EAL: The Equitable Classroom

25 September, 2024 —

EAL: The Equitable Classroom

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by Derby Research School
on the 25th September 2024

As practitioners we strive to enable all our learners, supporting and challenging them as required. Our learners with EAL bring their own individual needs to the classroom. We shall look at some of those needs and how to offer effective support and challenge to our learners with EAL.

Learners with EAL are a diverse group they can come to our classrooms from so many different places via so many different journeys and with so many
different levels of literacy. This is all in addition to their command of the English language. A learner with EAL may be a well-traveled polyglot, an asylum
seeker whose native language bears no resemblance to our phonetic system or even a student born in the UK whose family speak another language at home.

There is well-evidenced research around literacy that we, as practitioners, are already implementing: fluency, oracy and tiers of vocabulary being just a few of them. Our learners with EAL may require additional support with language acquisition but it is important that we see them through a lens of equity rather than seeing someone’s command of English as a deficit or as an asset.

How do meet all needs

How do we create a classroom in which our learners with EAL are seen and their needs catered for? Let us first consider the idea of the equity lens, Jacob Huckle describes the idea of the equity lens in his article for Impact Journal (Summer 2022). We need to think about the systems and structures we have in place. What are our processes and procedures for introducing language and giving equity to our students with different starting points? We need to consider how our resources are allocated and how we view our learners with EAL.

Johanna Thompson (Impact Journal, Summer 2022) talks about being what you can see by embracing the cultural and linguistic diversity of our students.
By promoting the use of more than one language in our classroom we will be supporting our learners and encouraging social cohesion by getting rid of any
embarrassment our students with EAL may feel over their literacy levels.

Translanguaging, a term explained by Wei and Lin (2019) is when languages are used together in class. The use of the two languages is planned strategically to support students’ literacy and comprehension in both languages. This is most easily used in a bilingual classroom but can also be used by groups within a multilingual classroom. An opportunity for this could easily occur here in the UK, when we have one or two speakers of different languages, such as Polish or Urdu, in a mainly English-speaking classroom. When their bilingualism or multilingualism is embraced and encouraged we are showing equity and championing a translanguaging approach.

Summary

This blog is intended as an introduction to ways of thinking and modes of support we could explore as practitioners as we consider what changes we might make to our classroom to be both equitable and inclusive for all our learners and particular for those with English as an additional language.

References

It’s easier to be what you can see: supporting EAL learners in monolingual classes, Johanna Thompson, Impact Journal, Summer 2022

Equity and English as an additional language: looking beyond deficit and asset lenses, Jacob Huckle, Impact Journal, Summer 2022

Li Wei & Angel M. Y. Lin (2019)Translanguaging classroom discourse: pushing limits, breaking boundaries, Classroom Discourse, 10:3 – 4, 209 – 215, DOI: 10.1080/19463014.2019.1635032. Article link; https://doi.org/10.1080/19463014.2019.1635032

Education Endowment Foundation Literacy Guidance Reports; https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports