Specialist teachers' support for mainstream teachers' CPD

last updated:July 2009

This case study shows how involving EAL teachers in literacy training brings benefits for teachers and pupils. Whilst it is actually drawn from key stage 3 (Years 7 and 8) we believe it has the potential to inform literacy teaching in the primary school too. The case study is based on the experiences of a local literacy consultant and an EAL adviser and of teachers and pupils at Swanlea School in Tower Hamlets. They believe much of the pedagogy that underlies the literacy strategy is good practice for the inclusion of EAL students. Promotion of oral language, interactive teaching, group work, teacher modelling – all key elements of the literacy strategy – are also key features of the learning of children whom have EAL.

Professional development for teachers of EAL pupils
This collaborative effort enabled EAL teachers to play a key part in training teachers in literacy learning. Deryn and Ranjna believe LAs should be encouraged to see the link between the two areas and to ensure that EAL colleagues are involved in delivering and embedding the teaching and learning approaches at school and classroom level. They suggest that at LA level it means using the EAL adviser to co-deliver cross-curricular materials and English training as well. At local training days, they suggest that both the head of EAL in each school and the head of special educational needs (SEN) should attend.

The role of the school and department
They believe that a whole-school response is critical. At school level, leaders need to be aware of the key role that EAL and SEN colleagues can play in transforming teaching and learning and to identify clear roles for them. At department level this means involving EAL staff in training, focusing on the literacy of each subject area. This should help departments identify strengths and weaknesses in their teaching of the language that supports learning within their area. Deryn and Ranja encouraged collaborative learning, where each partner values the contribution that can be made by others. This approach also encouraged collaboration between the departments by identifying common aspects of focused language development. Again, EAL and SEN teachers were in a position to play a central role in the process.

Collaborative working to meet pupils’ needs
Deryn and Ranjna believed targeted EAL support was essential if pupils were to gain access to information, improve their understanding, and make progress. They believed a key starting point was an initial analysis of what pupils can and can't do at word, sentence and text level including identifying points of difficulty where pupils reach a 'plateau'. They believed this was helpful for all pupils not just those with EAL. They also identified a number of key areas such as collaborative planning with a focused EAL input, and team teaching – particularly in relation to word and sentence level work. EAL teachers' specialist language knowledge of sentence level grammatical structures was potentially especially useful here in modelling language features or approaches to help pupils be clear about what they are trying to write. Such a clear focus on language objectives would enable EAL teachers to break down learning tasks to the level appropriate for pupils. EAL teachers were also an excellent source of expertise in setting up investigative group work and pair and group talk.

Literacy teaching and learning at Swanlea School
Swanlea School provided an example of how professional development and teaching literacy worked in practice. The heads of English, EAL and SEN at the school attended a three-day English training programme together. The EAL specialist attended literacy across the curriculum training accompanied by an English department colleague. They subsequently jointly planned and led a training day on this back at school.

At the beginning of the school year school leaders implemented support from SEN and EAL departments for English in Year 7, which was taught in mixed ability groups. The main features of the strategy included:

• block-timetabling all English lessons
• giving the teachers a protected period together once a week for shared planning, and
• providing each teaching pair (EAL specialist plus English teacher) with an additional period so they could produce differentiated materials for group work and ‘starters’ – word and sentence level short activities.

EAL specialists presented the starter activities, and in practice often co-taught with mainstream colleagues. Starters were followed by an introduction to the key objectives of the lesson, followed by individual and group activity which gave pupils the opportunity to work on specific learning areas. The EAL and the English teacher supported pupils during these activities. Plenaries were led by the EAL or English teacher and provided pupils with the opportunity to reflect on the lesson objectives and their learning.

What impact did the strategy have?
The teachers believed that the extra support offered to Year 7 pupils was paying off. This was supported by a visiting regional director who was so impressed by their classroom practice that lessons were filmed for a National Literacy Strategy video included in the material sent to all secondary schools in England to support the key stage 3 literacy strategy. An OFSTED report commented: '(The) school is on track to significantly increase the percentage of pupils gaining expected and higher levels at key stage 3 in English, mathematics and science.' Available CVA results show a significant improvement, overtaking those at LA and national level.
 
Reference
Deryn Hall and Ranjna Dudhia, London Borough of Tower Hamlets
The information on which the case study summary is based is accessible on the Literacy Today website:

National Literacy Trust: Bilingual benefits