Name: Hamish Chalmers
Twitter name: @hwc001
Sector: Primary, Secondary
Subject taught (if applicable):
Position: Director of EAL
What is your advice about? Effective teaching for EAL learners
1: Don’t under-estimate how long it takes to acquire English. It can take 2 years to become fluent in social English and a further 5 years to become fluent in academic English.
2: Acknowledge what children who have been to school in other countries already know. Find ways to help them demonstrate this knowledge and build on in.
3: Give EAL learners comprehensible input. Use images, realia, home language texts, and other para-linguistic methods to convey meaning.
4: Language is learned by hearing and reading it; that learning is demonstrated by speaking and writing it. Provide lots of structured opportunities to hear and read English.
5: Children do not ‘soak up language like a sponge’. Regardless of what subject you teach, you will need deliberately to teach the English necessary to succeed in that subject.
Starter for Five 
Reblogged this on L3xiphile and commented:
I created this post for a new Blogsite called Starter for Five. It’s a crowd sourced website containing posts that consist of five short pieces of advice for new (and indeed established) teachers on loads of topics. If you’re a teacher, it’s worth taking a look, and contributing your sagacity.
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