We live in a multicultural society within Australia with our schools having an estimated 20-25% of students with backgrounds of English being an additional language (Hammond, 2012). As teachers in this society, we are expected to provide the best education we can to all our students. There are priorities that apply to every subject area such as developing literacy and numeracy skills and cross curriculum priorities, however I would argue that we are missing an important teaching area that is relevant for each and everyone of us. Language education is a vital aspect and should not be treated as something that is taught separate to the mainstream setting. Given the significant numbers of EAL/D students in mainstream schooling, I would argue that the responsibility of language education is a priority for all of us.
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| Teens (Communications, 2010) |
It is for these reasons I am running this
professional development on the essential knowledge of the characteristics and needs
of EAL students and how to provide them equitable access to the discipline
knowledge. First we will cover the ACARA English as an additional language or dialect (EAL/D) teacher resource,
examining the different phases of English language acquisition. Second, we will
have a look at the different theories of language and the factors that
influence the progress students make. To finish it off we will look at some of
the issues EAL/D learners can face and how as a school we can support them
through their education.
