How can having pupils with English as an additional language (EAL) in your primary languages classes enhance learning? Anne Rudge describes her observations on working with EAL children in Lincolnshire.

I work as a Primary Consultant in Lincolnshire, which as you may know is a very rural area – a large proportion of our children have never been to London, let alone Europe! However, we are slowly becoming a multi-ethnic county, especially in some of our larger towns and are seeing an increased proportion of Portuguese, Polish, Latvian and children from other Eastern European countries in our classrooms.

There has been a lot of talk in the news lately with regard to the difficulties that this presents to teachers. However, in the experience of both myself and colleagues we see the presence of a EAL children in our classrooms as a great opportunity.

Speaking from my own recent experience, I know that having Janusz, a Polish pupil, was a great asset to our Year 6 classroom, as we were able to ask him and his parents a wealth of questions about life in Poland. We also really enjoyed the Polish sweets that he brought in! The children were also curious to learn:

‘What happens at Christmas in Poland?’
‘Do you have birthday cakes/Easter eggs?’
‘What food do you eat that is different to ours?’
‘What did you notice about our country that is different to yours?’
‘What sports do you play?’
‘How do you say hello in Polish?’

And there were a whole host of other questions, thus enhancing their intercultural understanding and stimulating interest. 

As regards the Janusz himself, he could not speak any English when he first came in September and was initially very quiet. His younger sister, on the other hand, was very keen to ‘have a go’ and was much more talkative. When my headteacher quizzed me about this – me being the linguist – my reply was ‘everyone learns in different ways – just wait and see.’  Sure enough, just before Christmas Janusz came to me and asked, in perfect English, whether he might leave the room in order to go to the toilet. He understood everything that was said to him and from that moment, chattered away with the rest of the class! 

Janusz was listening to the language that he was immersed in and, just as we do when we learn English, was taking it all in, ready to begin speaking it when he was confident that he could do it relatively well. When talking to a French inspector yesterday, he informed me that the equivalent of EAL children in France do not get as much support but after sitting in on lessons with the other children they soon catch up. In fact, in my experience of the numerous schools that I have visited, and speaking about this with primary colleagues, we have established that it seems the EAL children pick up the primary language more quickly than the English children. They already have the skills and strategies in place for learning a new language - for example, decoding, tuning their ears to the specific sounds, watching for gesture, listening for intonation looking for clues to meaning. 

However, for me the most important thing here is that we teach our children that differences should be celebrated; they present learning opportunities not just for language and we can hopefully teach our children tolerance and understanding of other people’s cultures and a better understanding of their own.

Anne Rudge, Primary Languages Consultant, Lincolnshire

Those of you interested in exploring further the potential offered by linguistic and cultural diversity might refer to the CILT Young Pathfinder 10 A world of languages which looks at developing children's language learning by linking this to the multilingualism that increasingly surrounds them.