Lisnagarvey High School

Support for EAL students

EAL students are students for whom English is an Additional Language. Nowadays, when we can all travel and move abroad so easily, it is essential to recognise the needs of children who come from other countries and become a part of our community, of our school. We want them to feel welcome and we make everything we can to assist and help them in different ways, as we are aware that for them the challenges of not being able to speak their mother tongue, not being understood and the frustration of not being able to learn English as fast as they would like, are sometimes to big to face.

Therefore we have introduced several ways in which our EAL students are assisted:

v     There is a language assistant that assists Polish students during lessons and makes sure they understand everything the teacher is saying by doing a simultaneous ‘whisper translation’ of the lesson and the tasks which need to be done. As the language barrier could inhibit the learning process of these children we want to make sure they have the chance to learn the material of all the subjects and that they have a fair start.

v     In order to facilitate their English language acquisition we offer additional English classes for our EAL students. For this purpose they are withdrawn from some classes and they have individual English lessons at adequate level. We have course books, exercise books, CDs and other essential materials specialised in teaching English as a second language which explain the grammar in an easy to understand way and also equip students with vocabulary and phrases step by step. We start at the beginners and elementary levels and than move up to intermediate and upper intermediate levels, celebrating the progress of our students on the way. The aim of this is to help them become independent learners, so that they could pass their Key Stage 3 and GCSE exams and were able to communicate in English fluently both orally and in writing and even to encourage them to seek further university education in UK.

v     There is an after school homework club for EAL students where they can come whenever they have problems with their homework. Whenever they don’t understand what to do, cannot write it down in English or have any other doubts – we are there to help them. So there are no excuses for not handing in homework! J 

v     For the Polish Year 11 & 12 students we offer the possibility of doing GCSE Polish. That is an opportunity for them to take pride in their own language and be tested in it. It also encourages them not to forget all about their native language because as we all know; language is a part of our identity so we can’t afford to loose it!