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Ethnic Minority And Traveller Achievement Team Newsletter
Spring Term 2020
Happy New Year!
Welcome Back! Let us know if you have new EAL
arrivals or more advanced EAL children who need
support. Send us a completed referral form to kick
start the support process (download it from our
EMTAS page). We can provide bilingual teachers and
interpreters, bilingual resources, EAL assessment
support and training/advice for your staff. Make sure
your new arrivals have a great start to school by
having a good induction meeting with parents and an
interpreter and make use of our bilingual induction
support. Get in touch if you have concerns about your
EAL children and we will try to support you!
.
Polish Day
Last term we held another fantastic Polish Day in
Montgomery Primary School in Exeter.
The children were absolutely delighted to meet other
pupils from different schools in Devon and they enjoyed
speaking their home language throughout the day.
We had 13 children from 7 different schools across Devon
joining together to learn about and celebrate their
culture and traditions. The day was packed with various
activities, such as craft, decorating, singing Polish songs,
learning about Polish Christmas traditions, and tasting
Polish food. There was even a visit from Polish Santa!
A big thank you to Montgomery Primary for being such a
welcoming host!
EMTAS Key Contacts EAL Lead: kate.o'[email protected] EAL EY Lead: [email protected] GRT Lead: [email protected] Anti-Racism Lead: [email protected] Interpreter booking coordinator: [email protected] Admin Contact: 01392 287201& email: [email protected]
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Polish Club
During the autumn term, EMTAS ran a very well attended Polish after
school club at Ladysmith Junior School in Exeter. During the eight weeks,
local Polish children and their parents enjoyed learning all about their
culture, traditions and the history of Poland. They did traditional craft
activities, drawing and cooking
– the Polish potato pancakes
were particular favourites! On
the last day, the children
enjoyed a disco and Polish
fortune -telling activities. It was lovely seeing children from year 3 up to
year 6 working and playing together and making new friends Their Polish
improved immensely!. Their parents had the chance to meet, talk and
make friends with other Polish speaking parents too.
We want to say a very BIG Thank you to Ladysmith’s wonderful EAL
coordinator, Mrs Ewin and the senior management team who dedicated
their time and got involved with lots of our activities.
Arabic Day
In November, we held another successful Arabic
Language and Cultural Day at Wolborough primary in
Newton Abbot. We had 16 children, 4 parents and 5
teachers from 6 different schools across Devon joining
together to learn and celebrate their culture and
traditions.
The children worked together on a variety of learning
activities such as matching pictures and words in both
Arabic and English, bilingual story-telling and tasting
traditional food from different Arabic speaking
countries. The children also took part in preparing our
traditional breakfast, which they really enjoyed.
Everyone was excited about meeting other pupils from
different schools; they made new friends and enjoyed being
able to speak Arabic freely throughout the day. The parents
expressed how much they valued their children being able to
learn about their cultural traditions and the famous religious
landmarks across the Islamic world. We had great feedback
about the day from parents and teachers. A big thank you to
the fantastic host, Wolborough Primary school!
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GCSE Home Language preparation courses
Polish, Arabic, Japanese, Russian, Mandarin, Persian, Greek…
This year we are happy to announce that we will be running our home language GCSE preparation courses on
Saturdays (at St Sidwell’s Center in Exeter) and during the week in after-school hours (at Milford House in
Exeter)
All oral exams will be recorded in schools between April and May 2020.
For more information, contact Maggie Bankowska-Sylla at email: [email protected]
You can also find all forms and additional information about the courses on our website:
https://www.babcockldp.co.uk/disadvantaged-vulnerable-learners/emtas
Remember our deadline for submitting registration forms is 31 of January 2020
Each June we celebrate GRT History Month and this year we are working with Devon County Council,
Devon and Cornwall Police and Plymouth University to hold an event, ‘Out of Site’ Celebrating, Educating &
Engaging with Gypsy Roma Traveller History month. The event will be held on Friday 12th June at Plymouth
University and is set to be an insightful day. If you are interested in attending, please email
[email protected] to be kept informed of when registration becomes open.
In preparation for GRT History Month, we are looking for schools who would be interested in having a
member of the team run a workshop with KS2 classes within the coming months. All resources and
sessions would be provided and we would like to gain children’s views of Travellers before the session and
then again at the end. If you would be interested in holding a session in your school, please email Charlotte
and we can arrange dates and provide further information. We can also provide these sessions for staff as
part of a staff meeting as well.
‘Thank you for coming to talk to the children today, we have all learnt so much and it’s great to help the
children realise about the different cultures that we have in our area.’
Please get in touch with Charlotte Small (GRT Lead for Devon) [email protected]
to book a workshop at your school!
GRT Updates
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Free education pack to celebrate Gypsy, Roma and Traveller history month
The Traveller Movement and Twinkl teamed up to produce a free education pack that can be used in schools to celebrate Gypsy, Roma and Traveller history month (GRTHM). The pack includes a handy tool designed to support a school assembly on the topic of GRTHM and help people understand the purpose and importance of this annual celebration. You can download your free copy here.
We know that Gypsy, Roma & Traveller cultures are not taught enough in schools across the UK, especially since the celebration of Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month (GRTHM) stopped being funded by the Department for Education.
To effectively challenge the discrimination faced by Gypsy Roma Traveller communities, it’s so important that the tide is changed early and all children growing up have an understanding of what it truly means to be Gypsy, Roma or Traveller, instead of the biased views they get from the media and probably even at home.
On top of this, we feel it is also really important that Gypsies, Roma and Traveller children feel comfortable in school. Seeing and experiencing their culture taught and respected in this way at school is just one way of doing this.
There are activity sheets with facts about Gypsy, Roma and Travellers and their history and fun creative ideas to help bring GRTHM into the classroom for all to enjoy.
Taken from Traveller’s Times
Please contact Charlotte Small if your school would like help planning for GRT month!
GRT Updates
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The Education Policy Institute and The Bell Foundation have today published a report on the educational outcomes of children with English as an Additional Language (EAL). (Feb 2018)
Network Meetings & Workshops
Spring & Summer 2020
Spring Term Networks:
Primary 25th March, 3-5pm at Milford House,
Exeter EX2 5GF
Early Years 25th March, 5-7pm at Milford
House, Exeter EX2 5GF
Summer Term Networks:
Early Years 14th July 3-5pm, Milford House,
Exeter EX2 5GF
Primary 15th July 1- 3pm, Willand Blackdown
Park, EX15 2QW
Summer Term Workshops
Every Teacher a Language Teacher
19th May, 4-6pm at Milford House, Exeter EX2 5GF
You will learn about
EAL Pedagogy and the language learning
theories than inform it.
how English works and how we plan for and
teach it as an additional language
CLIL (Content & Language Integrated Learning)
in the mainstream to support EAL pupils.
planning to teach language across the
curriculum
Dates for your Diaries
Autumn Term Workshop
Bilingualism in Early Years
29th September, 5-7pm at Milford House, EX2 5GF
This workshop is aimed at Early Years providers and
focuses on how to support bilingualism so that our
EAL families are competently bilingual.
Learning Outcomes
• How Bilingualism works
•How to advise parents
•The effects of bilingualism on learning
•How to use bilingualism for learning
Supporting EAL Writers
30th June, 4-6pm at Milford House, Exeter EX2 5GF
This is a course for teachers working with EAL
learners who struggle to write despite being able to
communicate. It considers recent research
(2015,Victoria Murphy) which illustrates that
children with EAL, even when matched on language
skills to native-speaking children, still show key
differences on their written compositions in relation
to native-speaking children.
Learning from the research
From Talk to Writing
Explicit vocabulary & grammar teaching
A range of scaffolding techniques and IT: Timed writing/Creative Dictation/Dictogloss/ Writing frames/Sentence starters/Visuals/Mind maps
Using EAL Journals effectively to foster a love of writing
Cultural Differences
To book your place go to CPD online:
http://www.babcockeducation.co.uk/ldp/courses
/bookings/
For any assistance please contact our office on
01392 287201 and ask for Sarah Brown
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New
January
15th Martin Luther King’s Birthday
21st National Inclusion Week
25th Chinese New Year
27th Holecaust Memorial Day
February
14th Valentines Day
21st Maha Shivaratri- Hindu Holiday
March
1st Martisor Day (Romania)/Martenitsa Day
(Bulgarian)
5th World Book Day
8th International Woman’s Day
9th Holi (Hindu Holiday)
10th Purim (Jewish Holiday)
21st International Day for the elimination of
racist discrimination
21st International Mother Language Day
Dates for your Diaries
We are delivering workshops for 6 schools in Devon
during refugee week alongside the charity OHOB; get in
touch with Katarina Tasinkiewicz to book one for your
school!
World Book Day
World Book Day is coming … on Thursday 5th March
2020 and we are thrilled to announce that this year our
incredible team of BSTs are going to support Early Years
settings.
Our Bilingual Support Teachers are ready to come into
your setting equipped with great books from their own
countries, costumes and activities. We will explore story
telling through other languages and help make your
bilingual children proud of their additional languages!
This always proves to be very popular so book now to
avoid disappointment!
Please contact:
to book in your setting’s bilingual story experience.
Places are limited!
For more ideas for World Book Day visit-
www.worldbookday.com
You will find a whole range of resources including lesson
plans, activity sheets, discussion guides and more. Just
visit the Nursery, Primary or Secondary resource areas to
find what you need.
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Five ways to support EAL students in your lessons An English teacher in an international school offers the benefit of her experience when it comes to teaching English as an Additional Language
I am in awe of anyone who is bilingual: I am waving goodbye to my 20s with just enough knowledge of French to order a bottle of red. This missing skill is all the more shameful for me as I am in my fourth year of teaching in an international school where most students speak two or three languages fluently.
Teaching English as an Additional Language (EAL) is still a challenge, however, and I’ve found that the
expectation to support EAL students often falls heavily on English departments. I believe that schools need a dedicated EAL department and specialist advisory team. These are the amazing teams who look at the bigger picture and whole-school policies: the induction processes, buddies, teaching assistants, ongoing intervention, explicit language instruction and so on. However, are there things that we can do in day-to-day lessons, alongside whole-school approaches, that can be adopted in order to support the development of EAL students? Here are some of the practical ideas I use that work:
Frame students’ verbal contributions
When you pose a question/statement to the class like: “Explain why the Roman Empire fell”. For every contribution, demand that they open with a prescribed phrase, such as: “The primary cause for the fall of the Roman Empire was…” or “It could be argued that the Roman Empire fell because…” By insisting on framed verbal responses, you are indirectly teaching the students about syntax (word order), and the more practice they get, the better. This is also very useful for practicing vocabulary, and it gives them an ever-useful starting point.
Be aware of cultural differences and take care to explain them
Understanding language isn’t just about the technicality. Always take care to explain or explore the cultural elements of texts, as these could be profoundly different to the customs in another language or culture. I often ask students "would you expect to find x (technique) in an article written in x (language)?" It's nice to take an interest.
Notice your use of idioms or colloquialisms and draw attention to them
I’ve had some fun with "idiom of the day". Think about how often you use idioms: "Feeling blue?”; “Did it cost an arm and a leg?” Did you tell the students to “Break a leg” before a test? Through drawing attention to idioms, EAL students improve their cultural/linguistic awareness, and they have great fun trying to work out the absurdities that we use every day. Knowing or using idioms themselves is quite novel.
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Draw attention to Greek and Latin root words
Understanding Greek and Latin roots can help EAL students identify the meaning of many new words. For example, 'Vict' means 'conquer' in Latin, and can help students to determine the meaning of words containing this root (victory, victim, convict, Invictus, and so on). As well as vocabulary acquisition, knowledge of roots can assist in spelling development. Wherever possible, point out roots and quickly reflect on words from the same family that share the root. Additionally, Romance languages (e.g. French, Italian, and Romanian) originate from Latin, meaning that root words are shared across several languages. This could help EAL students to make connections if their first language is a Latin derivative.
Know your grammar
If you're part of teaching and learning in schools in any capacity, it's your responsibility to know your grammar. The seemingly minuscule misconceptions of language and grammar that pervade even the most able EAL students’ work can make sentences and whole texts feel disjointed. Why is it the "big brown dog", not the "brown big dog"? This is the internalised knowledge of language and grammar that we take for granted, and we need to be sensitive to how it's not "obvious" to EAL students (If you can't explain why the rule exists, it's still useful to acknowledge it and come back to it when you’ve looked it up!) So when you write something on the board, comment on the grammar. Spelling: draw attention to it. Whole sentence: explain why the comma goes where. Use every opportunity to explain little details about how our language works. If this becomes part of the culture of the school, the development EAL students will be supported over time through such consistent reinforcement. ( By Erin Miller, 24 May 2017 from TES)
Five Bilingual Resource Websites to check out this term…
EAL Highland: http://www.ealhighland.org.uk/
Twinkl: Bilingual Resources for Primary and EY
Essex County: Booklets for New Pupils
Language Lizard: Books and lesson plans
EMAS UK: Bilingual Resources across all Key Stages
