The aim of this essay is to show the impacts of inclusion in UK mainstream education on students with English as Additional Language (EAL)
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by
omotososegunyahoocom (student)
WAYS OF PROMOTING INCLUSION WITH EAL LEARNERS
As a teacher, it is always very easy to focus on the best and most gifted students in the class at the detriment of the less able. It is easier to teach students with more ability in a subject. But it is essential to always include all learners in all lessons not withstanding their background, language or needs. So teachers need to ensure that their teaching take into consideration the learning ability of all students in the class across board. Students with a special need should not be put down or isolated from the whole class, but instead, measures should be taken to facilitate learning for these individuals at the same level and ability as the other students and this can involve some special measures and funding.
The Human Rights Act of 1998 made it illegal to discriminate against anyone for age, race, religion, disability or sex, further more; many of these have their own individual specific acts in place such as the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, Race Relations Act 1976 and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.
The aim of this essay is to show the impacts of inclusion in UK mainstream education on students with English as Additional Language (EAL) using St Johns Comprehensive Secondary School as an example.
This essay will be used to show that it is economically viable and not detrimental to educate EAL pupils in UK mainstream education.
And lastly, to identify processes of good practice used for EAL students inclusion into schools in UK.
In the preliminary stage, desk research was conducted through interview of EAL teachers and classroom observations of these students which involve general interview of students in the class, indirectly targeting concentrating on the EAL students. Another observation was made by following one of the EAL students for a whole day through all his lessons for the day, and while doing this, observations were made as to his performances and involvement in class activities in various subjects. Related literatures on this topic were read and reviewed to give constructive critics for a balance view not withstanding that some of these literatures were not recently written by the authors.
[1]
Teachers and Teaching Assistants were interviewed to know their experience and attainment of EAL students when they joined the school and over a period of two years to see their level of improvements and inclusion.
Some of the challenges encountered include not having much written text books on this topic and this has limit the extent the essay can critic the chosen topic. Also, some of the available research work were done outside UK and has in mind different audiences but these has thrown sum lights into the background and what happen to EAL students in their home countries prior to coming into UK. And this to a large extent has given us an insight to know how to interpret their performance.
Inclusion is a comparatively new word used in education. In today’s culture, inclusion means to be accepted; not being segregated, to be integrated, and being treated the same as everyone else.
Tony Booth and Mel Ainscow (2002) in Index of Inclusion developing learning and participation in schools identify inclusive education as valuing all students and staff equally. Increasing the contribution of students in school activities, reducing their segregation from the cultures, curricula, and communities of local schools which sometimes is a punitive measure to ensure conformity of students with schools instead of looking at why the behaviour or motive behind it which might be a way of protest against exclusion. As good as this is good and will go a long way to entrench inclusion in UK schools, it is important to look at how EAL students are valued. There is a stigmatisation that is involved in the term being used to name the students either as EAL, Free School Meal (FSM) or Special Education Need (SEND). This term alone bring with it a pigeon whole effect on the said students, and might have a negative effect on the students and make government policy on inclusion not to work effectively.
Also, EAL students’ misbehaviour is sometimes due to their difficulty to learn when the class is going on. So they drift away into some other things to occupy their time while the class is on-going. Increasing students’ participation in school activities, and reduce their exclusion from the cultures, curricula, and communities of local school as stated by Tony Booth and Mel Ainscow will need teachers and educators to use more of differentiation in teaching students by finding out reason behind students behaviour before using exclusion as a punitive measure. It will be of great advantage if differences in students are used as resources to support learning rather than problems to be overcome in EAL students to encourage inclusion of students.[2]
At present St. John’s School where I am having my placement have EAL students from Slovakia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Portugal, Brazil, Belgium, Nigeria, Italy, France, India, and Afghanistan. The school always accept students at any time during the school year, including asylum seekers, refugees and extended family members with majority of them have very little or no knowledge of English at all.
The first Roma migration to the UK from central and Eastern Europe according to the study carried out by Lucie Fremiova and Heather Ureche in 2011 in there port on topic ‘from segregation to inclusion ‘was in 1990 by seeking asylum to escape widespread racial discrimination and persecution in their countries of origin. But the enlargement of European Union (EU) in 2004 and 2007 has made new members to exercise their right to free movement. According to this research, it is estimated that around 500,000 live in UK and 65% are of school age. There is certainly a change in the landscape of UK education system due to all these facts.
There are lots of initiatives been undertaken in the field of education to encourage social inclusion.
This include, employment of Roma as teaching assistants’ and outreach/liaison staff to engage families on issues relating to their children’s education and many other things. In spite of all these initiatives there is little or no research evidence to show efforts to help the Gypsy Roma Traveller in inclusion into UK education system.
According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), England has witnessed the increase of migrant since the 1990’s.It is estimated that 5% of students were ...
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There are lots of initiatives been undertaken in the field of education to encourage social inclusion.
This include, employment of Roma as teaching assistants’ and outreach/liaison staff to engage families on issues relating to their children’s education and many other things. In spite of all these initiatives there is little or no research evidence to show efforts to help the Gypsy Roma Traveller in inclusion into UK education system.
According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), England has witnessed the increase of migrant since the 1990’s.It is estimated that 5% of students were born overseas (NALDIC 2011). This might at first appears to be a low percentage, while further investigation reveal that almost a million pupils in English schools speaks other languages in addition to English and are classed as EAL. This to a large extent has caused a change in the linguistic landscape in school in England in recent years. (NALDIC 2011). The influx of Eastern European nationals from countries like Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, and Romanian with significant increase in the number of Polish migrant almost doubled within three years of 2008 and 2011.This has made it the fifth most widely spoken language in English schools. (NALDIC2011).
[3]
The ‘Great Debate’ speech delivered by Callaghan has brought radical changes in education, beginning with the Warnock committee’s report and the debate of Special Education Needs in 1978. This brought about the integration of pupils with learning difficulties that needed extra attention, but would benefit by remaining in the mainstream school.
Up until recently, Special Educational Needs (SEN) and English as Additional Language (EAL) pupils were treated the same; this was mentioned in Ofsted paper on Managing the ethnic minority achievement grant. SEN pupils have been connected with low expectations of poor performance in the school results and that they are not likely to be in employment and this can also sometimes be assumed for EAL pupils. But there is argument against this as research has shown that EAL pupils can move two levels on the national curriculum within two years of inclusion with monolingual students while other students only move one step on the national cvrricvlvm. The government and schools now recognise EAL pupils as having different needs from SEN. But this does not mean that some EAL pupils do not have SEN needs but the process of accessing EAL pupils should be followed and is outlined clearly in the guidance for supporting pupils with English as an additional language.{Milton Keynes EMASS, 2004}.
It is important that teachers completely embrace inclusion within their classrooms and either se specialist help if available, seek advice and be able to differentiate the work as it has been proved that differentiation will make a great difference to a children’s’ learning and involvement in the lesson and allow the teacher freedom to teach.
Making schools more inclusive may involve challenging discriminatory practices and attitudes, and this might involve a painful process. This is so because it will involve fighting institutional discrimination in schools and education offices. It can be argued that the infrastructures require for such process is not yet in place. So any individual or group trying to wage such war might not find it easy to win such war. The process can only be initiated by group of people as the battle will take time and effort to win.
Exploring inclusion should be a strategic and focus driven with sustain efforts to make it effective, it must take into consideration some vital elements amongst which are policies, practices and cultures. These three interconnected dimensions of creating inclusive cultures, producing inclusive policies and inclusive practices can help bring the desired improvement in schools.[4]
It is critical to observe that out of the three dimensions, creating inclusive culture is given least importance and attention for the school cultures to support inclusive teaching and learning in schools, but doing otherwise would bring about changes in other dimensions as it will help to sustain polices and practices put in place.
National strategies recommended that children should be able to use their first language in the classroom to develop their ideas to aid English attainment. {Great Britain 2011}. It can be argued that too many schools cultures are yet to imbibe this into their system, and this world have provided monolingual students opportunity and benefit of learning another language. [5]
The practicality of this can be argued as most schools always have EAL from many nationalities and school authority would not want to be seen as given priority to one national over others. But creating an inclusive culture will raise more accepting generation of pupils’ rich in environmental cultures. {Leung 2001). To a large extent, it is beneficial to allow students to develop their fist language alongside English language. It behoves on the community and schools to ensure that the mother tongue is maintained and developed to reap these benefits as skills developed from first language can be transferred to other language. Notwithstanding of these benefits of bilingualism, research have shown that pupils’ with EAL find it more tough to comprehend words despite being able to read them accurately and were less able to make use of resources’ to help them.
WHOLE SCHOOL PRACTICE
In the course of this essay, two EAL teachers were interviewed. The first one is the coordinator of the EAL department and while second is a teacher in the department. The whole school practice for EAL students and other students in needs can be adjured based on the practice on ground. The starting point for a new EAL student is to undergo an initial test for English and compare the result to the benchmark already set. The student is then placed in the appropriate position, or level based on the traffic light system of green, amber, and red. There is a six {6} weeks standard programme to brush the student up on English timetable. The school will first give them survival English for the student to cope in any lesson such as Mathematics, science and other lessons.
Any student that fall into the red category in the test will always have additional English lesson to complement the regular lesson and this will go on until year 11.diferentiation is being used a lot to take into consideration ability of the individual students. It is on record that the Traveller Roma Gypsy from Slovakia has no good record of education. They have a record of low attendance and morale, with no interest in education. The reason for this can be seen in the research conducted in 2007 and available online on equality .vk.com/resovsces. Many of the Roma children particularly from Romanian and Slovakia drop out from school in other to help their parents at home as a carer, and also help their family earn extra income simply because the parent cannot afford to pay for school meals or uniforms. The restrictions on employment has made the Roma families live in poverty and below par accommodation, often shared with other families. Some are destitute. The overcrowding tends to lead to poor health, and low school attendance and attainment by the children with most of them fail to continue in education after their GCSE.
Recent report of the EAL student in my school has shown drastic improvements and this has been the general trend which has been attributed to the fact that parents may be prosecuted for failing to make sure their children attend compulsory schooling. Also, the fact that restrictions on A2 nationals since January 2014 and has allow them to have free access to some of the benefits hitherto has not being available. While from interview conducted it has come to light that A nationals from Poland, and Russia are making head way in their studies and their result over two years has prove this. Formative and summative form of assessment of these students before and during the placement period was used by the school to monitor the students’ progress. It is expected that there should be a steady improvement in their result over time, though not as rapid as a monolingual student. But when the target is not achieved, the school always have an intervention in place to help such student. This sometimes include attaching the student to another student speaking the same language in a buddy system so as to help
Being absorbed in a language in a secure environment may prove indeed to be more helpful to learning a new language in a new environment rather than being consistently removed from the classroom. Certainly it is more of assistance for interventions to take place in the conventional way rather than a child be removed from the classroom away from their peers and teachers when the need arise due to the student not meeting target set.
Students who come into schools with very little or no understanding of the English Language, need a lot of encouragement to learn quickly so they can access all areas of the curriculum. They may also need additional Pastoral Support and creating an atmosphere where cultural differences are appreciated and celebrated will lead to these students integrating and succeeding well in school.
In the light of this, I was allowed to shadow an EAL student in the process leading to this essay. Some of the critical part followed include observation to know how fluent the stent is in English Language? Does his fluency allow him to write and access new style of question in GCSE in a contextual situation? And if not will he need more help?
The student in question is from Roma origin now in year 11, but joined the school fresh from his country in year 7. He was made to sit for the usual test for new students, and the result placed him on amber colour level 3 in the national curriculum. But over time, he has transform in almost every area. He is currently working on national curriculum level 5. His performance in Mathematics, English and Science is very encouraging. His fluency in English can be compared favourably with other monolingual students.
The observation though was just fro a day and it is only for one EAL student. This might not be enough to make a general conclusion on this case study .suffice to say that EAL students can be fluent in one language. Although, it might take time to be fluent in any language, particularly to get a good command of the language needed to ensure academic success. The social and intellectual inclusive environment of the classroom to facilitate the cultural diversity of the students is one of the important factors that can help EAL students and I have observed this in the school, and it has help boost the student self esteem within the school environment.
The school policy where by EAL students are immersed in school system and this allow them to take part in all lessons within the context of the national curriculum has helped a great deal. Students are pts into groups with more able students so that they have good role models to follow. Visual aids and real objects are always in use as much as possible to aid their understanding .Lesson content are adapted to make it readily understood with limited English with students prior knowledge taken into consideration.
School rule and classroom practice is essential in ensuring that pupils with EAL have access to the National Curriculum together with their monolingual peers, mainly in light of the fact that government policy states this explicitly and schools are accountable for this {Overington 2012}.[6]
An important consideration though is how do we ensure that an inclusive school policy transfers to inclusive teaching practice? But my observations point to the fact that this is possible over time though there might be some external limiting factors that might not make total success possible.
EAL students make significant progress in schools that; provide additional support for struggling students; focus and emphasize on spoken language; and lastly promote positive race relations. I can argue that this has being part of my observed trend in my chosen school, and it include; labelling important classroom items, display of day –to-day useful classroom vocabulary, use of structured language and encourage repetition, use of pair work/group work to encourage oral activity, and the use of teaching assistance where possible.
There are some of the best-practice in the classroom that was observed in the school; provision of lots of visual support such as a pictures, maps, and diagrams. Pupils were encouraged to use bi-lingual dictionaries where possible, though also can be limited in its use based on how literate the students are in their own language. More time is given to EAL students to help them process their answers, and this does not stop setting appropriate and challenging learning objectives.
At this juncture, it is important to ask the following questions; are children with EAL accommodated adequately in the classroom? Is school policy sufficient enough to cater for them? Should this be problem to teachers and educators? I wish to argue that it is. As teachers we have a duty to provide an education for all of the pupils in our classroom, helping them to overcome any barrier to learning they may face. If the pupil is newly-arrived to the country, they already find themselves in an unfamiliar situation and they may feel unsafe. Attempting to remove their language may be detrimental to their self-esteem due to the fact that it is an important element of their identity.
Low self-esteem in a pupil may then have a detrimental effect on their academic achievement. Government policy stresses the importance of pupils with EAL spending the majority of their time in the mainstream classroom (Overington, 2012); however, this need to be handled carefully as the new cultural environment may be intimidating for the pupil (Frederickson and Cline, 2009).[7][8]
In order to accommodate this, a ‘buddy’ system can be a good idea, pairing the pupils with another pupil ideally speaking the same language to help to integrate the pupil into school life (Parker-Jenkins, 2007; Ofsted, 2011).
To overcome this, it needs to be ensured that the classroom, including the pupils and teacher, is a welcoming environment in which all pupils feel safe and secure As teachers we do not solely interact with the children. What about parents or carers and the role they have to play in the child’s education? It is vital that there is high quality communication with parents in order to develop understanding and co-operative relationships which will be of benefit to the child. We are aware that there is strong correlation between the relationship with parents, carers and communities of the child to the pupil succeeding in school and Ofsted (2009, 2011) have found that practice is most effective when parents are engaged in school life, understanding that they do not have to speak English at home and that their first language is valued. Ofsted found that pupils are more likely to learn through socialisation and interaction with pupils and it is important that parents understand this.
In conclusion, whilst bilingualism in the classroom can be a positive attribute, it largely depends upon how the school policy and its implementation accommodate the pupils with EAL. Research shows that there is a need for sensitivity in the school policy alongside a whole school approach with the individual pupil and their needs at its heart. Ensuring our lessons are planned to effectively meet the needs of pupils with EAL will mean that more pupils are enabled to access the curriculum.
REFERENCES
Articles
Black, L. (2007) Interactive Whole Class Teaching and Pupil Learning: Theoretical and Practical Implications. Language and Education, vol. 21(4), pp. 271-283
Creese, A. (2006) Supporting Talk? Partnership Teachers in Classroom Interaction. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, vol. 9 ( 4), pp.424-453
Frederickson, N. and Cline, T. (2009) ‘Language’, in Special Educational Needs, Inclusion and Diversity. 2nd edn. Berkshire: The Open University Press, pp. 239 – 272.
Fumoto, H., Hargreaves, D.J., Maxwell, S. (2007) Teachers’ perceptions of their relationships with children who speak English as an additional language in early childhood settings. Journal of Early Childhood Research, vol 5(2), pp. 135–153
Gregory, E., Williams, A., Baker, D., Street, B. (2004) Introducing literacy to four years olds: Creating classroom cultures in three schools. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, vol. 4(1), pp. 85-107
Haneda, M. & Wells, G. (2010) Learning science through dialogic inquiry: Is it beneficial for English-as-additional-language students? International Journal of Educational Research, vol. 49, pp. 10–21
Haworth, P. (2008) Crossing borders to teach English language learners. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice. Vol. 14 (5–6), pp. 411–430
Kenner, C., Gregory, E., Ruby, M., Al-Azami, S. (2008) Bilingual Learning for Second and Third Generation Children. Language, Culture and Curriculum, vol.21 (2), pp.120-137;
Leung, C. (2001) English as an Additional Language: Language and Literacy Development. Herts: UKRA.
Leung, C., & Creese, A. (eds) (2010). English as an Additional Language: Approaches to teaching linguistic minority students. London: Sage (Available as an e book)
Martin, D., Stuart-Smith, J. (1998) Exploring Bilingual Children’s Perceptions of Being Bilingual and Biliterate: implications for educational provision. British Journal of Sociology in Education, vol.19 (2), pp. 237-254;
Pagett, L. (2006) Mum and Dad prefer me to speak Bengali at home: code switching and parallel speech in a primary school setting. Literacy, vol.40 (3), pp. 137-145
Parke, T., Drury, R., Kenner, Ch., Helavaara-Robertson, L. (2002) Revealing invisible worlds: Connecting the mainstream with bilingual children’s home and community learning. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy. Vol. 2 (2), pp. 195-220.
Parker – Jenkins, M., Hewitt, D., Brownhill, S. and Sanders, T. (2007) ‘Supporting EAL Pupils’, in Aiming High: Raising Attainment of Pupils from Culturally Diverse Backgrounds. London: Paul Chapman Publishing, pp. 19 – 34.
Sood, K. & Mistry, M.T. (2011) English as an Additional Language: is there a need to embed cultural values and beliefs in institutional practice? Education 3–13. Vol. 39 (2), pp. 203–215
Walters, S. (2007) How do you know that he’s bright but lazy? Teachers’ assessments of Bangladeshi English as an Additional Language pupils in two Year Three classrooms. Oxford Review of Education. Vol. 33 (1), pp.87-101.
Ofsted (2012b) English as an additional language: A briefing paper for section 5 inspectors. London: Ofsted. Available at http://www.naldic.org.uk/eal-teaching-and-learning/outline-guidance/eal-ofsted.
Books
Conteh, J. (2003) Succeeding in Diversity. Culture, language and learning in primary classrooms. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books.
Cooper, D. (2004) Challenging Diversity. Rethinking Equality and the Value of Difference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cummins, J. (2000) Language, Power and Pedagogy. Bilingual Children in the Crossfire, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Cummins, J. (2001) Negotiating Identities: Education for Empowerment in a Diverse Society. Los Angeles, CA: California Association for Bilingual Education.
Online resources:
TES EAL Resources http://www.tes.co.uk/taxonomySearchResults.aspx?mode=browse¶metrics=52108,52141,52144
National association for language development in the curriculum (NALDIC):
http://www.naldic.org.uk
Teaching EAL: A strategy for development of the school workforce:
http://www.teachingeal.org.uk/index.php
A Guide to Learning English: Frankfurt International School
http://esl.fis.edu/index.htm
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[1] From segregation to inclusion: Roma pupils in United Kingdom. A pilot research project by Lucie Fremiova and Heather Ureche.(2011)
[2] Tony Booth and Mel Ainscow in Index of Inclusion developing learning and participation in school (2002)
[3] National association of language development in the curriculum (2011)
[4] Milton Keynes, EMASS 2004
[5]5 Leng 2001
6 Personal interview conducted on Ann Ong Coordinator EAL Department and Lcia kvbalova EAL Teacher
[6] Overington 2012
[7] Personal observation of dedicated student.Nov.2014
[8] Overington, 2012
by
omotososegunyahoocom (student)
