Presented By Yvonne Foley

Session Details

One way that globalisation has impacted the UK is in its growing immigrant population. One emerging change that has been noted by many local education authorities is that mainstream classrooms have a growing number of EAL learners. EAL learners cannot be described as one homogeneous group, but as a diverse population of learners who come from a variety of linguistic and social backgrounds. Leung (2001:178) asks whether the methods, materials and tasks used in mainstream contexts are developed with an understanding and knowledge of the reading needs second language learners have.

This presentation will look at research questions that have been posed in relation to this challenge and will briefly outline the research methods used to collect the data. It will also introduce a small amount of collected data in terms of teachers' beliefs in relation to the reading needs EAL pupils have and the methods these teachers use to meet the needs in actual classroom practice. I will divide the participants of this workshop into small discussion groups for a short time where they can draw on their own teaching experience, background and pedagogical knowledge in relation to the questions emerging from this study. Following this, I will invite audience participation in the form of plenary feedback that will focus on the beliefs and views expressed within the small group discussions. The session will end with a brief summary of possible recommendations that may be applicable to EAL teaching contexts in Scottish schools.

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