19th November 2005 University of Warwick
NALDIC's 13th Annual Conference investigated socio-culutural aspects of EAL teaching. The key note speaker was Margaret Hawkins, Director, ESL and Bilingual Programs, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Seminar speakers
The discursive construction of social contexts: The politics of multilingualism - Adrian Blackledge, University of Birmingham,
Mapping subject specific literacies- Caroline Coffin Open University
Linguistic Diversity in the classroom: An ecological perspective - Angela Creese, University of Birmingham and Peter Martin, University of East London
'My Language', 'My Culture', 'My Religion': Communities, Practices and Diasporas - Roxy Harris Kings College London
Christine Helot, University of Strasbourg
Workshops
English as an Additional Language and English for Academic Purposes: sisters or just neighbours? - Dr Felicity Breet, University of Sunderland
The teaching of English as an Additional Language and English for Academic Purposes seem to be based on similar although not identical principles. What are these principles and how are they reflected in practice? In this workshop, some EAL/EAP principles will be identified and participants invited to discuss how these are reflected in classroom practice.
Young Bilingual Learners: at home and at school - Dr Rose Drury, Open University
This workshop presents the findings of an ethnographic study of three four year-old bilingual children as they begin school in three English nursery classes. Firstly, from a socio-cultural perspective, the study reveals some of the ways in which young bilingual children experience nursery as they begin to learn the language required for formal schooling. Secondly, it demonstrates how the girls area able to take control of their own learning at home. And it asks the question: What are the children’s individual strategies for ‘getting by’ and, beyond that, for learning during their first year of formal schooling? How do they syncretise home and school learning? Finally, the implications of the study for early years practitioners will be discussed.
EAL Primary School-Age Pupils: Facilitating the Home School Connection - Caroline Linse
Educators recognise the importance of establishing partnerships between young learners’ homes and the schools that they attend. However, establishing such linkages for parents of EAL pupils is especially challenging and often parent and other family caregivers feel cut off rather than attached to their child’s school. Problems such as lack of school personnel who speak the home language(s) and differences in cultural expectations of schooling make it difficult to create positive home-school connections. The presenter will share a taxonomy illustrating ways that schools impede as well as ways they can facilitate connections with the families of EAL primary school-age pupils.
Researching classroom interaction with EAL learners- Katie Scott, University of Bristol
This session provides an opportunity to engage with analysis of teacher and pupil talk, using extracts from classroom data. The focus is on exploring opportunities for scaffolding through collaborative teaching and learning, as advocated in guidelines for teaching (e.g. NALDIC 1997, 2004). The workshop relates to a study of the impact of summative tests on classroom interaction, which is particularly timely given the DfES position on EAL assessment (NALDIC Briefing Paper, July 2005).
Becoming a good pupil: how children become positioned as particular kinds of learners and how EAL disappears - Sue Walters, Lancaster University
This workshop will report on some of the findings of a study of Bangladeshi children’s experiences of school. The study took a socio-cultural approach and describes the manner in which children’s learning, language development and identities were shaped by the contexts, spaces and practices of their classrooms and communities.The workshop will focus on one of the children and consider how this pupil understood the expectations around learning and how to behave as a pupil in their Y3 classroom and the strategies they called on in an attempt to become a fully participating and accepted member of the classroom community. These strategies had implications for the ways in which they were understood and assessed by their teachers and by their peers. One outcome was that the pupil’s EAL identity and needs became invisible.
