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Developing English through an understanding of how languages work

Developing English through an understanding of how languages work

Summary

On 17 November, presenters from Lexis Education showcased how they use a Systemic Functional Linguistics approach in their classrooms.

Payal Yadav detailed her experience in a New Arrivals primary setting, working with students with diverse language backgrounds. She outlined a unit of work using the description genre on the topic of animals with a range of highly scaffolded yet high challenge language activities to enable students to develop an understanding of how language works.

Imogen Lazarus presented on her work with secondary students and detailed her use of the teaching and learning cycle and explicit instruction about clause and phrase structures.

Both presenters demonstrated how they build students’ metalanguage both for learning English and learning about English. Drawing on students’ existing language resources to contrast English with their first languages was also highlighted in the session. Overall, this was a highly engaging presentation that enabled participants to learn from teachers experienced in this approach and offered a variety of practical ideas for how to develop students’ understanding of how language works using a Systemic Functional Linguistics framework.

Recording

Powerpoint and other Resources

Type

 

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Challenges and possibilities in using The Victorian Curriculum F-10: EAL in a Year 7 science unit: A focus on word knowledge.

Challenges and possibilities in using The Victorian Curriculum F-10: EAL in a Year 7 science unit: A focus on word knowledge.

Summary

Dr Anna Filipi, Dr Minh Hue Nguyen, Angie Valcanis and Emily Smith shared their research, knowledge and experience relating to their research project ‘Challenges and possibilities in using The Victorian Curriculum F-10: EAL in a Year 7 science unit: A focus on word knowledge’.

The project explored the collaboration between EAL teachers and content teachers, eliciting valuable strategies to support the learning process for students. The research and teaching team presented their clear and concise findings, highlighting ways for teachers to become more linguistically responsive within the learning environment.

The presentation outlined strategies that can be implemented into teaching to support all students to meet the linguistic demands of a learning experience. Based upon five key principles, the research / teaching team have elicited 25 strategies derived from the analysis of the science classroom. The presentation provided the audience with classroom examples, clearly outlining how teachers can be linguistically responsive; demonstrating how complex and / or abstract learning material can be made accessible to all learners. It was evident within the presentation that implementing linguistically responsive instruction would not only support the learning experience for EAL learners but has the capability to enhance learning for all students.

Please click here for a summary of the paper titled: Students’ unsolicited initiations in a science classroom as displays of competence (published in Linguistics and Education), and email Dr Anna Fillipi at anna.filipi@monash.edu if you would like to read the full paper.

Recording

Powerpoint and other Resources

Download (PDF, 1.22MB)

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Teaching Resource

Teaching Resource – Language Portraits

Developed by Kimberley Smith, Blackburn English Language School, in collaboration with Julie Choi, Senior Lecturer in Education (Additional Languages) in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education

This in-class teaching and learning task provides an opportunity for students to explore and communicate their linguistic identities and language practices and the role these play in shaping their experiences as language learners.

Download (PDF, 112KB)

Download (PPTX, 5.56MB)

Download (PDF, 284KB)

Download (PDF, 171KB)

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NGV Resourcing Events 2022

NGV Resourcing Events

Summary

Two professional learning events for EAL teachers were held with a focus on works in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria. These were on 8 and 15 September and took place online. Leah Santilli, Outreach Educator for the NGV, with assistance from her colleagues, Anna Zobel and Lily Feiner (8 September) and Tess Rangelov and Amy Duncan (15 September) showed us some wonderful works and discussed ways that they might be the focus of some engaging lessons with EAL learners, both school aged learners and also adults.

In the first session we saw some amazing shields from the NGV collection that were from various Australian Indigenous peoples. We discussed their creation and usage and looked closely at the patterns, colours and shapes of them, as well as at how they were displayed together in the Gallery. We took part in an activity involving drawing one of the shields that we could see and developing the language to describe it.

We then looked at a couple of works by Australian painter, John Glover: https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/5631/ & https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/98550/. These works are featured in the NGV’s learning resource titled: Colony to Nation. https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/school_resource/colony-to-nation/ .  Adaptions of the materials from this learning resource for use with EAL learners were done in 2021 as part of a collaboration between NGV, VicTESOL and Blackburn English Language School.

For the first session, the Gallery staff were in the Ian Potter Centre at NGV Australia in Federation Square and “led us” virtually around the Gallery, showing us the works, and giving us a feel for what was going on – some visitors to the Gallery at the time took interest in what Leah was telling us and tagged along. In the second session, on 15 September, the Gallery staff spoke to us from the NGV International on St Kilda Road. Again, their excellent coordination and camera work gave us a feel of the activity in the Gallery. The focus this time was on more contemporary works: one by Lee Krasner titled Combat https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/5213/ and the other, Haystacks at Moret – Morning light https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/4366/ by Alfred Sisley. How we might lead our learners to notice things in these works and the ways that language might be developed around this were discussed with lots of opportunities for participants to make suggestions.

Overall, these two sessions were highly engaging and we thank the staff at NGV, in particular, Leah, for their great work and time in preparing and presenting to VicTESOL members and others. We look forward to future events with NGV.

Colony to Nation for EAL teaching and learning (NGV Resourcing Event 1)

Recording

Please note that this recording will be made available until October 2022 ONLY.

Resources

Overview of the Colony to Nation Resources, including EAL adaptations

First Contact: Draw a Shield Activity

See Think Wonder Activity

Compare and Contrast Activity

Changes to Australia’s Environment: Cause and Effect Activity

EAL Meet & Teach with NGV (NGV Resourcing Event 2)

Recording

Please note that this recording will be made available until October 2022 ONLY.

Resources

Example Artworks

Questions you can ask about the artworks – Questions allow students to think out loud and elaborate on the ideas and questions of others.

  • What do you see when you look at this work?
  • What does this art work make you think? Think about the way it was made, what it means, about the artist or their interests/passion/intention.
  • What does the artwork remind you of?
  • You could even connect it to the name of the artwork or when it was made.
  • What do you wonder about this artwork?
  • What language could we attribute to this artwork?
  • How would this painting have been painted – with what? how would the canvas have been situated
  • If this painting was a person, what would their personality be like?
  • What would life be like if you were in this painting? What can you see? What would you be doing? (Looking at the Haystacks image) What season would it be? What kind of farm is it? How might the farmers be feeling? What time of day is it?

Some teaching ideas and activities from the padlet

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ACTA National Roadmap for EAL/D Education in Schools briefings (released May 6th, 2022)

Summary

ACTA has been undertaking a series of briefings on the release of the ACTA National Roadmap for EAL/D Education in Schools. ACTA has been concerned for some years at the erosion of specialist English language provision for over 600,000 Indigenous, migrant and refugee students in Australian schools. This erosion is due to Commonwealth devolving all responsibility for EAL/D education to State and Territory governments and these jurisdictions’ school autonomy policies diverting earmarked (Gonski) funding away from EAL/D learner support though flexible, global school budgets.

The Roadmap aims to ‘build back better’ English language and literacy provision for these students. It identifies key national policy problems and proposes solutions through twelve key actions aligned to the directions and initiatives of the National Schools Reform Agreement.

As Australia emerges from the pandemic and re-opens to the world, national leadership is needed to restore our former leading role and rebuild effective English language and literacy provision so that Australia’s English language learners, including its Indigenous learners, can participate successfully in school education and contribute to a cohesive and prosperous multicultural society.

At the online event for academics and researchers working in the field on the 16th of June, leading researchers in the field of TESOL, including Professor Constant Leung from Kings College, discussed the new ACTA National Roadmap for EAL/D Education in Schools.

At the online event for ACTA members on Monday June 20th, Dr Michael Michell encouraged State and Territory associations to contact political parties, representatives and Commonwealth and State and Territory Education Ministers to commit to implementing Roadmap actions.

At the online event for Professional Associations and Key Organisations in the EAL/D space on Monday 18th July, an extremely productive discussion was held with many suggestions for further actions being made.

Other briefings on the Roadmap have been presented to the Victorian and Queensland Council of Deans of Education, and other relevant parties.

Recordings

16 June 2022 – Academics and Researchers

20 June 2022 – ACTA Members

18 July 2022 -Professional Associations and Key Organisations in the EAL/D space

Documents

The Roadmap

Download (PDF, 896KB)

Media Release

Download (PDF, 169KB)

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Looking ahead: an overview of the new VCE English and EAL study design and planning for Units 1 & 2 in 2023

Copy of Presentation

Download (PDF, 941KB)

Summary

A wonderfully thorough and informative presentation about the changes to the new English/EAL Study Design was offered by Kellie Heintz from the EAL Division of the VCAA.

She began with an important reminder of the eligibility criteria and Special Circumstances that determine whether students can be assessed in Units 3 & 4 before elaborating how the consultation process undertaken in 2021 together with key EAL principles informed the new Study Design. Many fundamental curricular and assessment differences for EAL students were higlighted, especially around the new Outcomes such as the Personal Response and Writing outcomes as a means to elevate student voice and agency. The role and types of mentor texts were considered as means to explore ideas and Kellie offered wonderful examples of how to plan for use of the Frameworks to inspire future planning. A fantastic resource overall that supports both EAL and English teachers in implementation of Units 1 & 2 in 2023.

Note: A complementary presentation that builds on this presentation and links to assessment will appear later in the year. Also, further VCAA resources relating to the Study can also be viewed below.

VCAA Resources

Click here to view on demand videos relating to VCE English and English as an Additional Language (EAL)

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Enacting translation and translanguaging collaboratively between teachers and learners for knowledge building

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Download (PDF, 29.53MB)

Dr Julie Choi and Ms Kailin Liu presented a session on 24 March entitled: Enacting translation and translanguaging collaboratively between teachers and learners for knowledge building. In this session they prompted us to consider translation and translanguaging as a collaboration and explained that this can take place on a number of levels. Talking about it in relation to learning, we were shown texts in which there were examples of a number of translation strategies used by learners. One was a reading text, where students had not only written words they had translated in the margins, but had also made notes about their translations of larger concepts that appeared within the texts. They also showed us a student notebook explaining that these kinds of texts are intricate spaces where we can observe students and the ways they use translation. They demonstrated that translation isn’t simply a case of converting a word or phrase from Language Code A to Language Code B but is a more complex process involving moving back and forth between languages to find the best fit for meaning. As I understood, this is where translation engages with translanguaging whereby learners and other plurilinguals bring to the fore their knowledge of all languages, or their combined language repertoire, in order to make meaning.

The presenters emphasised the value of collaborative dialogue in which speakers “[engage] in problem solving and knowledge building” (Swain, 2000) involving negotiation of meaning and knowledge building. They then shared with us their own experiences of collaborative dialogue that they themselves had engaged in as part of exploring a language translation issue related to the word “besides”  – a vocabulary item in English often inappropriately used by students in their writing.

The session was highly engaging and informative and offered many practical ideas for teachers for working collaboratively with language learners to explore and develop skills in translation and translanguaging. Thank you Julie and Kailin!

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EAL Micro-Teaching Vignette – Membership Grids

A lot of professional learning quite rightly focuses on the global, big-picture ideas of teaching and learning, but what about a small, everyday practice of successful teaching. In this series of vignettes, EAL teachers showcase a single activity, idea or resource that they find to be effective in the EAL classroom, and discuss how and why it works. This vignette is generously contributed by Stephanie Georgiou, Mckinnon Secondary College. It focuses on a Membership Grid activity which she uses with secondary-aged EAL students. We thank Stephanie for donating her time and expertise.

There is a wealth of EAL expertise out there! Why not share it with the EAL community? We are keen to showcase this practice of teachers in primary, secondary and adult sectors. If you would like to contribute a vignette about an activity, idea or resource you find to be effective in the classroom, please email plcoordinator[at]victesol.vic.edu.au

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VCE EAL Resources – ‘Burial Rites’ by Hannah Kent

These resources have been created as scaffolding tasks to support initial comprehension through to critical analysis via collaborative meaning-making activities for Units 1 and 3, Outcome 1. Students are encouraged to use both English and their common home language to complete these tasks. It is important to note that these documents are not stand alone supports – they should be used in conjunction with a synopsis, extensive discussion about visuals relating to the time and place as well as a range of graphic organisers and models to scaffold writing. However, the nature of the tasks can be adapted for multiple year levels and cohorts when analysing novels, films or plays that are considered challenging for your EAL/D or low SES and multiculturally diverse learners.  

Resources contributed by April Edwards.

Burial Rites Quiz

Download (DOCX, 21KB)

Class Reading Grid

Download (DOCX, 20KB)

Group Reading Task Example 1

Download (DOCX, 17KB)

Group Reading Task Example 2

Download (DOCX, 20KB)

Theme Task

Download (DOCX, 15KB)

Character Quotes Task

Download (DOCX, 18KB)

Symbolism Task (Class generated)

Download (DOCX, 16KB)

Pre and Post Reading Task

Download (DOCX, 17KB)

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Online Resourcing and Networking session for pre-service, early-career EAL teachers and teachers new to EAL

Thursday 3 June, 2021, 4-5pm

Online Event – Presentation and Conversation Rooms

This was an opportunity for teachers who are at a similar stage of their careers to share practice with teachers from other schools and institutions. A big part of this session was EAL resource sharing with Jennifer Peck from the Languages and Multicultural Education Resource Centre (LMERC) and and Eileen Wan (Blackburn English Language School). They presented on LMERC’s online and physical resources. This session was for pre-service teachers and early-career teachers (0-2 years) of EAL students, and teachers who are new to teaching EAL students.

Click here to access LMERC’s website.

 

Download (PDF, 3.56MB)

 

Some suggested resource links from participants in this session included: