Building capacity
Research concludes that there is a valuable role for a specialist in the EAL area to work with schools to plan an inclusive curriculum together. In Northumberland the dedicated EAL consultant will therefore work with schools to contribute to the raising standards agenda by building capacity in schools to fulfil their legal duties to promote racial equality.According to EAL pedagogy,
A distinction needs to be made between interpersonal communicative skills and cognitive and academic language proficiency. Generally speaking, children learning an additional language can become conversationally fluent in the new language in two to three years, but may take five years or longer to catch up with monolingual peers in the development of cognitive and academic language. The distinction between these two types of language and their rates of development is recognised in the Ofsted framework for inspecting EAL in primary schools.
Provision in other Local Authorities in the UK is under-pinned by the same principles. Withdrawal of pupils and intensive English tuition is not offered. Where provision differs in other Local Authorities is through the deployment of centrally employed bilingual teaching assistants and specialist teachers who for short periods of time can work in lessons with individuals or small groups to enable access to the curriculum and use strategies to encourage
