After more than 40 years in education, this space has been created to capture my experiences as a teacher and leader. My focus is on teaching the English language learner along with insights on learning difficulties and leadership.
In Australia, they are referred to as EAL/D learners – English as a Additional Language or Dialect. We had previously used terms such EAL or ESL. I’m particularly keen to explore the commonalities in various approaches to language teaching across the world as I believe that although I hear different narratives, and often statements to the effect of “that’s not my student” or “that’s not our approach”, there is more in common among these learners and we don’t share enough. I hope to encourage dialogue through this blog.
Learner Profiles
A critical complexity in meeting the language learner’s needs lies in the fact that there are as many types of learners as there are communities and languages from around the world. Knowing your learner is critical before you can identify the best approaches to meet their needs. Click below to read more about the varied backgrounds of English language learners and how this might impact on their learning of the language in high school.
Language Acquisition
Reference to the language acquisition progressions that your country or state uses is important as you build an awareness of who your learner is and how they learn. In Queensland, Australia, we make reference to the bandscale documents so that is what I generally refer to in my blogs. I’ll be building up this page to detail more information on what students can do and the best pedagogies to address their needs at each stage.
Recent Blog Posts
