Part 4- English language reading provision for EAL Students who are not literate in their first language

Choosing the right text

This session clearly shows us that stories which are created by the students themselves are effective to teach reading because students relate to them and make sense of what they read.  

Malik has been attending to the Ruth Miskin literacy group in school for 3 months. However, this did not help him a lot because it purely aims to teach reading from phonetics and words without a context. (A sample to this program attached)  This program is effective for native English speakers; however it does not seem to work with EAL students because those students do not have the same educational and cultural background; therefore they find very difficult to predict the words unless they are in a context which makes sense to their knowledge of world.

If we would like Malik to become an independent reader, we have to find other strategies and teach him how to use those strategies independently to read better.

Learner-readers tend to have difficulties with texts whose language is particularly remote from what they usually either speak or hear. There are certain items of language of low occurrence in spoken English and non-occurring in many E2L learners’ speech which appear to cause particular difficulty.

Malik has been attending once a week to Lewisham-Greenwich Young People’s Theatre ‘Voices’ Project created for EAL Students since mid- April. It aims to teach English through drama. It is helping him to express himself which also gives the opportunity to reflect on events. I registered him to this program to help with his language development. In addition, he shares his worries with the other children who had similar experiences.

He also goes to a community school in Deptford for two hours every Sunday morning.

Refugee children have specific language needs – most newly-arrived asylum – seeking children enter the school system speaking little or no English. Particular attention should be given to supporting language learning for children whose prior education has been interrupted. As literacy is such as the Literacy Hour in England should be accessible to children for whom English is an additional language. Refugee children also need to maintain and develop their own language. There is now clear evidence that children who continue to study in their first language perform better in school than those who are not able to develop their first language.

Malik has improved his speaking rapidly because he already speaks two languages. However, he has never learnt reading or writing in those languages. Therefore, he attends to guided reading sessions that I run once a week in school. The texts I choose for these sessions are the stories of different genres such as; folk tales, adventure and mystery stories.

Part 3 -English language reading provision for EAL Students who are not literate in their first language

Notes on the reading

(1)   The missing words are shown in brackets.

(2)   Repetitions are shown in bold

(3)   Graphophonic miscues are shown in italics

(4)   Syntactic mistakes are underlined.

(5)   Semantic miscues are highlighted.

He repeats some words such as; with (3 times), was in (twice), when Ben came (twice) he (twice), police came (twice) asked question (3 times). Repetitions are shown in bold. Malik is an over cautious reader. He is scared to make mistakes; therefore he repeats the words until he is sure of them. He made syntactic (grammatical) mistakes such as; Ben house, instead of Ben’s house. He also had semantic miscue such as; they ask instead of they told.

His graphophonic miscues are; tall: told, curly: cuddly. After reading tall as told, he corrects himself quickly. This shows that he is reading the text for meaning not just as words. He was able to retain the story and found out that ‘told’ did not fit in, therefore he corrected it immediately. When he was creating his character, Malik did not describe how his hair was. When I asked if Ben had straight or curly hair, he replied “Cuddly hair”. He used his own interlanguage to pronounce this word. During reading he remembered the word and pronounced it the same way.

With learners still developing and changing their English so that it approximates to a desired target, i.e. with ‘true’ E2L learners, the situation is different. Nonetheless miscues attributable to the learner’s interlanguage, like dialect miscues, should not be corrected during the reading lesson.

(‘Learning to Read in a Multicultural Society’ C. Wallace, 1988; Page74)

   

Although he made some mistakes as well as miscues, Malik had a successful reading session. He was able to read the most of the words without difficulty. He enjoyed his reading because it was a story he created and it made him more sense than any other stories. Malik has a very rich cultural background. He has been to two countries: Ethiopia and Somali. He also experienced a lot of different events throughout his life.

 According to C. Wallace, learner-readers can get the words wrong and yet be effective readers; the nature of the errors tells us that they could only have made such an addition, omission or replacement because they had understood. Conversely learners can get all the words right and yet not be making any sense of the text.

In order to analyze Malik’s comprehension in detail I asked some questions and transcribed his answers below;                     T – Tuba    M- Malik

T: We talked about the story before; you described Ben to me, didn’t you? So can you tell me how Ben looks like?

M: Black, skinny, tall, cuddly hair. (He means ‘curly’)

T: What does he do?

M: He is a fireman.

T: What happens then afterwards? What happens in the story?

M: After that they told him to not to leave his children. He married, wife.

T: Why do they tell him that? What happened?

M: Cause it was serious, matches, seriously, might the baby die.

T: But, but tell me about what happened. Why is it serious? What happened?

M: Those were playing with the matches.

T: Who were playing?  

M: His children

T: His children were playing with matches. And than what happened?

M: Police came, and they stopped the fire. They take off the fire.

T: So when the children played with matches, what happens?

M: The house was fired, and the thingy, Ben came back to his house and he gets shock and called the police and fired like the people make them stop.

T: OK

M: Them lot called the police as well, and the Ben was, The Police was asking them the questions.

and they  told him not to leave his children at home.

T: OK. And do you think Ben will follow this advice?

M: Yeah…

T: If you were Ben, what would you have done differently?

M: I would change quickly. I would have a wife an all that.

T: So you think that Ben did not have a wife. He only had children.

M: No, Ben had a wife. Ben like children, mum died.

T:OK, so Ben’s wife died.

W: And he is gonna get another wife.

T: But at the moment he is not married to another one.

M: Yeah.

T: So if you were Ben, in the same position. You got kids and you don’t have a wife, what would you have done differently?

M: I would like take them to my work.

T: If they are allowed to, but he works as a fireman. It is a very dangerous job. He can’t actually take them to work, can he?

M: I’d just take them to a cousin or something...

T: So you would ask one of your relatives

M: Yeah, yeah, to take them and let them stay until I come back to work.

T: And what do you think the children should have done?

M: They shouldn’t play with the matches.  

T: They shouldn’t have. How old are the children?

M: 5, 5 and half and 7.

T: How many children?

M: Three.

T: So he has got three children.       

M: Yeah

He is stage two in English Acquisition Stages; developing bilingual. He is able to express himself orally in English quite successfully, but he needs considerable support in writing and reading English. 

Part 2-English language reading provision for EAL Students who are not literate in their first language

 Reading Sessions  (Diagnostic Reading)

Chosen from www.englishavenue.com

Jeff’s letter (Level 2)

Malik’s reading session;

Before reading activities;

I explained Malik that there is a boy called Jeff in the story and he lives in China. He has a grandmother, grandfather, mother, father, brother and sister. His sister, brother and he go to East Elementary School. His sister goes to 2^nd grade and his brother goes to 6^th grade. His mother is a clerk and works in a book store. His father is a doctor and works in a hospital. His grandmother is a nurse but she does not work in hospital. She works in Jeff’s school as school nurse.

Malik’s reading from recorded transcript. 

Hello! 

My name is Jaff. I am 12 years old. I am in the 6 gate. I live in a big city in Jina. I live with my grand mother, my grand - my mother, and my father, my sister and my brother. I – am- brogrer, my sister and I go to East Element School. My sister and- is in the end gareth . My brother in the 4 gareth. My mum in a kitch. She work in a big book setten . I like to reading books. I have man man reading. My father is a dockitch. He work in a harpet. What work in the harpetting. She works in my school. She in a school nersa.

See you

After Reading activities 
I asked him 3 questions;
Where does he live? Does Jeff live in America? He said, “No, China.”
How old is Jeff? He said, “twelve years old”
Does he like to read? “Yea”

Analysing reading session 1 

I came to the conclusion that the text I chose was not very reflective of Malik’s real life experience, because it had unfamiliar words such as; grade, elementary and clerk. When I checked the transcription I realized that; to be able to analyse the miscues appropriately, the text should show his true reading potential. This text did not let Malik to use any of the strategies to predict the words because the Chinese school system is not similar to the British Education system.

In addition, the questions I asked were not enough to check his comprehension because they did not cover the entire story in Jeff’s letter. Therefore, I have changed it to something different; I used the story Malik created during one of our reading withdrawal support lessons at school. He told me the plot and I scribed it for him. Afterwards he read the story back to me. Here is the transcription;

Malik’s second reading session:

Malik’s story is called ‘Fire’. It is a story of a fireman who leaves his children alone at home. When the children play with matches, fire breaks out. Ben comes home and calls the police, puts out the fire. Police told him not leave his children alone at home again.

Original Story created by Malik; Fire Ben has a beard and he is black, skinny, and tall with dark and curly hair. He is a fireman. One day Ben’s house was in fire because his children played with matches. When Ben came home, he put out the fire. Police came quickly and asked questions about the fire. They told him not to leave his children at home alone.

Malik’s reading; Fire Ben has a beard and he is black skinny, told, tall with with with dark hair, cuddly hair. He is a fireman. One day Ben house was in, was in fire because his children played with matches. When Ben came, when Ben came house (home), he he puts out the fire. Police came (quickly) police came and asked question, asked question (about the fire) They ask question. puts, pots the fire, they put the fire out. They ask, they told him to not leave his children at home (alone).

Part 1-English language reading provision for EAL Students who are not literate in their first language

Introduction

For my case study I have chosen to look into the provision for a year nine EAL student from Ethiopia. He speaks Amharic and Somalian but he is not literate (can not read and write) in them. He has difficulties reading in English. I would like to find out what kind of strategies we can teach him to develop his reading and use this data for other EAL students with similar backgrounds. 

(The name has been altered for confidentiality reasons under the data protection act)

Background

(All the information was collected during a series of face to face interviews with Malik and telephone conversations with his father. Malik was aware that he was being recorded and his father was informed about the purpose of the interviews)

Malik was born in Ethiopia and lived in a refugee camp ran by United Nations High Commission Facilities for refugees until he was 12. He came to Somali once or twice to visit his grand mother. He never went to school neither in Ethiopia nor in Somalia. The camp did not have any education facilities. They had just a clinic for emergencies. They had to eat what they were given and live in the tents.  

Malik’s father has been living in England for 12 years. He left his family when Malik was 1 year old. However, he kept in touch, supported them financially and helped them to move to England, even though it took a long time. Malik and his family flew to England last year. He was 13.

Malik’s father is currently unemployed. Malik told me that his father often reads to him and he helps him with his reading practice. He also goes to Deptford Community School ran by group of teachers. The family pays a small monthly charge to attend the lessons. There he learns reading and writing in English. Classes take place on Sunday morning for a couple of hours. In his free time, he likes playing football, computer games and reading. 

During the interview, Malik’s father told me that he was extremely proud with his son’s progress considering the hard life and the tough environment his son had to endure since he was born.

  

When I first interviewed Malik, he did not tell me that he was born in a refugee camp and he had never been to school. He also did not admit that he never lived in Somalia except for the time he went there to visit his grand mother once or twice. His father explained to me that his son feels embarrassed to admit that he has never been to school.

Brooker; Early Childhood Literacy

I would like to explore his background in detail in order to see the factors affecting his level of readings. I will use Liz Brooker’s early childhood literacy (2002) case studies format of data display from interviews with mothers before I start the reading sessions with him. I will inquire about Maternal Education, Family Literacy, Early Learning (Play activities), Pre-school experience, Home curriculum, Home Pedagogy and Preparation for school.

	Malik
Maternal education	Mum did not go to school when she was young in Somalia. However, she went to the adult education and learnt reading and writing in Somali, before the conflict broke between Somalia and Ethiopia. At present, she continues going to Lewisham College since Malik started school at Crofton. She is literate in Somali but she speaks little English. She did not have enough confidence in herself to speak to me for this interview.
Family Literacy	They have books to read at home. His dad often reads to Malik. His father told me that the books he reads to him are KS1 reading books. The family has computer with Internet access at home.
Early Learning (Play activities)	Malik was born in a refugee camp in Ethiopia and lived there for 12 years. He has never been to school. In the camp they did not have any provision for children’s education. He can speak some Somali, Amharic and very little Arabic. He goes to Koran courses to learn to recite.
Pre-school experience	He has not attended to any nursery.
Home curriculum	His father helps him with his reading and writing in English. He also goes to a community school in Deptford every Sunday 2 hrs. in the mornings.
Home pedagogy	Malik has 3 sisters and 3 brothers. He is the 4th child in the family. They learn through play and conversation.
Preparation for school	There was not a lot of preparation for secondary school apart from his father trying to teach some English to him.

EAL teaching methodology...

When teaching EAL students, activating prior knowledge is extremely important and in my teaching I use this strategy often. A high level of previous education and knowledge may help the EAL students progress a lot quicker. As Cummins stresses that EAL teachers should use the CUP (common underlying proficiency) model in order to activate students’ prior knowledge. According to Cummins The development of academic skills in English depends not just on exposure to English but equally on the knowledge and concepts that the children have inside their heads that help them make sense of English.

The Natural Approach Krashen and Terrell developed in 1983, points out that there should be a lot of language acquisition instead of language processing together with a lot of comprehensible input from the teacher. ‘An interactive and stress free language environment and comprehensible input that is cognitively demanding offers bilinguals optimum learning potential’. This teaching methodology improves the EAL students’ listening skills and aims to create a safe and secure learning environment for EAL students. It focuses on a wide range of activities such as; role plays, dialogues, group work and discussions. The 3 generic stages of the approach are: Preproduction that develops listening skills, this was when I repeated the keywords and students listened; Early Production that students struggle with the language and make many errors which are corrected based on content and not structure, this was when they had to match the keywords with the meaning; Extending Production that promotes fluency through a variety of more challenging activities, this was the activities we did during the main part of the lesson.

In my teaching, I use the 5 principles of Krashen’s ‘Communicative Approach ‘ that requires that learners learn a language through using it to communicate because they do pair/group work, role play, ask and answer questions in class; authentic and meaningful communication should be the goal of classroom activities because they have clear learning and language speaking objectives; fluency is an important dimension of communication and communication involves the integration of different language skills because students do speaking, listening, reading and writing in lessons; learning is a process of creative construction and involves trial and error because students feel safe and are not scared to make mistakes when communicating with each other. The communication may also take place in first language. According to Krashen ‘well designed bilingual programmes produce better academic English because they supply subject matter knowledge in the students’ primary language, which makes the English the students hear and read much more comprehensible’

I aim to teach through visual, auditory and kinaesthetic activities to make the learning more effective and enjoyable.





 

EAL teaching pedagogy...

The aim is for the students to achieve specific subject related academic language as a way of speeding up their progress towards what Cummins calls Cognitive Academic Proficiency (CALP).
When learning a new language Cummins explains that most EAL students develop BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills) before they can develop CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency). Generally speaking, children learning an additional language can become conversationally fluent in the new language in 2-3 years but may take 5 years or longer to catch up with monolingual peers on the development of CALP. However, this process could be accelerated with the appropriate teaching and learning strategies which include and integrate their previous knowledge of literacy in first language.


I believe that this can be achieved effectively in a small group environment where pupils can practise the target language through talk. Small group talk is the key to learning both concepts and language as Vygotsky points out in his theory of ‘Zone of proximal development’. According to Vygotsky, interaction plays a very important role in the learning process. He also emphasised that as long as the curriculum supplies the necessary material, development of scientific concepts runs ahead of the development of spontaneous concepts.


Learners will be affected by attitudes to them, their culture, language and religion, ethnicity within and beyond the school and in the wider world. Learners’ social and cultural experiences will impact on their progress in language acquisition as well as on their cognitive and academic development. Baker points out that gaining belief, respect and social value from dialogue with others is not straightforward as there is unequal dominance, status and power in relationships.

Jim Cummins also states that, the emotional significance of learning a new language in “subtractive” rather than “additive” circumstances is hard to overemphasise. If a child is a visitor of a country, language learning experience may be a very positive one which enhances his/her cultural heritage by adding another language to the first one. However, immigrants may not have the same positive experience when learning the new language.

As far as possible, I use students’ first language often in my teaching because I believe that bilingualism is an asset, and the first language has a significant and continuing role in identity, learning and the acquisition of additional languages. I also make sure that cognitive challenge is kept appropriately high during the lessons through an inclusive curriculum.  

What is your first language?

The concept of the First Language is generally confusing for many people.The definition of first language is mother tongue: one's native language; the language learned by children and passed from one generation to the next.

Most people assume that their first language is the language they are fluent whilst in actual fact it is the language(s) they are exposed to up to their first birthday. Isn't that funny? I have many students who would say that they were born in the UK and went to school here therefore their first language is English. This is only possible if their parents did not communicate with them in any other languages since their infancy. 

In the UK, the DfE (Department of Education) recommends that schools should record the language which was communicated with the child until s/he is one year old as the child's first language. The reason behind this is to understand the linguistic background of the student and find more efficient ways to support him or her throughout their academic learning. 

The first language background plays a significant role in the child's personal, social and cultural identity.It provides a clear idea to teachers about the impact on the students linguistic skills and competence.

According to Vygotsky, an infant learns the meaning of signs through interaction with its main care-givers, e.g., pointing, cries, and gurgles can express what is wanted. How verbal sounds can be used to conduct social interaction is learned through this activity, and the child begins to utilize, build, and develop this faculty, e.g., using names for objects, etc. All humans complete their internalized  linguistic ability until they are one.  

According to 'First Language Acquisition' researchers, infants start to discriminate the differences between vowels and consonants from one month onwards. Therefore, they are able to distinguish languages categorically from very early on and this ability helps them to specialize in the languages they are exposed to during this period of their lives.

It is crucial to recognize and value students' first languages for the benefit of their emotional well-being. However, parents would also like to be valued for their first languages. There are many out there who cannot speak their first language because either their parents were not confident enough to speak to them, or they did not think it was necessary for them to learn.It does not change the fact however, that we are attached to our linguistic background emotionally and socially. No one should be penalized for wanting to speak their mother tongue in different countries.