Nursery World - Learning & Development EAL: Dual purpose

A training project to help early years practitioners assess the development of children with English as an additional language has proved highly effective. Julie Cigman explains

Assessing the language and communication development of children with English as an additional language (EAL) is often more challenging than practitioners might realise, particularly when part of the children's learning process is a 'silent period'. To help practitioners with the process, and to plan children's 'next steps' in learning English, Oxfordshire and Bristol local authorities launched a training project for staff in some of their schools, children's centres and pre-schools.

First, practitioners were trained how to make a focused language observation of one of their key EAL learners using a specially designed observation sheet. Included within the sheet was a summary of the stages that children move through when they are learning English as an additional language. These stages were adapted from 'Stages of English Learning' by Hilary Hester (from Patterns of Learning, CLPE 1990).

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