at the summative assessment task which entails writing an information report on a particular aspect of pollution and preparing a plan of action to make a change.
2N
We are at the moment supporting the children in the classroom as they learn about the writing process, in particular how to create the beginning of a story by introducing characters and setting.
During our oral session we reviewed months of the year, the seasons, the weather and also looked at some simple life cycles. (linking this to the season of spring)
Yr4 (Intermediate)
At the beginning of the week we looked at our goals for EAL and checked that the children were clear as to the objectives of EAL sessions.
We focused on different plural endings in English ie "ies," "es," "oes," "f changing to v...eg knife to knives."
YR5 (Intermediate)
We focused on opposite adjectives /antonyms and learned ones which were new to us.
We started to look at prefixes which are used to make the opposite of the word eg edible / inedible.
YR6 (Intermediate)
We also spent our time with this group on their classroom tasks of formative and summative assessment. (see Y6 beginners)
