Effectiveness of Strategies for Enhancing Reading Skills of English as an Additional Language in Primary Schools - Term Paper Example

Running head: EFFECTIVENESS OF STRATEGIES USED TO ENHANCE READING SKILLS OF EAL IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS Student name: Student number: Course title: Lecturer: Date: Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 1.0 Introduction 3 EAL reading skills in primary school 4 Conclusion 10 References 11 1.0 Introduction English as an Additional Language (EAL) is the expression that is commonly used to refer the teaching of English to people who speak other languages. Statistics indicate that there are over 10% of students who are being taught English as their second, third, fourth and even fifth languages and also that there over 300 language that are spoken by students in the UK (Thomas, & Collier, 1997, 72). It has been commonly referred to as English as a Second Language (ESL) as it indicates that as the report from Primary professional development service (2010) rightfully indicates that pupils can have other languages apart from English (Collier, 1989, 67). Says the report from the Primary professional development service (2010, 3), “it is an indication that English is just adding to the language that the students have already built instead of displacing the languages earlier learnt”. Another term that is used for children learning English is bilingual. This term is generally used to refer to children who are growing up in an environment, which has many languages. The other language is not necessarily English. It could range from one language to many languages. While dealing with bilingual learners, it is important to note that the first language of pupils plays a crucial role second language acquisition. This is because there are socio-cultural and cognitive influences from the very first language. The process of learning the second language will not necessarily go on using a pre-defined order. Most pupils are seen to learn using the world knowledge they have acquired before. It is worth noting that learning will only take place if there is need to learn and communicate some idea. In the first two years of schooling, the EAL and bilingual learners are known to develop functional level of English; this does not mean that the support should stop. In fact, it should be reinforced at, as they will have to develop the academic and cognitive skills that are required for academic success. The development of second language will require the pupils to be taught on the concepts of bilingualism. On top of this, culture is very important as the pupils are supposed to understand other environments. EAL reading skills in primary school Students, who are learning English as Additional Language, will need to be approached using special skills. These skills will help to enhance the assimilation of the language by the students. Talk for talk session is a strategy that can be organized so that the students can get a chance to discuss and have a debate on some issues. There are games that encourage the ‘talk for talk’ strategy (Collier, 1992, 74). The children should be given a chance to discuss and share their experiences so that they build their language in the course of this. There are interaction activities that have been found to work wonders as the students get the maximum time to talk. This is so as a research which was done in London by Primary Professional development service (2010, 64) indicate that children allowed to talk with their peers are 1 and half times faster to read the language. A comparison between two primary schools with children with EAL disabilities indicate that the school, which encouraged debates, saw tremendous improvement with their children. This strategy is effective as the children get to talk their language out. They, in the process, practice their language and get to learn new language techniques. Another method that is used for EAL children is the use of teacher modeling. According to Cline and Frederickson (1996, 74) the instructors will let the pupils to be alone and will make sure that they are as independent as they are supposed to be. Apart from this, NALDIC (2010, 63) adds that EAL children will also be encouraged to discuss and ask the teacher questions and in the course will learn something new from the teacher. This method is effective and is the one that is encouraged by many as an effective method. It requires the teacher to model the activities first. Unlike the talk the talk strategy the, in this method the knowledge from the teacher will be tested and proved to be working before they are released to the teacher (Gregory, 1996, 62). There is also the use of language experience approach where the children will be allowed to have activities together like taking them for a trip, sports; these are effective as it is fun to do and the children will have the joy of being engaged in these activities. This language can then be used to have a shared writing (Mallett, 2007, 26). The beauty of it is the fact that it comes from the students themselves. This method is very effective as the children like the activities. They dictate what they want and it is while in these frenzy moods that the teachers can learn more about them. They will then correct where the students messed (Cummins, 1991, 53). One of the strategies that can be used to teach EAL students is through pictorial/visual clues. “These aids can be used as tools to understand the outline of the chronology of some activities that are done orally like timetables, introduction of activities, the layout of school, days off, trips, and out-of-classroom tasks”. (Wyse et al., 2007, 73). These can be used as hints so that written text can be decoded. This method is effective because it uses visual elements, which are visible, and needs no explanation. The students can then learn from others. This method is not effective for students who are blind. Another letdown of this method is the fact that it is shallow in bringing out the in-depth analysis of the language. This could be the reason as to why the use of visual aids is an effective method (Thomas, & Collier, 1997, 662). Another strategy that can be used is that of information and communication technology. This method has been effective in increasing the language experience of the students. There is the development of Sociology and Equity Studies for Education (SESE), which is an area in linguistics, which is concerned with developing strategies that will be used by pupils English learning problems. This area has been instrumental in coming up with methods that will help EAL students to learn faster. There are many websites, which have been developed to enhance the translation of words from language to another. This is method is well researched and is useful as it is fun to use (Cox, 2011, 663). Computer use is fun and there are interesting games that help the learning process exhaustive. One disadvantage of this method is that it is expensive to implement the strategy, as the tools that are used in the learning are expensive. Most of these tools are sold to schools as propriety. This means that they are expensive and very hard to be afforded by the many (Arthur, & Cremin, 2010, 62). There also another strategy where the teachers use the buddying system. In this method, the teacher will choose to buddy the child with the EAL with another child who is also a newcomer during some parts of the day. This can be organized during sometime of the day and during sometimes of the week (Richardson, & Derbyshire Advisory and Inspection Service 2004, 62). This is done so that it promotes independence and inclusion. It also helps the children to understand that they are not alone in their learning process. They will be able to accommodate each other. This method is effective for children who are phlegmatic. They require the comfort of other people with the same problem. This method is effective for such introverts. It might not be so good for the extroverts who will want to be at par with the rest of the class who are not in the EAL category (Griffler, & Varghese, 2004, 62). There is another strategy called peer tutoring. This is where the children are allowed to teach their fellow students (Thomas, & Collier, 1997, 62). This method is effective in the sense that the children seem to understand their peers better than they seem to understand their peers better than they seem to understand their peers better than they seem to understand their peers better than they seem to understand their peers better than they seem to understand their peers better than the teachers do. In a study done in London schools, five of them, students who were EAL were given time to be taught by their peers and they responded well. This can be attributed to the confidence they have with their peers (Thomas, & Collier, 1997, 62). This method helps the students to gain self-confidence. They can be allowed to work some math together, write together and activities, which entail oral language (Cummins, 1986, 62). Ott (2006, 62) explains that children with sentence expression and language difficulty, referred to as dyslexia, can work on some assignments with students who have had the same dyslexia problem in the past. Working this way will enable the pupils to learn from the others who had the same problem. To my understanding, peer tutoring is effective when students who are in upper primary classes (Flynn, & Stainthorp, 2006, 52) use them. Lower primary kids are not able to do this activity as they are still shy and will not express the language as their upper class counterparts. One way to encourage this is to have a topic to be discussed and let every student to discuss the lessons on their own (Krashen, 1999, 72). Another method that can be used is collaboration. Students can be taught on ways they can collaborate in a given project. In a research, which was done, pupils were found to respond to collaborative activities, which they were given to them. According to Thomas and Collier (1995, 564), the study demonstrate the relationship that pupils have with the work they do in a group. The research which was out in five primary schools in London showed that pupils who were put in groups to work on projects which required group participation tend to outperform individual effort pupils. The groups can be devised in many ways. They can be grouped according to their level of ability, mixed-ability groups and similar interests. The groups can then have different roles inside like recorder, planner, and reporter (Thomas, & Collier, 1995, 562). There are many activities, which can be seen to promote the EAL children, which are having shared responsibilities and shared task ownership. This method is effective in the sense that the activities that they do together as students seem to stick more than those that are taught in class. This method has been found to work more effectively in EAL primary school students (Collier, 1989, 612). Like in working on the same project, students are found to learn well when they are working on the same in a collaborative way. It has been found out that children who work on an activity and have the same language difficulty tend to learn faster. If they have Latvian, for example, as their first language, then their questions can be prepared in English and the teacher will then offer suggestions how it is done in English the proper way. One evidence of this is a research, which was done by University of Cambridge English students seeking to see if there is a relationship between the student with English difficulty and their environments (Lockwood, & Lockwood, 2008, 76). They found out that pupils who are with the same pupils with the same problems tend to learn faster than a child who is in a group of pupils with fluent English. Young children tend to learn faster when they are working on a common task of great interest for all of them (Lockwood, & Lockwood, 2008, 72). The collaboration will allow the children to learn English at the same pace as the newcomers. They will all feel they are in the same level in their learning. This method is effective and is widely used by many teachers, as children are known to open up to their peers more than their teachers do. I find this method to be more effective as children tend to be free to make mistakes when they are with their peers and not with their teachers (Bruner, 1975, 712). Working on the activities together will help students to learn more from the mistakes they make. They also help to develop better understanding of the language they are struggling to catch (Cummins, 2000, 8). Another learning skill that can be used is by use of the teachers teaching EAL. The teachers can try to collaborate in class. Many teachers in Wales have been found to use this strategy. According to Primary professional development service (2010, 43) report, many teachers have experimented on collaboration amongst themselves to make sure that the pupils get the best out of their teachers. They have found this method to be effective. There are two teachers, the mainstream teacher and the support teacher. These two can collaborate so that they plan how they are able to learn all the students and address their different needs differently (Primary professional development service, 2010: 73). One advantage of this method is the fact that the teacher understands the students more clearly and will do all the necessary to address the problems that the student may be facing. This has been found to help the students to adopt reading at fast rates (Collier, & Thomas, 1988, 94). One disadvantage of this is that teachers may, at times, not judge the students in the right way. The theories that are sometimes used to assess the students may not be rigorous to get all that the student needs. It is because this method will rely on the teacher to bring out the best out of the pupils. Using mother tongue in communication is a strategy that has been foin to work with EAL children. The strategy applied in this case is that of making the children with the special needs to collaborate using their mother tongue. This way they will be able to learn with confidence and also in their own pace (Gibbons, 2003, 112). This strategy can be organized in such a way that the pupils using the same language can be grouped together and given the same type of task. This way they will be able to talk without fear of embarrassment. Pupils are known to fear their peers initially. Elimination of this fear will be done through making sure that the pupils will have the home environment. That home environment is provided through the use of grouping children with the same problem and work on tasks together (Gibbons, 2003, 112). After some time, the children will then be allowed to interact with the rest of the pupils when their confidence has been improved. Conclusion In conclusion, the methods that are needed for teaching EAL primary school pupils all center around letting pupils to interact on their own. Pupils are known to learn from their peers as they interact and play in their extra-curricular activities. These activities are not limited to extracurricular activities alone but also there are various methods and skills, which have been devised for EAL primary pupils. This section of the paper will look at eth conclusion of the strategies that have been discussed so far. References Arthur, J, & Cremin, T 2010, Learning to teach in the primary school, Taylor & Francis, London. Bogden, R, & Biklen, S 1998, Qualitative research for education, Cengage Learning, New York. Bruner, J 1975, Language as an instrument of thought. In A. Davies (ed.) Problems of language and learning, London Heinemann Cline, T, & Frederickson, N (eds.0 1996), Curriculum related assessment, Multilingual Matters, Berkshire. 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Wyse, D, Jones, R, & Bradford, H 2007, Teaching English, language and literacy, Taylor & Francis, London. Read More