Referral for EAL Services

• Please email EALteam@ssrce when a newcomer student registers at your school, or submit a referral through TIENET and email your schools EAL teacher.

Roles and Responsibilities of EAL Teacher (June 2023)

• Support EAL students whose English proficiency ranges from beginner to advanced.

• Support schools with the intake process of newcomer students to identify what, if any, additional support is required.

• Help to assess the needs of EAL students, using appropriate means and conduct ongoing formal and informal assessment of students’ English proficiency to determine the level of continued support needed.

• Create and monitor a personal schedule that is responsive to EAL student needs, keeping in mind, new students and their language abilities.

• Maintain records of case management data and progress of EAL students and being responsive to case load needs.

• Use English as an Additional Language strategies to improve listening, speaking, reading, and writing in social and academic settings.

• Introduce EAL learners to basic concepts and language that accompanies understanding in various subject areas (content based EAL).

• Assist with tests and assignments as needed.

• Work collaboratively and alongside classroom teachers and learning support teachers/ specialists to support:

  • • implementation of appropriate instruction and assessment strategies.

    • academic language learning in content areas.

    • students meeting outcomes.

    • decision making about academic pathways, adaptations, IPP’s.

    • building capacity in all three Tiers (MTSS): developing confidence and competence to support EAL learners.

• Work collaboratively with administrators and classroom/subject teachers to plan appropriate programming within the MTSS model.

• Promote culturally responsive pedagogy and linguistically appropriate practice.

• Participate in Teaching Support Team and Student Planning Team meetings. Advocate for interpreter services for families to attend meetings and be actively engaged.

• Where applicable, establish and maintain a collaborative and working relationship with external agencies that provide support to newcomer students and families.

• Provide a variety of professional development opportunities.

Teacher Checklists

Classroom Strategies - Best Practices

• Visuals - helps students build vocabulary comprehension

• Concrete language - keep language simple and concrete (explain idioms)

• Gestures, body language, facial expressions - increase comprehension

• Be mindful of speaking pace, clarify words - go slower for processing and explain academic language in a variety of ways

• Shorter sentences, rephrase and repeat information

• Word walls - definition support, include home language reference

• Simplified text - Rewordify, or Chat GPT can change reading levels of text

• Highlighted text/notes

• Cloze notes

• Word banks - support vocabulary retrieval as spelling 

• Graphic organizers - make connections & organize information

• Sentence frames

• Personal dictionaries

• Universal Design for Learning (UDL) - meeting the needs of all students 

• Translanguaging - honour and allow use of home language - celebrate linguistic diversity, incorporating and drawing on the cultural, historic, and linguistic backgrounds of students

• Technology 

  • Google Classroom

  • Translators

  • Digital & audio books - Sora

  • Videos in home languages or with subtitles

  • Browser extensions - CoWriter, Read and Write for Google, Orbitnote, Immersive Reader

EAL - Creating a Culture of Learning - Case Studies

RESOURCES

PARENT COMMUNICATION & TRANSLATION