Support staff roles within different phases

>Early Year Foundation Stage/Key Stage 1

>Key Stage 2

>Key Stages 3 and 4

Student teachers are likely to encounter a range of contexts, practices and staff relating to provision for EAL learners and bilingual pupils in schools. Outlined here is a range of activities and practices which bilingual and monolingual additional staff may undertake across schools and settings.These are collated from guidance provided by local authority language services.

Early Years Foundation Stage/Key Stage 1

Schools may choose to deploy staff in the nursery to address this important stage of pupils' learning, but the needs of these pupils will not be included in the national formula for funding. The government restricts the EMAG funded identification of needs and deployment of support to pupils with English as an additional language to pupils in reception and above.

Young bilingual pupils at a very early stage of learning English as an additional language will benefit significantly from the support of a bilingual teaching assistant or a bilingual language support teacher who uses their first language to:

• introduce and settle pupils in the learning environment,
• draw on their prior knowledge to develop their learning
• develop skills to support literacy development ie sequencing, explaining, describing, which will subsequently be transferred to EAL
• explain the learning activities
• promote pair and group interaction maintain and develop pupils' self esteem and confidence
  

Specialist language support teachers with English as their first language may support young bilingual pupils by collaborating with class teachers to:

• develop talk in active contexts that promote pupils' learning and language development
• model appropriate language
• provide thinking time before pupils are expected to respond
• provide a range of culturally and linguistically appropriate resources
• ensure that pupils work with good role models of language, both first language and English as an additional language, and good conceptual role models
• maintain and develop pupils' self esteem and confidence

Key Stage 2

Bilingual pupils who started their education in English schools will be developing their language for learning. Specialist language support teachers may collaborate with class teachers to:

• identify pupils' needs from their learning at Key Stage 1
• model language for cognitive and academic learning purposes
• ensure that purposeful talk and discussion takes place to support learning
• consider the range of groups in which pupils work
• provide oral rehearsal before reading and writing tasks
• consider the scaffolding needed for pupils to complete learning objectives
• provide or develop differentiated resources to meet pupils' needs
• support the development of pupils' higher order thinking skills and the associated language for analysis, application, synthesis and evaluation
• monitor pupils' levels of achievement in different curriculum areas
• support pupils with English as an additional language to apply the language and skills learnt in one curriculum area to another
• maintain and develop pupils' self esteem and confidence

Bilingual teaching assistants will work under the direction of class teachers to:

• provide first language support for older beginner/early stage bilingual pupils to provide access to the curriculum
• ensure all bilingual pupils achieve their potential by using first language to draw on prior experience and to develop conceptual understanding
• maintain and develop pupils' first languages in academic contexts to enable pupils to draw effectively on their whole language repertoire for learning so contributing to improved achievement
  
  

Key Stages 3 and 4

Bilingual pupils who started their education in English schools will be continuing to develop their language for learning in subject specific contexts. Specialist language support teachers may collaborate with subject teachers to:

• identify pupils' learning needs from the previous Key Stage
• support the development of subject specific language, at word, sentence and text level
• influence the range of groups in which pupils work
• develop pupils higher order thinking skills and the associated academic language for analysis, application, synthesis and evaluation
• ensure that bilingual pupils engage in talk and discussion before completing reading and writing tasks to provide effective models of learning and academic language
• support pupils' comprehension of extended texts including reading for inference and deduction by teacher explanation and by enabling bilingual pupils to listen to good role models express the necessary thinking processes in academic English
• support pupils ability to write for a range of purposes by providing appropriate scaffolding
• ensure that pupils have access to videos and materials which provide effective access to the curriculum.
• monitor pupils' levels of achievement in different curriculum areas
• support pupils with English as an additional language to apply the language and skills learnt in one curriculum area to another
• maintain and develop pupils' self esteem and confidence

Bilingual teaching assistants working in secondary schools work under the direction of the subject teacher to:

• introduce pupils new to English schooling to school and classroom routines
• provide first language support for older beginner/early stage bilingual pupils to provide access to the curriculum
• enable bilingual pupils to transfer the knowledge and skills acquired in their first language to the secondary curriculum
• enable pupils to achieve their potential by using their first language to draw on prior experience and to develop further conceptual understanding
• maintain and develop pupils' first language in academic contexts to enable pupils to draw effectively on their whole language repertoire for learning so contributing to improved achievement

Beginner bilinguals

Pupils at Key Stages 2, 3 and 4 who join the school at an early stage of learning English as an additional language will benefit from focused support. Specialist EAL teachers mayl collaborate with class and subject teachers to:

• identify the pupils' learning ability in first language with the support of bilingual colleagues
• enable pupils to transfer skills from first language to English as an additional language
• provide intensive support to older beginner bilingual pupils to develop EAL within curriculum contexts
• consider pupil groupings, including first language peer support
• identify bilingual and pictorial dictionaries and palm pilots to support pupils' understanding of the curriculum
• identify bilingual software to support the learning of older pupils

Bilingual Teaching Assistants working under the direction of appropriate teachers will play a particularly important role in supporting older beginner bilingual pupils

Individuals within the role

Teachers recognise that different colleagues will provide a different focus of support to pupils within their classroom. It is often the case that different EAL teachers within the same role will bring different experience and strengths to their role compared with other colleagues, while providing the same quality of support to both pupil and teacher.
The same applies to EAL and bilingual teaching assistants. At the start of any period of support it may therefore be useful for student teachers to use the range of collaborative models to agree the most effective collaboration for both teachers or for teacher and teaching assistant.

References

DfES (2004) Aiming High: Supporting Effective use of EMAG.  London : DfES.  Retrieved on 23rd September, 2005 from: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/ethnicminorities/links_and_publications/

supportingemag/Efctv_Use_EMAG.pdf