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Leading EALD Professional Learning Within Schools – Webinar

Mei French, Ashima Suri and Rita Alexander

In multicultural and multilingual school contexts, it is beneficial for all teachers to develop strong intercultural relationship skills and understand the role of multilingualism in the classroom in order to support English learning across the curriculum. As colleagues in a South Australian secondary school, Mei, Ashima, and Rita, designed and delivered a whole-school professional learning program which addressed this need. They advocated for EALD students as individuals and experts, and invited colleagues to learn more about the lives, strengths and resources of the EALD learners in their classes. Over the course of a school year, teachers were encouraged to take on the role of learner, to listen to students’ stories, and to learn new skills from them. Teachers reported improved understanding of their students’ life experiences, deeper empathy, more positive relationships, and adopted more creative approaches to pedagogy that support English learning across the curriculum. While the EALD specialists running these workshops reported feeling re-energised by their role in the program. This professional learning program was memorable, sustainable and allowed all teachers to rethink themselves as co-learners with EALD students.

In this webinar, Mei, Ashima and Rita outline the program they conducted in the school, and give advice to webinar participants about planning a professional learning program for their own context, drawing on the EALD elaborations to the AITSL standards.

Presenters
Mei, Ashima and Rita worked together teaching multilingual young women at a South Australian secondary school.

Now based in Canberra, Mei French is an EALD specialist, who combines secondary school teaching with teacher education and curriculum development. She has been an active contributor to advocacy and professional learning through TESOL associations. Her PhD investigated the complex and purposeful multilingual practices of secondary school students and their teachers, and the implications for practice and policy.

Ashima Suri is an EAL and Science teacher. As an EAL network teacher in Adelaide, Ashima has worked across different schools, supporting both students and staff to use different pedagogies to support the development of academic English for students. She takes particular interest in the many ways multilingual students contribute significantly to the school community.

Rita Alexander is an experienced teacher who has worked with EAL learners at all stages of schooling from early childhood to Year 12. Rita’s career has seen her work in a broad range of contexts across South Australia. Rita takes particular interest in harnessing students’ varied cultural and linguistic experiences to construct positive learning identities and supporting the learning of English language across the curriculum.

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Foundation House Student Perspectives Report – Webinar

Greg Gow, Program Coordinator, Schools Support Program & Matt Rodger, Schools Support Officer West Region, Schools Support Program

‘School is where you need to be equal and learn’: Insights from students of refugee backgrounds on learning and engagement in Victorian secondary schools (2019)

This report presents the findings of a research project conducted by the Schools Support Program at the Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture (Foundation House). This project sought out the insights of students of refugee backgrounds on the barriers and facilitators to learning and engagement at school. Focus groups were conducted at three Victorian secondary schools, with 51 students (aged 13-19). The students were all from refugee backgrounds and had arrived in Australia within the past seven years. Through this project the Schools Support Program was able to learn directly from students of refugee backgrounds and position them, through their lived experience, as experts on ‘what works’ to support them at school.

In this webinar, Greg and Matt take you through the findings of this report and provide insights into how this report can inform practice at your school.

 

 

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Support and Advice for Primary School Teachers of EAL Students

 

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Michelle Andrews, Giuliana Mecoli & Rebekah Jones de Villagran

VicTESOL assembled a panel of experts in primary school EAL teaching to answer your questions, offer advice and support, and discuss best practice in primary school EAL teaching. In this online Q&A session, Michelle, Giuliana and Rebekah tailored their discussion around your specific needs. They answered both live questions and questions gathered in the registration process.

Panel Members

Michelle Andrews, Preston North East Primary School
Michelle Andrews is currently working as the EAL specialist at Preston North East Primary school. An experienced Primary EAL teacher, she taught for more than 12 years in the New Arrivals program, undertaking a variety of roles including curriculum leadership. She is an active member of the VicTESOL committee, working mainly in the area of Professional Learning. Passionate about working with other teachers to build excellence in practice, her recent move back into a mainstream Primary school has reinforced her enthusiasm to support student learning and engagement through effective EAL teaching.

Giuliana Mecoli, Department of Education and Training
Giuliana is currently working as the EAL Project Officer in DET, North West Victorian Regional Office and previously was in the same role in the South West Victorian Region for a number of years. In this role she is responsible for providing EAL policy and strategic advice at regional, school and teacher level. She has extensive experience working in the EAL and Literacy fields with teachers across state and independent education sectors at primary, secondary and adult levels. She has worked as a university lecturer in TESOL, classroom teacher, EAL specialist, network leader and literacy coach/mentor at primary and secondary levels.

The key passion that has driven Giuliana’s work over the years has been her commitment to improving teacher’s knowledge about language and to build their skills and capacity to improve the English learning outcomes for EAL students in schools.

Rebekah Jones de Villagran, Blackburn English Language School
Rebekah is the Primary Curriculum Leader at Blackburn English Language School. She has been working in the New Arrivals program since 2015 where she has taught mostly in the upper primary year levels. With over 13 years of experience in primary and English language teaching and a Masters in TEFL/TESL from the University of Birmingham, she has taught over 40 different nationalities in a range of teaching and learning contexts, across Australia, Japan and Guatemala. This has given her a comprehensive understanding of the cultural, social and linguistic issues in EAL teaching and language acquisition.

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Measuring EAL Students’ Growth Using Visible Learning and Data – Jesus Camacho-Morales & Julia Lippold

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This content is available for VicTESOL members.
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Reading and Comparing Face-to-Face Session – Marcellene D’Menzie

Powerpoint Presentation:

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Worksheets:

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Teaching and Learning Cycle Project Resources

VicTESOL’s Teaching and Learning Cycle project, launched in 2018, was made possible by the generous support of a Victorian Department of Education and Training (DET) Common Funding Agreement (CFA). VicTESOL has also contributed to this project.

VicTESOL enlisted the specialist Prof Beverly Derewianka, an expert in EAL and mainstream language education and literacy, to work with a team of teachers from various schools in Victoria. They spent several days studying the Teaching and Learning Cycle, then went back to their schools to produce a Unit of Work relevant for their specific context.

We are proud to share these Units of Work with the education community.

 

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TEAL webinar, Anna-Lise Wallis, presented by VicTESOL 30 Oct 2018

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The TEAL project, launched in 2015, is an online resource for teachers of primary and secondary level students who are learning English as an Additional Language (EAL) in Australia. It brings together a range of tools and advice for the assessment and reporting of the English language proficiency and progress of students within an ‘assessment for learning’ framework. In this webinar, Anna-Lise Wallis gave a guided tour of these resources and discussed the ways they can be used in the classroom.

Anna-Lise is a Senior Project Officer in the EAL Unit of the Department of Education and Training. She is a co-presenter of the 3-day Putting TEAL into Practice professional learning program and has previously taught EAL at a language centre, university and mainstream secondary college. She is a GAT and NAPLAN marker and Year 12 EAL assessor.

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Talking Democracy- A civic education kit about elections in Victoria

Click here to access the Talking Democracy civic education kit:
This resource kit is designed for people studying English as an Additional Language. It aims to educate students on elections, the system of government in Australia, how to enrol to vote, and how to vote correctly.
Hard copies of the kit can also be ordered by calling 131 832, emailing [email protected].gov.au or by filling in the Talking Democracy Resource Kit Order online form by clicking here.