Teacher And Children's Questions

[Guest]

Hi All,

I am in the process of doing my research on EAL as part of my BA and at the moment attempting to think of questions to ask teachers and children as to what barriers they face etc. I would appreciate anyones thoughts on this.

 

Research question:- Are children who have English as an additional language in primary schools disadvantaged when learning to read and write compared with children who have English as a first language?

Thank you!

[catma]

It does depend on whether you see children having access to multiple languages as a barrier to learning though. Personally I don't. The issue more about our capacity to teach than theirs to learn. I think any disadvantage stems from adults who consider EAL as a problem and expect less from the children as a result. Thankfully in my LA EAL children generally do as well as the rest in all areas of the EYFSP because being an inner city area teachers just have to work across tens of languages in their classes so I don't see that they necessarily are disadvantaged.

 

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