How to adapt your lesson for EAL children
In many schools you may have children starting school who speak very little English. These children are known as EAL children, English as an additional language.
If both of their parents speak a different language and the child is used to conversing in their mother tongue then it can be difficult for them to adapt to using English throughout their day and understanding English well enough to be able to actively take part in lessons.
One way that you can help these children is to use flash cards. You can give them a card with a picture of something related to that lesson in the middle with the English word for it above the picture and the word in their language below the picture. This will help them to recognise the word and be able to start to associate the necessary translations that they will need to do for the lesson.
Ideally if you have another EAL child in the class who now has a good grasp on the English language then you can ‘buddy-up’ the children to help each other during lessons.
