Pupils with EAL are those pupils for whom English is not their first language. Pupils with EAL learn English by being in the classroom and interacting with their teachers and peers.

General strategies to support pupils with EAL

The teaching staff can take various actions to support EAL pupils including:

• ensuring that vocabulary work covers the technical as well as the everyday meaning of key words e.g. homophones, metaphors and idioms
• explaining how speaking and writing in English are structured for different purposes across a range of subjects
• providing a range of reading materials that highlight the different ways in which English is used
• ensuring that there are effective opportunities for talking, and that talking is used to support writing
• encouraging pupils to transfer their knowledge, skills and understanding of one language to another
• building on pupils’ experiences of language at home and in the wider community, so that their developing uses of English and other languages support one another. This could be by using written translations to support vocabulary building and understanding when this is appropriate
• providing writing frames as scaffolding towards more independent learning
• sharing key subject specific vocabulary