Marilyn Abbott's recent presentation at the 20th NALDIC Annual Conference gave conference goers a wealth of strategies to draw on when working with EAL and bilingual learners. The conference, organised in partnership with NCLL, gave participants the opportunity to immerse themselves in aspects of reading, the use of stories and reading skills and strategies for bilingual learners.
At a time when Ofsted's 'outstanding' achievement criteria requires schools to ensure that 'Pupils read widely and often across all subjects' , reading in all its richness is firmly back on the agenda. Conference goes were treated to a wealth of ideas about reading across age groups, subjects and settings, from Dan Lea's 'Feast of Stories' to Eve Gregory's 'Becoming literate through faith activities in the home' to Matt Cooley's immersive approaches to literacy.
A copy of Marilyn Abbott's powerpoint presentation is now available to download and will be followed shortly by presentations and video footage from the stimulating range of workshops and seminars. The materials will be hosted on our Conference 20 report pages.
More about Marilyn Abbotts's work
Marilyn Abbott and her colleagues research and write about a number of issues: second language learning, pedagogy, testing and assessment, and teachers’ professional development, all pertaining to ESL (EAL) teaching and learning. What is very evident is that although the geographic context is different - her work is in Canada - the issues regarding ESL provision and teacher education resonate with those here in England.
One of the papers addresses an enduring issue in second language learning–the impact of the first language on learning English, and of course, you say, it does have an impact! Abbott (2006) offers research evidence which suggests that there are quite specific influences, depending on the first language of the learner. For example, in the study, Mandarin speakers seem to favour a ‘bottom-up’ approach, whereas Arabic speakers seem to take more of a ‘top-down’ approach to reading. Such research evidence is valuable in building a picture of how ESL learners learn to read in their additional language.
Another of the publications focuses on the use of ‘story’ in the ESL classroom, a study resulting in observations and recommendations that EAL teachers would recognize - the value of story and personal stories as a means to developing speaking and writing and the power of personal narratives to motivate learners to learn.
The third paper takes the reader into the science content classroom where EAL learners learn alongside their peer group. Once again the reader is on familiar ground with a discussion of ‘accommodation strategies’ for both formative and summative assessment: pre-teaching of vocabulary, sentence and language structures, using graphic organizers, use of group work, strategic use of questions, scaffolding - equally good strategies to support learners in content area classes.
And in the final paper, Abbott and her colleagues present their research in teacher education: a project which promoted research-based collaborative professional development projects involving in-service and pre-service teachers as well as teacher educators in working with EAL learners. The authors state that this project was not only to improve practice but to improve and promote more democratic and inclusive ways of working with schools and communities with a view to promote ‘educational and social change to benefit ESL learners’. Abbott (in press:20)
Some of the research was undertaken in the adult learning context, but doing research in school classrooms can be quite challenging as there are numerous ethical issues to deal with, especially when children and young people are involved. Nevertheless the findings from Abbott's work are relevant and offer evidence and insights for teachers of EAL learners. Developing more effective pedagogy to enable EAL learners to succeed linguistically and academically is dependent in part on a foundation of good research that is accessible to and useful for teachers.
Abbott, M. (2006) ESL Reading Strategies: Differences in Arabic and Mandarin Speaker Test Performance. Language Learning 56:4.
Abbott, M., Dunn, W., & Aberdeen, T. (in press) A Boundary Spanning ESL Teacher Education Project: Connecting Campus Learning to In-service Teacher Needs. Canadian Journal of Action Research 13:2.
Munro, B., Abbott, M. & Rossiter, M. (in press) Getting to the Science: Helping English Language Learners Show What They Know. Alberta Journal of Science Education.
Nicholas, B., Rossiter, M., & Abbott, M. (2011) The Power of Story in the ESL Classroom. Canadian Modern Language Review
