EAL EXAM support

Did you see the BBC TV programme about lambing recently?

The first thing I noticed was when they showed the entrance to Scotland the sign behind was in two languages, similar to the entry into Wales at Bristol.

At the last count there was over 1 million children in UK who are  bilingual and this is increasing daily so for teachers and school managers it is an issue that needs to be addressed in line with current legislation and practice. These children (including many in Welsh, Cornish, Scottish and Irish schools) speak two languages as part of their everyday lives.

Daily they may use their languages for different purposes e.g. speaking to grandparents is probably in a different language to their school friends. There is also then for schools the question of literacy as they may be literate in one language but not in another. In Wales where Welsh is also developed daily alongside English the pupils maybe trilingual. Some will start school knowing more than one language  and some parents may be encouraging children to become literate in their heritage language through teaching them at home, attendance at community schools or parental choice to a designated Welsh  or other language speaking school. This is the route we took with our daughter choosing a Welsh school to allow her to develop her heritage language and gain essential language skills.

Throughout the last 30 years more and more teachers and others involved in EAL and bilingualism have come to recognise the importance of first language development for children learning EAL. Many parents and children now are asking to retain their bilingualism and not lose it due to lack of opportunities to develop and use the language . This is known as subtractive bilingualism.

We need to recognise the important role of first language development in second language development, as we have shown in training courses that Jean and I have done around the UK, and which has successfully led many educators to promote the development and maintenance of first languages and to actively support bilingualism and in turn in some cases  also received either outstanding or good OFSTED results particularly in schools with high levels of EAL students.

Many teachers use bilingual resources successfully to support the teaching and learning of EAL and bilingual pupils. You can to by using our bilingual exam book it supports the student taking the exam and the teacher teaching towards the students understanding aiming it genuine collaborative learning.

I have always done this by changing written material into the home language or introduced the new words in relation to the next project so that my students can access it. Due to many rules and regulations all of my students had to be able to take their exams in English so an explanation of and seeing of exam papers beforehand is crucial

Exam Success – English/Lithuanian
Learn all the words needed to sit exams and tests in English.

Contents

What

Complete

Use

Explain

Which

Suggest

Write

Match

Discuss

Calculate

General exam Questions

Glossary of Exam Terminology

For other langauges and to buy follow this link http://shop.emasuk.com/category/2617/exam_success_books

February Offer – Text Tutor £99.00 for 60 languages

Text Tutor – OFFER £99 for 60 languages.

Using it in your environment to communicate across languages is easy, here are a few examples below:

• Administration staff: application forms, newsletter, letters, timetables, permission slips.

• Doctors/surgeries/hospitals: labels for displays, signs for equipment and letters to patients

• Team Leaders: Letters, meetings, information to customers….

These are a few of the ways they are used but there are many more.

For February only a price of just £99 for 1 years membership.

Contact us at info@emasuk or 0845 009 4939 for access to support in all of the the following languages Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Basque, Belarusian, Bengali, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese Cantonese, Chinese Mandarin, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Maltese, Nepali, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh and Yiddish working out at just £1.65 per language.

February 2014 Offer

*NEW *November Uploads to EAL Resource Library

For those of you wondering what was new last month I have uploaded;

Using the Talking Tools and A4 sheet giving a quick overview now in the Teachers Section of the Resource Vault.

Cell Poster for Science in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese Cantonese, Chinese Mandarin, Czech, Dutch, Gujarati, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Italian, Malay, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Somali, Spanish and Urdu.

Food Chains wolf, deer, grass posters for science in Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese Cantonese, Chinese Mandarin, Czech, Dutch, English, Gujarati, Hebrew, Latvian, Lithuanian, Italian, Malay, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Somali, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu.

Food chains producers to consumers poster for science in Bengali, Chinese Cantonese, Chinese Mandarin, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hungarians, Italian, Kurdish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Nepali, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Somali, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu.

Herbivores poster for science in Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese Cantonese, Chinese Mandarin, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Kurdish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Somali, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu.

Human Body workbook for PE or Science in Farsi and Turkish.

Learning Mat Lines for Maths in Albanian, Bengali, Chinese Cantonese, Chinese Mandarin, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Kurdish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Nepali, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Somali, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu.

Maths Resource sheets in Portuguese.

Signage – Please walk carefully in Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Azerbaijani, Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese Cantonese, Chinese Mandarin, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Danish, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, Greek, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hungarian, Irish, Japanese, Korean, Kurdish, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Thai, Turkish and Welsh.

 

This months New Resource Sheets

Designed to be a starting point for schools when they have new arrivals before personalisation can happen using the talking tools the resource vault is an invaluable resource. This month we have uploaded to the Education resource vault.

Continents Poster for Geography in Bengali, Chinese Cantonese, Chinese Mandarin, Dutch, English, French, German, Gujarati, Hebrew, Italian, Kurdish, Latvian, Nepali, Romanian, Slovak, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Turkish and Urdu

Food Chains producers to consumers – a poster showing the different types of producers and consumers for learning in science arenas. These can now be found in the resource vault choose by subject, then choose Science and look for the languages you need or alternatively choose one of the languages below and find it under Food chains producers to consumers. The languages are; Bengali, Chinese Cantonese, Chinese Mandarin, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Kurdish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Nepali, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Somali, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu.

Human Body Workbook – A workbook for teachers to choose the pages that are relevant to them spanning various levels and depth. Ideal for Science and PE with posters and activities to complete. The first languages available are Latvian, Polish, Urdu.

Maths resource sheets – a small booklet showing maths basics shapes and number in the following languages; Bengali, Cornish, Estonian, Finnish, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene and Welsh.

Welcome Booklet – great for new arrivals for teachers to personalise by using the pages suitable for their school. Starting with the school details and times, information about the staff and a timetable, School uniform with a choice of colours red, blue, green and yellow. It moves onto the PE Kit, Food in school and eating healthily and safety information. New languages uploaded are; Chinese Cantonese, Chinese Mandarin, Hungarian, Kurdish, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Turkish and Urdu. They can be found under PSHE

Storyboards for literacy – a mix of rhymes to support children’s literacy development in two more additional languages German and Latvian can now be found in the PSHE part of the resource vault.

And finally Environment types for Geography in Gujarati to complement the other languages already available.

Get all these and more for £129.00 per year.  No additional payments for monthly updates.

Contact us at info@emasuk.com or 0845 009 4939 for more details or current offers.

The first language is the language of ‘love’

Teachers often ask advice as to what to say to parents who say to them that they want their children only to speak English. My advice is always that the first language is a great bridge to learning the second language quicker, but also the key to their roots so I was immediately drawn to this recent article

The first language is the foundation for the second language. In addition, it is the language of “love;” the language in which, parents, grandparents, cousins and aunts communicate. If a young child is separated from that circle of communication, a valuable developmental tool is taken away. The American Speech-Language and Hearing Association says, parents should support and build the first language as children learn the second language. Parents should continue to use the first language with their child and feel comfortable doing so.

They further go on to say

First, it is critical for your child to use language often, no matter the language. Some parents have been told that their child should stop using the home language (for example, Spanish), if they are having difficulty learning English. This advice has been given to parents for many years, but it is not correct.

Finally the article gives advice on the type of things that you should look out for incase there is a problem with speech development using Spanish as the second language to give examples.

There are some additional things to be aware of as your child is developing language. Your 1-year-old should be alert to her surroundings, follow simple commands, such as “come to mama or ven a mama,” and try to make babbling sounds like “mama and dada.” Two-year-old children should be putting two words together, such as “no quiero or up now;” however, the sounds in the words may not all be clear. By 3 years of age, your child should be using short phrases and sentences to communicate.

The language of many 3-year-olds is so mature that they sound like miniature adults. If your child is in school and is having difficulty, the first thing to do is to find out if the first language is developing normally. As schoolwork in English becomes more demanding, your child may face more challenges in school and sometimes be discouraged. Good language use is important to all subjects in school. Talk to your child’s teacher or  request a speech and language evaluation in both languages.

I hope this helps as often we are unsure of what to say and why. If there are any other benefits please share them with the other readers of the blog via the comments box.

For the full story

http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-opinion/ci_24388090/importance-home-language-bilingual-child

Times are changing

Not long ago when new arrivals came as parents to schools, with their children, they allowed the school to educate their child and due to the language barriers often did not set their feet into the school again.  As schools are increasingly engaging more with parents teachers this week are feeding back to us that times are changing and increasingly ‘Parents are now asking (and expecting) us for letters in their language’. Once they have the letters they request newsletters  and expect to be treated as any other parent.

Our Members have been reporting that they are finding Text Tutor with its availability of over 50 languages allows them to send out letters etc. personalised to their school. Initially they believed it was just software with predetermined sentences and were worried that the sentences they need were not available, but with use they realise that they can just use it for whatever they need. This indeed allows personalisation to their school and their parents/children or community. This is the value of the resource it allows anytime, anywhere instant translation.

As parents gain confidence as does their expectations and become more than happy to enter school and talk using Two Can Talk (26 languages spoken aloud) as the intermediary to talk to the teacher about their children. This way teachers and parents feel more in tune with each other and it is becoming a real collaboration.

Further Details

Text Tutor and Two Can Talk is available @ £495.00 for a primary school and £995 for secondary schools. Add the Phrasebook @£100 to capture and keep your most used phrases for use again and again. 1 years membership for use 247 wherever, whenever.

Languages available for Text Tutor are Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Azerbaijani, Basque, Bengali, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Maltese, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh and Yiddish.

Two Can Talk is available in  Arabic, Basque, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai and Turkish.

Email – info@emasuk.com

Tel – 0845 009 4939